The History of Luxury Watches (291)

Published on Wed, 22 May 2024 22:25:12 -0700

Synopsis

Andrew and Everett discuss the evolution of watches from luxury goods in the 19th century to more affordable and functional "tool watches" in the mid-20th century after World War II. They trace how brands like Rolex transformed mechanical watches back into luxury or "Veblen goods" after the quartz crisis, while more recently affordable luxury brands like Monta, Christopher Ward, and others have emerged to offer high quality at relatively accessible prices. The discussion covers how our perceptions of what constitutes a "luxury watch" have changed over time.

They also briefly discuss Andrew's recommendation for the Masterbuilt Gravity Series grill and Everett's experience with the Samsung Frame TV that displays artwork when not in use as a television.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. You're listening to 40 in 20 the Watch Clicker podcast with your host Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
Everett Everett, how are you? I'm well. Andrew, I didn't do it on purpose. I realized what you were waiting for and then my brain totally farted. I actually saw it.
Andrew I saw you kind of like like trying to connect your brain to your body. In the interest of connecting your brain to your body, could you turn my monitor down just a little bit? I feel like I'm screaming in my ears. And as much as I know you all would love to hear the sultry pipes, I don't wanna listen to my sultry pipes. Yeah, no, that's muchos mejor. For those of you who don't hablo, that's much better.
Everett Oh, it's definitely my kid. Mine was quiet, yours was loud.
Andrew And could you turn me up just a touch?
Everett Yeah, sure thing, Andrew.
Andrew Give me a little touch mark.
Everett Give me a little... You know, butt four. There it is. A few technical difficulties. What's a butt four? We're on fire. You tell me.
Andrew For pooping. A butt four is for pooping.
Everett I'm doing well, Andrew. We have a ton of sun. It is, you know, damn near nine o'clock and it's still light outside.
Andrew It's full daytime.
Everett Yeah. I love, I love this time of year. I love the long days. Give me Sun when I wake up at six and sun at nine o'clock.
Andrew I hated it when I was working pure graveyards. When I would like, I would leave for work, it was still daytime. I'd start my shift, it was daytime. I worked through the nighttime and then come about four o'clock, I would start to see pink in the east. And I'd just be like, are you fucking kidding me? And then I'm leaving and I like, So the worst year was when I worked from 9.30 p.m. to 7.30 a.m. So I'd get to work at about 8.10 to work out. Maybe 8. Still full daytime. Sunglasses to work. But I'd have to remember to put my sunglasses in my car because from about 6 o'clock to 7.15, when I was actually working, I would need to be wearing sunglasses because it was that super low angle Morning sun. It's not just sunny. It's like sunny. Yeah. No, I, I, uh, living life as a normal person, I really do love, uh, summer daylight. Uh, as a, as a night Walker, it was, it was, uh, kind of an annoyance. Yeah.
Everett Well, I love it. I love it. I work bankers hours, so I love it.
Andrew If that, because bankers are required to be there.
Everett You know, it's funny. You think, oh, I'm a business owner. I wouldn't, you know, I can pick my own hours. There's no one, there is no one in the world, but for a judge, but for a judge that can tell me where to be and when to be there. And they don't do that that often. So I can pick my own hours. I could work from 10 o'clock to two o'clock every day if I wanted. Your wife would tell you otherwise. Yeah, sure. But I, realistically, I could I can do whatever I want. And I am there from 745 to six o'clock almost every day.
Andrew It's just, and I'm working. Billion hours working. Do we have a cha-ching cha-ching? Do we have a registered?
Everett We don't. We don't. I'm sorry, Andrew. We don't. We have, uh, let's see, what do we have? Womp womp. Oh, boy. This is not a test of the emergency alert system. Oh, yeah, that's not it. Yeah, that's what we got.
Andrew I think that was a little. It keeps going forever. It was a little too optimistic for the sound effects that we just included.
Everett You know, we haven't really made good use of these keypads. We'll work on them.
Andrew I don't think that we need to. I think we as human people make enough odd noises that we don't really need some, uh, we don't need any, any digital augmentation. It might make us more commercially viable. I think if we're going to be commercially viable, we might have to investigate new hosts. We could steal trademark sounds. Batman or his butt mine as my kids call him.
Everett Andrew, I didn't even ask you how you're doing, but actually I kind of don't care. Not all that much. It's normal because, because we're here, we're not talking about, uh, your, your nightwalker syndrome or, uh, the sunshine or anything else. Rather, we're here to talk about watches and I think we got a good one. You cooked up a good one, man.
Andrew You know, I, uh, I keep a notepad on my phone of episode ideas and there's probably, I don't know, 30 or 40 on there.
Everett It's actually, you guys, it's actually a physical notebag that he tapes to his phone.
Andrew Yeah. And he writes with a pencil. What else? No, crayon. I don't know. I don't know what else you would think it would be. Uh, I've sent you this episode idea, I don't know, probably six times. No. Yeah. Wrong. Okay. Probably six times. Uh, cause that's what I do when I'm like, I can't really come up with anything for this week. And I go to my, I go to my note and I grab a handful of ideas and I send them to you. And then when you select said idea, I delete it from, from the note. Okay. So this has been sent to you on multiple occasions. Fine. I accept. You don't have a choice. It's the reality. Accept or don't. Uh, it's real. So when you picked it today, I was like, huh, I've been kind of like, I've been thinking about this obviously for some time. It's been on the list and I'm, I'm happy today that it struck your, I think you were struck.
