Episode 263 - Collaboration Watches

Published on Wed, 08 Nov 2023 21:35:27 -0800

Synopsis

This podcast discusses various watch collaborations and the hosts analyze what makes a good or bad collaboration between brands. They talk about examples like the Casio G-Shock x John Mayer, Swatch x Omega Moonswatch, Seiko x Giugiaro, and more. The hosts share their criteria for an effective collaboration, such as both brands contributing unique elements that represent their identities. They also mention some less successful collaborations that feel more like limited edition releases rather than true collaborations.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 and 20 The Watch Clicker podcast with your hosts, Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Everett Andrew, I feel like we just did this. We did, in fact, just do this. And here we are doing it again. What a tragedy. This is awful. I feel like I'm gonna have to drink beers. I'm gonna have a slight headache in the morning. Worth it.
Andrew Yeah, no, it is.
Everett Because it's Friday. It's Friday. You guys, I don't know. I'm sure we have.
Andrew It has been a long time.
Everett I cannot remember a time when we recorded on a Friday.
Andrew It would have been really early days. We must have. Yeah, really early days.
Everett But yeah, it's been a minute. It's been a minute. No, I'm good. Weekend's over. Week is over. Weekend is starting. I have duck tickets. Very close. to the field for tomorrow. It's going to be wet, but that's OK. We live in Oregon and it never rains at Autzen Stadium. Exactly. Yeah. Ducks are one of the best teams in the country, probably notwithstanding that loss to Washington. So it's going to be a fun game.
Andrew That was a really good game.
Everett We're playing Cal, California, the Berkeley, the Berkeley geniuses. I think we're going to win. We should win. If we don't win, something's gone very, very wrong.
Andrew I feel pretty confident about a win.
Everett I'm going to drink beer. I'm going to drink beer tonight and tomorrow, which I almost never do.
Andrew Look at you.
Everett I'm going to drink beer three times in one week, which that's doesn't happen very often.
Andrew I think you need to evaluate your life choices.
Everett Andrew, I'm doing good. How are you? I am doing well. Excuse me. I am sometimes good. We're going to do some good tonight, but I'm doing well.
Andrew I am doing very well. It is, The eve of vacation, which is accounting for why we're recording on a Friday tomorrow morning, we're going to load up on an aeroplane and head down to sunny Southern California for a week.
Everett Yeah.
Andrew How's the weather in, in Anaheim? 70, 75, little bit of cloud cover all week.
Everett That's great. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. Yes. So now just briefly, uh, what's your itinerary? You're we're doing your park itinerary.
Andrew Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday at the Disneyland suite of parks. I think we have three days in Disneyland and two in California adventure if I'm not mistaken. And we didn't do park hopper this time because last time we found we just did not use it. You didn't use it. Yeah.
Everett Um, so although the kids being a little bit older, You may feel like you need it, but.
Andrew If we add it, we add it. Yeah. And then we're gonna go to LA and do two days at Universal Studios. Noice. And then come home and just be exhausted.
Everett Do they still have the Jurassic Park ride? They do. Yeah, when I was a tyke, that was the shoot.
Andrew Oh, it's new. They have like the Jurassic World iteration of it now.
Everett It's the same ride though, right? So the Jurassic Park of my youth was a boat, a lazy river boat with a fall at the end.
Andrew Yeah, I believe so. I don't know. I have not been on it and I've never been there before.
Everett And there was a Tyrannosaurus rex that came at you at one point.
Andrew That sounds accurate. The way Tyrannosaurus rexes do. That's what they're known for. But they are both elated.
Everett But if you hold very still and stay very quiet,
Andrew You're good, but nobody else around you is because they're not going to be still or quiet.
Everett That's fine. You don't have to be, you don't have to be the fastest guy to escape the bear, the bear, the beer, the beer.
Andrew No, you do not. In fact, I never escaped the beer. No. In fact, it helps to not be fast. Uh, so I'm good. I am looking forward to it.
Everett Great. Yeah. Great. And, and although we could, we could actually transition to a Disney, uh, podcast. No, I couldn't actually. I've changed my mind. Yeah. We're not talking about Disney. We're talking about watches. Watches. Yes. And specifically, we're talking about our top 10 favorite Rolex Submariner replicas.
Andrew Yep.
Everett Ready? Do you ever look at the replica watches? Like the Reddits or whatever. Do you ever like rabbit hole there? No. In that world? No. I have a couple of times just like, it's a weird world, man. Yeah. It's a weird world. There's like code of ethics and like a lot of code because, you know, I think by and large what they're doing is, is illegal almost everywhere. Counterfeiting.
Andrew Um, under the guise of replication. Yeah, that's right. It's just a less snotty word for plagiarism. It's a weird world, man. It's a weird world. No, I never go down that route because it doesn't make sense.
Everett No, it doesn't make sense. And it's not something I am I'm looking at for the purposes of purchasing. I'm just looking at it because I'm so curious about what these folks are doing. And it's such an interesting thing to want to spend your time or money on. No offense to anybody who's doing that, but gosh, can you imagine? No. And their code of ethics kind of like requires them to tell people like, oh, well, this isn't a real Hulk. This is a... Anyway, that's not what we're talking about. We're not talking about replica watches at all. Rather, what we're talking about is... That's right. Rather, what we're talking about is... Collaboration watches. We're talking about Colabs. I think we're going to talk a little bit tonight about how we think it gets done well and how we think it gets done less well. I hesitate to say poorly or bad because I really, I was looking for collaboration watches that I hated and I just didn't find them. I just couldn't find, I mean, I was like, meh. There's a lot of them that I'm like, whatever. But by and large, I didn't see anything that I hated.
Andrew No, certainly not hated. One thing that I realized in preparation was I am just medium about most collaborations that come out. And it's because they don't feel like a collaborative endeavor. They feel more like a limited edition or perhaps a collection. They're not really a collaboration. A new dial color to me isn't, it's not exactly a collaboration.
Everett Yeah. That's a, that's a great point. So, so before we get into this, why don't we just spend a couple of minutes talking about, we've, we've both now spent some time on this, spent some thought space, invested some thought space in trying to figure out what it is about collaborations. What do we want? What do we want to see? Do you have any? Do you have like a succinct or brief set of ground rules that you'd like to start off with when you're thinking about the issue?
Andrew When I'm thinking about the the issue at large of a collaboration, I want it to be a wholly unique and new thing. It doesn't have to be a whole top down design watch. It should be, but it doesn't have to be. It has to be unique within that line. Unique both from the brand producing it and the collaborator who is bringing something to the table to do more than add Kermit to the dial or add Snoopy to the dial or do a different dial color that you like. That's that's more of a partnership to me than a collaboration. So the big thing for me is I want to see something new and different representative of both entities in one watch.
Everett Yeah, I think I probably have a slightly different angle of approach here because the one thing I found is that I was okay with certain collaborations that I may not be as comfortable with if the collaborator was different, a different entity. So by and large, most of the watches we're going to talk about today are collaborations between the brands that make watches and some third party There's a few recurring themes or a few sort of, let's say, categories of collaborators that I found. One, and probably perhaps the most prolific, are publication collaborations. So whether that's a website or a magazine or a journal, right, for instance, Watch Clicker is a publication in this sense. Houdinki is a frequent flyer of this particular airline, worn around famously. You know, so that was one of the most common types of collaborations. But then you have, then you have like the character collaboration. So Snoopy, of course, is the collab. You've got the Kermit or is that you just referenced that sort of thing. And then you've got, and then you've got designer. collaborations. And those range from actual like engineer sort of industrial designers to, you know, fashion designers, folks with a keen eye for style. And it differs within that category. That's sort of a category with subcategories. And I felt different ways about different what I wanted.
Andrew Did you already talk about other industry brands?
Everett Oh yeah, I guess that is another collaboration. But what I found was what I wanted differed depending on who the collaborator was. But what I always wanted, what was always true, is I wanted to have an actual identifiable characteristic from the collaborator that shone through on the watch. And the watches that were able to capture that in some way, and it's not always in the ways you might expect, but to the extent that that was captured in a unique way, which I think that kind of vibes with what you were saying, then I was good with it. And if I didn't have that, then it was in the meh category. I don't hate it, but this is a limited edition. This is a fun color, limited edition, and I get that the publication picked the color, and that's cool, but meh.
Andrew That's less than, that's, that's to me, not, that's just a brand inspired limited edition.
Everett And in fairness, sometimes that's precisely what they're called. Hodinkee, I think does that very thing a lot.
Andrew Yeah. Their, their version of it.
Everett You know, Andrew, do you mind if I kick us off kind of on the topic? Cause I've, I've organized my thoughts. I was trying to figure out if your thoughts were organized in a way, We don't actually, like, send each other detailed agendas. Rather, we send each other links. And sometimes I can tell the story from Andrew's links, and sometimes I couldn't. Tonight, I couldn't. But I thought I could kick us off with a nice, neutral starting point. Please do. I'm going to talk about two watches. Both of these are Hodinkee watches. They are both very similar in that they are the same base watch. One of these I like. And one of these is meh. So the first is perhaps one of the most popular watch that's come out in the past few years, hype collaboration watches. It's the Casio G-Shock 6900 by John Mayer. I remember when this watch dropped, it was all over the place. And like with everything, you had a lot of folks that were pumped about it. And a lot of folks that were like, Oh, it's the worst. He can't even play the guitar and he's so stupid and ugly. But, you know, but for a few folks that just hate, hate things, I think there was, there was a pretty overwhelming positive sentiment about this watch. It is a, you know, John Mayer famously wrote for Hodinke, famously plays for the Grateful Dead. The dude is... Everything he does is famous. The dude is just famous. Knows his watches, knows his music. He's just one of those people, right? He's just an enigma. And he made this watch, and I thought the way that this watch got dropped was terrific. It's just a 6900, but it's a 6900 with this kind of fun story, true or not, about this Little Casio SK5 sampling machine, and the colors come straight from it. Casio, it's Casio. It's John Mayer, who's a watch guy working with Hodinkee, who he's worked with. I mean, it was just like, yes. Yes. It's neat. You know, meanwhile, John Mayer is a guy who collects vintage Rolexes and also wears G-Shocks. The whole thing made sense. It's cohesive. It's fun. It's attractive. Uh, and so I was like, this is great. I get it. I want it. I'm here for it. And then of course they released two more of these. I find those, those other two, the both the blue and the white versions to be fine. They're probably not as good, quite as special as this one, at least in my mind. Um, But as a set, and as a theme, I thought they did a really good job with these. Concur. Much more recently, much more recently, Hodinkee, so John Mayer, Ed Sheeran, did a Talking Watches, and Hodinkee, on the tail end of that, announced its $6,900 subtract by Ed Sheeran.
Andrew That's not how you say his name.
Everett Okay. Maybe agree to disagree. So as for this watch, it's a 6900. It's yellow. It's got spots on it. I don't know, man. It looks like him.
Andrew I think it's, I think I disagree with your assessment of liking it or not liking it. This is a super Ed Sheeran watch. Like this is, I think it's, it's a, it's more than just a yellow G-Shock with some, with some spots on it.
Everett Well, and so I guess the deal is this is inspired by his, the album artwork for his subtract album. And so sure, it's fine, but it was just as an idea, It's significantly less cohesive. It's just a G-Shock in a color way.
Andrew With his name stamped to it.
Everett With his name stamped to it. That's right. And again, I don't hate this watch. I don't hate Ed Sheeran, Voice of an Angel. With that said, comparing these two, for me, this kind of sets the standard in this really like almost Yeah, I'm fine with the way I said. I think this as a control for the rest of our conversation, for me, I think we can set the tone here, right? This isn't a watch that's been designed by Ed Sheeran. It's just.
Andrew Ferran. Emphasis is wrong.
Everett Just a yellow. Yeah. Watch that's been attributed to him.
Andrew I think if they wanted to make it a better collaborative release, they shouldn't have followed with a 6900 after having just done one with another artist. Like choose a different skew. Choose something that's meaningful to you from the catalog. Excuse me. And let's go from there. Yeah. It seems like a bit of a cop out that they're using a 6900 as their platform for celebrity musician releases.
Everett I think that's right. And again, it's OK. It's not bad, but it's the difference between an epic all time great collaboration watch and a meh collaboration. This is how you do it good. This is meh. As a baseline for the rest of our conversation.
Andrew I want to talk about a line that I think does it right. Citizen. And their Star Wars collection. There is nowhere in this that calls it a collaboration because it's not. They just have licensed the Star Wars universe and put it on watches. And some of these, you know, R2-D2 could have been a collaborator on this because the watch looks like R2-D2. That's cool. But I think this is one of the few brands that doesn't hide, that doesn't try to hype it up with, this is a collaboration, we're featuring so-and-so, this is watch designed by so-and-so, this is a Star Wars collaboration. No, it's just the Star Wars licensed line. And I really like that. And some of the watches in here are awful. Just, just terrible. Many of them are really cool. I think all the digital platforms are the best executed, but this is a line that I think is doing it right. And that's kind of why I like it because it's not a collaboration. It's not branded as such. It's just a license line. It's like Snoopy. It's not, that's not a collab.
Everett Yeah. Well, and I, and I think that there's a difference there, right? These are watches designed by presumably citizen designers. to honor these characters. And so we can differentiate, right? And we don't need R2-D2 to be designing this watch because Citizen's designing it in honor.
Andrew I get that. But there are brands out there that call things collaborations that are just objectively not. Yeah. And I don't like that. I like the execution of this. Also, What I've found, the collaborations that get me the most excited, and I appreciate the point that you made, that you look for a different thing based on who the collaborator is, and I think that's similar for me, but the true collaborations that get me the most excited are designers partnering with companies. And my mind immediately went to the Seiko Guigiaro. Gigaro, maybe? Nope, Guigiaro. I like my way.
Everett The spirit. Says the guy who just played a recording of a British person saying Ed Sheeran's name.
Andrew The writer's chronograph is right where I went. Because it's so different. It's independent of Seiko. Seiko produced something that was designed by somebody else. And it's this cool collision of these two powerhouses doing something awesome. And I love this watch.
Everett Yeah, I mean, we've talked about this a number of times. I think it's one of... I think it's one of the coolest Seiko's ever made. You know, Gigaro and Seiko have a number of watches they've made together. Obviously, the Ripley is a Gigaro design. But yeah, this is a whole... I would say this is perhaps the pinnacle of collaboration watches, right? where you've got someone who's going to, and you mentioned this in your ground rules, right? Your preference is that it be a wholly new watch. And we don't see a ton of this. This is Seiko Jigoro is sort of its own thing in the world of horology. And it's epic. All of these watches are classics because of that collaboration, that design collaboration.
Andrew And they're nothing like anything else in the Seiko line.
Everett Yeah, that's right. Or perhaps, I mean, for most of these in any other line. Yeah. You know, that Ripley is really one of a kind.
Andrew That's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's the stuff that gets me excited. And we're seeing the same thing with with Gali and Timex partnership.
Everett Yeah, I don't know. So I saw you put these together in your, as I said, in your story. I'm not sure I'm quite convinced. Convince me.
Andrew You're not of the same belief that we're looking at a similar experience, right? We have a different expression of it in the way of the Giorgio Gali x Timex production. We're seeing something that Timex isn't doing. Sure. Smashed with somebody else. And though they are objectively not as cool, it's still a really neat partnership to produce something like this from Timex.
Everett Yeah, and maybe you can lend, maybe some of my skepticism can be lent to the fact that these galley designs are almost minimalist, right?
Andrew Which is complementary of Timex's already existing design language.
Everett We're not going to get an alien Seiko watch or whatever.
Andrew We're getting a Swiss automatic movement out of Timex. Yeah. With cool design, very much unlike anything else that exists in the Timex catalog.
Everett When I think many of our favorite Timexes since we've been doing this have been galleys, right? The, this, this line is terrific. So, all right. I'm convinced it didn't take much. Well, I know it didn't take much. Um, I think within that, within that same line of thought, the other end of that would be watches that a publication makes. So I started with Hodinke, but these were each made for Hodinke as a collaboration between a musician, the John Mayer and the Ed Sheeran's
Andrew Doesn't it feel better to say it that way?
Everett We're each made, you know, for Hodinkee as a collaboration by other folks. But Hodinkee does a number of its own collaborations. And I thought I would just walk through a few of these, perhaps not a speed run or a speed round, but just kind of quickly move through these because I think some of these are terrific and I think others are are less terrific. So the first one I wanted to talk about is the Oris Diver 65 made for Hodinkee. This is a, I believe we talked about this on the show when it came out. I said, I like it. With that said, I don't know that I think it's a good collaboration. So This is an olive drab dial, black bezel with slightly different font work than Oris typically uses on their Diver 65. You know, in my mind, this is a meh collab. It's not a meh collab because it's not beautiful. It is beautiful. It's a gorgeous watch. I love the Oris Diver 65. Not everybody's super high on it. I think it's a great watch. This is an attractive watch in that line. But nothing about this, to me, is Hodinkee.
Andrew No.
Everett It's just a watch. It's a watch that's different than the other watches. This is a dial iteration. And it's got some font stuff going on too. Okay, great. It's still, there's nothing about this Hodinkee.
Andrew They made it for Hodinkee to sell. They didn't make it with Hodinkee's input. Maybe they did, but it doesn't look like, well, we don't know that, right? It doesn't look like they made it for Hodinkee to sell.
Everett But on the other hand, there are three watches that feel very similar to me, that feel very similar to me, but, but are different in a way that I dig. I've actually got two separate versions of this happening with two separate publications. I'm going to talk real quickly about these three watches. So one is the Q Timex Vintage Hodinkee LE. The next is the Longines Heritage Classic Limited Edition for Hodinkee. And the next is the Hermes HO8 Limited Edition for Hodinkee. These watches aren't similar. They are all very different. However, maybe The Hermes is a bit of an outlier here. With that said, looking at these three watches together, especially together, maybe not in isolation, but looking at these three watches together, these were, I believe, three consecutive limited releases from Hodinkee. And looking at these, they've all got sort of a tan, silver, champagne thing going on. They've all taken watches and stripped them down in an essential way, added this constant color scheme that pervades these three drops and makes them feel like part of a set.
Andrew Or at least some design language that exists outside of the watch brand's typical design language.
Everett It very much feels like, oh Dinky was like, this is, we want you to take that watch, the Longines Heritage Classic or the Q-Time and we want it to present like this. We want it to present with these colors or at least this color flow and sell it explicitly through us. I like this. These three watches, none of them individually except for perhaps that Q Timex. I really like that Q Timex. But really none of them individually calls out to me. But as as a set. And I don't mean to have all three as a set. Each of them becomes more valuable. I wouldn't even need to have all three. I like all of them because they're just they feel distinctly like this whole dinky limited edition drop.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett And I like that. I want that to the extent I'm going to get one of these watches.
Andrew Yeah. It shows it's it's representative of how dinky and seeing more and more of a catalog from the whole dinky collaborative side. We're seeing that it's not just a one time Hey, new color way. Each of these are independently a new color way with some changes. That's right. But when you see it as a catalog, you're like, oh, Hodinkee's actually involved in this.
Everett We've given Hodinkee enough love. I'm going to move on to my one other example of this. Mike works there, so we got to give him the love. That's right. And I'll blast through these. But these are Warner Wand watches. And so the first four I'm gonna talk about quickly. The Laurier times worn and wound Hydra II. The Seiko 5 Sports worn and wound 10th anniversary field watch. The Nevada Grenshin times worn and wound Datomaster. And there was actually two in that set. And then more recently, the Zodiac Super Seawolf laser tag for worn and wound. When you look at these four watches, so first looking at the Seiko 5, and the Hydra. These watches are totally different and yet they've got these elements. They've got these stoic dials, red triangle at 12. You can just tell, like this is a Warner One watch. This is a watch we make and Warner One has done this very similar color scheme with other watches. The Nevada Grunshin, the Datomaster, that set of watches had these crazy colors, these subdued colorways, greens, reds. And when you compare that to the Lasertag watches, it's like, okay, I see what you're doing here with Worn and Wound, I like it. And they did it with Baruch too. That's right, exactly. So compare that to the Zodiac Olympus Military Worn and Wound edition, This is a watch, first, if you like the Olympus, I'm sorry for anything I'm about to say, because I think it's an ugly watch.
Andrew I think so too. It doesn't make any sense in the Zodiac portfolio right now. I don't want it.
Everett It's got, this comes in two dials, a brown, like a sort of an ombre brown, and then I guess also kind of an ombre navy blue. There's nothing worn and wound about this watch.
Andrew No. I don't see it.
Everett Zero. So what are we doing here? What, Warner One, what did you do besides pick colors? They, they're... Did you even do that?
Andrew Their logo's on the case back.
Everett What have you done to make this something more than a limited release or an exclusive release? I think nothing.
Andrew Oh, maybe that's what it is. An exclusive release. A Worn and Wound exclusive.
Everett They do call this the Olympus Military Worn and Wound Edition. I guess they're not saying it's a collaboration. In fact, they're saying it's exclusive to the wind-up watch shop. But it feels to me like if you call a watch X Worn and Wound or whatever, that there's an expectation that that's going to be collaborative. And this just feels to me like an exclusive release, which fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but there's also nothing worn and wound about that. So in terms of publications, I think we've got some good examples here and some bad examples. I know the one I want. I don't want the Olympus. I do want the worn and wound Hydra 2.
Andrew Yes. I want it. Yeah, that's good. I even like the Seiko. Yeah, I want to really like the Seiko. I want it. I want to talk about another non-watch industry or our first non-watch industry, like non-designer in the way of the Casio Protrek and Pendleton Woolen Mills collaboration.
Everett Nailed it.
Andrew Nailed it. This is a perfect two brands coming together to fully represent their piece of the pie and put something really cool together. We've got a Protrek that has a unique dial to this, this collaborative environment. They have a, um, what can only be described as native geometric design on the dial, which is consistent with the designs that exist within the bold of Pendleton's design language. This is a whole package where Pendleton brought a new pattern, new texture, new feel in the way of a strap, and Casio integrated it into a pre-existing watch, made a dial adjustment, and created a terrific brands melding together to be something wholly unique. Truly like a representation of both of them.
Everett Yeah. Right. And you nailed it, right? The dial is unique. You've got these, these colors on, on the hands here that are, it flows. You can like, nobody would look at this and be like, what's Pendleton got to do with that? Like it is there folks. It's there.
Andrew It's a Pendleton watch. And it also is a baller pro track.
Everett Yes. It, this is the pro track, right? This is the one for right now at least.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett It's fantastic. I love it. And it's a great example. Yep. You know something a little bit different, Andrew, that I thought we could talk about real quick because we talked about this a few weeks ago. One of your entries to a roundup was the Adam RPK Royal Oak dashboard clock for Rolls Royce. So we talked or we at least joked at the time of that recording about, you know, How this is borderline absurd because it's a one percenter watch that doesn't make any sense. And a less than one percenter car. That's right. Like this isn't this isn't a real this is an obtaining it's not a real watch. With that said. This is a good collaboration. Yeah. I mean it's impossible. This thing is literally integrated Into a priceless handmade car.
Andrew I mean you got to watch the animation of the of the the watch Emerging from the dashboard to be removed and then donned on your wrist.
Everett It's a dashboard clock. That's also a wearable.
Andrew Yes Talk about collaboration That's that's the I mean I can watch this animation on a loop That's what you're doing.
Everett Right. Do you remember when I complained about the legibility? Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Sorry. Yeah. Sorry.
Everett Just sorry, everybody.
Andrew It's I mean, it's totally frivolous. There is no sense in it at all. But this is a representation of both brands coming together and saying, hey, we got a cool thing here. Let's make it cooler. What's your next one? Hmm. Next up for me. Oh, we have to talk about what is probably the collaboration of the century, perhaps of all time, the Moon Swatch. Oh, oh. I was also maybe thinking of Vortec with their making cases for pocket watches, but I think the Moon Swatch is probably of all time.
Everett Yeah. Interesting. One of the things that kept coming up as I was researching for these was videos of, and they're all like, by the way, I'm wearing my mission of Mars moonswatch tonight. Uh, one of the things that kept coming up is links for videos with titles such as quite possibly the worst collaboration in the history of watches. Uh, so I have two thoughts. One, We talked about this, I think, at some point, but this doesn't feel to me like a true collaboration. This is an inter-office co-op, right? Okay, I accept. Not to say that these companies literally share office space. I mean, I guess at some level they probably do, but... Very high. I guess it's close enough. Fine. So we'll just leave it there. I've got some skepticism about whether this is a collaboration. With that said, um, what else would it be? You know, I think it's more like making your kids do the dishes together, right? Uh, they're each discreet people, but it's a, I mean, yeah, you guys, yeah. Betty, you dry. West, you wash.
Andrew Like we'll figure it out. Uh, this is just one watch though. I mean, it's 70 watches at this point, but... Yeah. It's fine. I think I see what you mean in that it's... I think your reticence to accept it as a collaboration is one brand brought a pre-existing design and the other brand made it with their materials.
Everett It's more like smushing Like, smushing two of your existing ideas together. Like, if Rolex introduced the Day-Date Submariner, is that a collaboration between the Day-Date and the President and the Submariner?
Andrew No, it's just Rolex smushing... But if Rolex and Tudor introduced a Day-Date Black Bay... They did!
Everett And it's not a fucking collaboration!
Andrew Yeah, I don't know. I feel like the companies are, I think it's a collaboration. It's, it's, it's certainly different than everything we've ever talked about because it's also the only watch brand collaboration that is out there. Like I can't think of any other two watch brands that have gotten together to make, make a baby.
Everett It's a good point. Uh, And I accept that it's a collaboration, even if I have some reticence. I just want to point out that it's discreet in that way. But yeah, no, I can't think of anything else like this. And I, for one, as a man wearing one of these watches right now, think it's just one of the greatest things that's happened in watches. I love the idea behind it. I love the execution.
Andrew I hate the sales of it. This only brick and mortar until it gets to secondary market, that bugs me.
Everett But I mean, they're selling out every day. It's not like they're purposely making these things scarce. They just are fucking selling. Yeah. There's probably more Moon Swatches in existence right now than just about any other watch that you or I can think of, right? I mean, they're just... It's the most popular watch I can think of. I can't think of another watch that has quite the appeal of this watch. Mike from Everest is like, yeah, I got the whole damn set. Yeah. Right? Mike DeMartini. Folks want these things. Real watch people want these things. People who have maybe never thoughtfully bought a watch before want these things. There's something really fun about it. And you referenced the phrase frivolous when talking about the Audemars Piguet Rolex. I don't disagree. Also frivolous is the Moon Swatch, but a totally different level of frivolity by millions of dollars. Yeah. It's great. The thing they did here is special, unique. And it's wonderful.
Andrew And they took the lore of the source material in the way of the Speedmaster and the Moonwatch and they expanded on it. It isn't just the Moonwatch anymore. It's this huge whole line of space watches and now a line of I don't really know what to call them, all these secondary SKUs that are coming out like every other week or so.
Everett Oh, the Moonglow. The Moonglow. Or Moonshine? Moonglow? There's a hundred of them.
Andrew The gold. Yeah. Well, there's the gold, there's the guitars, there's the Swiss one, there's the, you know, the lanterns.
Everett You know, talking about, I think they all have the same gold second hand. Are they all Moonglow? Yeah. Uh, you know, but talk about injecting DNA, right? So here we've got an Alaska project, Mars themed swatch Speedmaster.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Right. With a swatch movement and a Velcro strap. I mean, this is, it's just, it's like nothing else the watch world has ever seen before.
Andrew Have you put that on your Speedmaster NATO yet?
Everett Uh, I haven't, it doesn't look, you know, actually this watch is interesting cause I've got probably, I don't know, 75 NATO straps, pass through straps and none of them look good with this watch, uh, because of the crispy white dial and bezel and that really discreet red. I wore this on a scarlet pass through for a few days and I just didn't love it. I think short of buying a strap for this watch, but I love the Velcro.
Andrew Get the red and white NASA Mankey.
Everett Yeah, I could do that. Something like that would look great on it. Yeah, or an Ericas or something in that red and white. Yeah. Of course, just a Mankey. Why would I get an Ericas? But I know you gave me a weird look.
Andrew Or I mean, or yeah, do I guess? Yeah.
Everett Okay. Yeah. So this is, I mean, to the extent that you're going to do it, this is a pretty good execution of a collaboration, I'd say.
Andrew Let's get more watch brands working together to make something new and different. Yeah. I mean, we could, right? Yeah. There's, I don't see the harm in it. Everyone's making money.
Everett You know, which collaborator I think puts out the hits is Rowing Blazers. So say what you will about the logo or even the style. Rowing Blazers has released a handful of collaborations in the last three years. I think the first ones I had consciousness of, and this was before I even knew what Rowing Blazers was, were the Seiko 5 Sports, the SKX, the 5KX, releases. These things are all zany colorways, but when you go to the Rowing Blazers website, Rowing Blazers is sort of this modern trad fashion company, and these watches just fit. You look at them, and you're like, yeah, yep. I get it, Rowing Blazers. I see what you did here. I get it. I'm here for it. Uh, they also released that yellow one, which maybe that that's a bit less on the nose, but it still works.
Andrew Like, yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the six KX, uh, the big color blocks though. It makes sense for the, on the bezel because the dial itself is unchanged. It's color blocked on the, on the bezel. It fits their design. I just have not, it's just not for me.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and, and that's fine. That's fine. Cause I think they're not for me either, Andrew, but the point is, can I say the Carrera is fire? Well, that was what I was going to talk about next.
Andrew No, you said the point is, and I was in the middle of the point, the Carrera is fire. Now, what do you want to talk about? What about it?
Everett Yeah. The, the, the, The point is they're doing their thing, right? This is a collaboration in the way I want a collaboration to be. It's clearly a Rowing Blazers watch. And so I also want to talk about another watch the Rowing Blazers released this year as I did a bunch of research and picked a bunch of watches, which is the Eric Wind Bamford Rowing Blazers Yacht Timer Carrera. So we talked about this. It's only been a month ago or so, right?
Andrew Yeah. It hasn't been very long.
Everett This is a yacht timer Carrera based on an old stopwatch yacht timer. And it's got a bit of Eric Wind in it. It's got a bit of Bamford in it. It's certainly got, it's certainly got rowing blazers in it.
Andrew It could be the most collaborated on watch that's been released.
Everett It just makes sense, right? Yeah. You look at this thing and you're like, yes, yes, yes. Yes, you did. I like it. The watch is great. The watch is sexy. I do wish they'd use the new case, the new, uh, bubble top case or not bubble top. What do they call it? Um, you know what I'm talking about though? Yes. Uh huh. With the dome crystal. Anyway, this is the, the, the more, the, the slightly bigger, Carrera case, but whatever. It's great. And you can see the influences and it doesn't look like anything else. It's clearly not just a dial color. I'm here for it.
Andrew Thank you, Carrera. And everybody else who collaborated on this watch. There's too many to name. Yeah. That's a, that's, that's one of my favorite collaborations of, of the in recent memory.
Everett Yeah. You had anything else you want to talk about?
Andrew Oh, I think that exhausted my list.
Everett I've got one more I want to talk about because it's, I think, a little bit different than anything else we've talked about today. So, uh, there's a fellow on Instagram. He's sort of Instagram famous, I think, or maybe he just is Instagram famous. Uh, fellow's name is Horomario Bro. That's probably not his name, but that is certainly his Instagram handle. This is a dude that takes macro photos and I think he's taking them with like an iPhone and a loop or some sort of magnifier. But the guy is taking macro photos of primarily high-end watches and looking in detail at the finishing. I think when I first saw his account, I thought he was being critical. I actually, as I sit here today, don't think he's being critical. I think he's fascinated by watches. I also understand he buys a lot of very expensive watches. So he did a collaboration last year with, or perhaps this year, this summer, with Armstrong. Armstrong, I'll quote Horology, watchmaker known for skeletonized watches. He ordered a piece unique custom watch from Armin Strom. He's a fellow that can order these unique watches. Anyway, the watch, Armin Strom liked the watch enough that they released it as a collaboration with Horror Mario, bro. There's so much that's weird about that. If you tried to explain what this was to a watch collector in 1960. You just, their head would spin, right? Not just because of the watch, which is bizarre, and I'm not even going to take- There's no way to even begin. You just look at a picture. I'm not going to try because I don't understand the tech. I don't really like the watch. I, yeah, I'm not even going to start. I can appreciate it, but I'll stop there. This is a, this is a creation of a zeitgeist that if you, if you aren't paying attention, really close attention, you wouldn't even see. And yet we've got these, I think they made 10 of these things. Each of them costs $75 billion a piece. 60,000. That's it. I guess. I mean, that's a lot of money, but it's not the most insane thing I've ever heard of. Uh, looking at the dial, they don't say Armstrong, which on them, which I believe is, which I believe doesn't happen. They do have an A S I guess that's been hidden somewhere. I looked at the picture for just a minute to try to find it.
Andrew It's in the, uh, at least it, no, that's not it. Where is it?
Everett The case back says horror or the, one of the pieces on the bridge on the back says horror Mario bro. These are terrific. And I like it. I'm into it. I'm into it for what it is. This is truly a collaboration in that he ordered this custom piece unique from Arm & Strom. And they were like, hey, you're a dude. And we like what you appreciate about watches. And we're going to make these and sell them. And we'll all get some money. We'll all get a few thousand bucks.
Andrew And you can put your name on it. Because you did, in fact, design it. You, this is.
Everett You're as good at this as we are. And maybe not a full design, but. In terms of a collaboration, yeah, I accept.
Andrew Yeah, 100%. 100%.
Everett I want to thank a couple people for this episode. In particular, I want to thank the homie KP Jimmy. This is really his idea, and he kind of helped me build this show out in, you know, just by way of talking. We go back and forth with, in particular on our Discord with our patrons, We'll go back and forth with folks and talk about show ideas. And, you know, it's a lot different to propose a show idea than it is to turn an idea into a show, as you and I both know. We'll take a look at a list of six or seven different ideas. And instead of saying, oh, that could be fun, we say, how do we turn that into a show? Jimmy kind of helped me talk this one out and come up with enough of the framework for this to make me feel like, yeah, that's a show. We can do that. I looked at a couple of the watches that he had sent out to me. He sent me a watch that I'd never heard of. And so I wanted to just talk about that one really quickly. I think I've seen this. I had some awareness of it. I didn't really ever collect it into the consciousness, but this is a watch by Baltic, French company. And it's a collaboration with Peter Otto. Do you know what Peter Otto is?
Andrew I don't.
Everett I think Peter Otto is a Parisian, like, it's like a race series, perhaps. I get the feeling that these are like vintage race cars. It's sort of this, I think it's an inside baseball thing. A couple things. One, this is a Swiss hand-wined mechanical tricompax movement, which Baltic had never used prior to this watch being released. I understand that Peter Otto picked these colorways, sort of this tan dial, black subs, and orange and yellow accents. It's a really handsome watch. feels like a racing watch, like a vintage racing watch, which is very on brand. But the reason I really liked this amongst the list of watches that Jimmy sent me is when you bought this, so it's 2,000 bucks, I think, or 1,990, I believe they're all sold out. When you bought this, you also got a double set of stopwatches, Baltic, Stopwatches came with this watch, which I don't think I've ever heard.
Andrew These are flyback. That makes the price tag a really good deal.
Everett Stopwatches. I don't know what I would do with these things. Type things? Yeah, I guess so. These look like they theoretically have a dash mounting capability. I was like, what? This is terrific.
Andrew This is terrific. You should mount stopwatches on your dashboard.
Everett On my Lexus?
Andrew Yeah.
Everett It's a good idea. It's a terrific idea. Anyway, I want to talk about that. Thanks, Jimmy, for helping me out with the show idea.
Andrew Those are cool. Andrew, are we all done? I think we've done it.
Everett That's how you do it. That's how you do a collab, guys. Listen to us.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Put your DNA into it. If we ever do a collab, I'm going to put some DNA into each one.
Andrew In it, on it. It's part of the QC. You can get a little special reserve with it.
Everett Andrew, other things. What do you got?
Andrew Nobody can collaborate with us. Bunch of fucking morons over here. So I recently found a new Instagram guy that I like to follow. His name is MeetDad. M-E-A-T. That's what my wife calls me. Is it?
Everett OK. Oh, hey, come here, Meat Dad.
Andrew That might be it. Yeah. His name is Anthony Bartleson. He is a butcher.
Everett So it says here he's a digital creator.
Andrew Meat Dad, a butcher who likes eating meat. Yeah, fine. Fuck you want, man? I'll fight you. He is a butcher. It seems like by trade, most of his videos open up and it's like, I've been a butcher for 20 years. I have no reason not to believe him. He doesn't seem old enough to have been a butcher for 20 years, but I'm like, who cares? He looks young. Maybe he's rounding up from like 15 or so, but it doesn't matter. All of his videos are like, at least his reels that I watch are pretty short. They're interesting. And there's something really enjoyable about watching like a closeup of a butcher work. There's butchery videos. There's like cooking little cooking shorts. It's just a fun, like easy, quick scroll through. It's something that interests me. They're all very well produced and visually interesting. You can watch them on mute and enjoy them just as much as not watching them on mute. I like things like that. Um, but I've been watching this stuff and have thoroughly enjoyed it. So if you're looking for kind of a, just a little bit of a change up in your, in your scroll wheel, I'm about this guy right now.
Everett Get some of that meat dad in your life.
Andrew Everett's happy to come over. And he'll be your meat dad.
Everett I've got another thing, but we've got so many links from today that I got to go back a long ways. Oh, I know what it is. I remember what it is.
Andrew Andrew, have you ever heard of Gary DeVore? Not until you sent me this link.
Everett So Gary DeVore is, was a Hollywood screenwriter. right? He's one of these guys that had been doing rewrites for a number of years and then just kind of like took off and became one of the guys, right? So made a handful of movies, Raw Deal with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Running Scare, Dogs of War, nothing that's like Uh, nothing that's like in the, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art or whatever. But with that said, he was making serious movies with serious actors and he was, he was a pretty famous dude. He disappears one night and when he disappears, he's been working on a script for a movie about Panama and he actually has come up with this idea that he says, this is it, I've got this idea, this is going to be a great movie, and he goes missing. And it turns out that he was working with the CIA, like IRL, traveling back and forth to Panama, and at some point gets disappeared. And it's a story that I imagine some of the people listening to this will be familiar with. I was not.
Andrew There is. This was in the height of people getting disappeared though. I feel like between 1993 and 1998 there were more kidnappings and odd disappearances than in a full decade in either direction.
Everett I think you're right. I think you're, I think you're right. Uh, There was something happening around that period of time where it's tough to be with the CIA for sure. This is a binged podcast. I think I talked about Wild Boys on the show, which is from the same series. Binge has a handful of podcasts. Many of them are very good. If you pay for a binge subscription, you can get them all at once. I recently canceled my binge subscription. And so I'm not, I'm going to wait and do this one weekly, I think, but the, the producer is witnessed. The show is fade to black. It's campsite media, Sony music, very well produced, really interesting. Uh, and it's about the story of this guy, probably getting disappeared by the CIA in the eighties or, or excuse me, in the nineties.
Andrew And I'm here for it. Does he's making a movie about what they're showing him?
Everett I think that maybe that's right. And so it raises all sorts of other questions. You know, there's conspiracy theories and then there are conspiracy theories, uh, with the emphasized version, I think being like something fucking happened here and we kind of all know it, right? This is the latter one, at least from what I can tell after having listened to one episode. So I listened to one episode of this, If you're into this kind of stuff, I'd say check it out. The first episode at least is fantastic. It sounds like the story is going to be fantastic. If you already know the story, maybe you don't want to listen to it. I don't know, but man, I'm pumped. I'm pumped for getting one of these per week for the next, I think 10 or 11 weeks.
Andrew They're going to do 11. Is it, are they hour long podcasts?
Everett Yeah. Roughly an hour. Yeah. And if you just want to binge them, you can subscribe to the binge. and get them all at once. But I'm going to make myself wait, especially because I just canceled my binge subscription.
Andrew Now you got to get it back. Now you got a reason. Yeah.
Everett But that's all I got.
Andrew All right.
Everett Did we do it? We've done it. Those are the collaborations, podcasts, and Instagram pages. We've done everything we were supposed to do for you guys. Leave us alone. Andrew, enjoy California. Thank you folks for joining us for this episode 40 and 20, the watch clicker podcast. Do us a favor, go to the website, watch clicker.com. That's where we post articles, reviews, other fun stuff. If you want to check us out on socials, you can do that at watch clicker or at 40 and 20 underscore watch clicker. That's where we post updates and pictures and other fun stuff. Sometimes opinions. If you want to support us and really, really, we hope you do. You can do that at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Look guys, that's how we pay for all of the hardware, all of the software, and all of the hosting. And there is a significant amount of money we have to spend on those things. For all of you supporting us, we thank you, especially if you support us and help us out with show ideas. And don't forget to tune in next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.