Everett I think you must've rephrased it.
Andrew No dude, I copy and paste. Well, I copy and paste that shit. Uh, so I'm, I'm, what I'll ask today is that you pitch the idea And then you tell me what was intriguing about it to you today, because it hasn't been previously.
Everett OK, so let me pull up here. Let me pull up, you know, I'm not going to read it, but I'll just pull it up. OK, so the. The theory of the show or the original theory of the show is to talk about how brands, these accessible, what we would call or what I would call accessible luxury brands, uh, think Monta, Formex, Zodiac, Christopher Ward, uh, are, are reshaping. I think in real time are reshaping how we think about luxury watches, especially here down with the plebes in the lower tiers or, you know, really what I would call mid tier or that entry level of mid tier. Um, how that's reshaping the way we think about watches versus, say, 40 or even perhaps 50 years ago. And 70? Sort of an exploration of how watches have changed, you know, starting in, let's say, the first decade or two of the 20th century. How have watches changed in the last hundred or so years and how How is this concept, we think of this, you know, entry-level luxury watch is a term that you could say in any red bar meeting, and people would know, people wouldn't question what that meant.
Andrew But they'd all have their own idea of what it is.
Everett Which I think would probably be relatively consistent. I mean, that level is, you know, whether you say, oh, entry-level luxury is, Rolex or IWC or Omega, or if you think it's Christopher Ward, it doesn't really matter. You're still thinking about the same things. Oh, okay. But that's not always been the case. And so in my mind, I thought, well, this is kind of an exploration of where we've come. Andrew, I'm going to talk just for another second, and then I'll turn this over to you. But something I found really interesting is as I was prepping for this show, I kept thinking, oh, we've talked about this concept before. Oh, we've talked about this concept before. You know, we don't actually have like an agenda the way we do sometimes when we have these. I really, I suspect today's going to be like more of a conversation perhaps than we've ever done. Maybe ever, maybe ever. You know, when we talked about time, I remember that episode feeling really conversational. I think we're going to do something similar today. But to that point, I think that what we're going to find is this is going to be really, in some ways, a culmination of everything we've talked about over the course of the last six years, kind of summarized neatly and cutely with a bow on it.
Andrew It's also going to be our first three hour episode. We are changing formats. this week. We're doing the long form now. If you have not already, grab your popcorn. And definitely go to the bathroom. Go to the bathroom.
Everett Yeah, that's right. No, it will not be a three hour episode. But I do think in some ways we're really going to touch, you know, just as I was thinking about this episode, I was like, I don't need to write that down.
Andrew Like, I understand that. I'm with you on that. I understand that. Uh, in the interest of answering my own question, because you didn't wait, wait.
Everett Okay. Well, no, I do want to answer it. What intrigued me about it is it just felt like, yeah, this is a really interesting, it is an interesting topic. And I think that we have talked about, you know, some of the, the zeitgeist or whatever, right. We've got this micro brand industry that is in some ways maybe fracturing now and sort of recompartmentalizing.
Andrew I think stratifying is better than fracturing.
Everett Yeah, that's maybe fair. But we talked several years ago about the democratization of watches, and I think that maybe that's going away a little bit, not because there's less democratic institution, but just because things are, by way of having by way of the market having become so saturated and so competitive, I think we're now sort of seeing a shoring up or a consolidation of some of these ideas in a way that's pushing us back into a stratification.
Andrew Yeah. But, and to that, I think we still see the democratization, right? We're still seeing Kickstarter brands. We're still seeing new brands. But what we're not seeing is that everyone's a new brand. We're seeing some survivors, right? We're seeing, you know, I, when I was prepping for this episode, I was kind of thinking about, you know, our last six years, cause I also, I don't see this necessarily as a culmination. This is not our last episode. Just, just to be super clear, we're, we're like kind of, We're, we're not teasing it up. Yeah. We're not, we're not hanging them up today.
Everett Risk cheese radio did that just a couple of weeks ago. So yeah. Yeah. Um, teased, teased.
Andrew Yeah. So I was thinking about it and I, and I got there, look, we got our start because we both were getting into watches at a time where there weren't people talking about the affordable watch space. They weren't talking about like what shit meant. It was like an alienating hobby. It was very inside baseball. Like to ask a question on the forum was to be like, well, I need to be prepared for about 100,000 people to say, asked and answered, check this link.
Everett Or at least that was our experience. You know, we both had shared that that had been our experience. Right.
Andrew So we were like, let's just, let's learn about it and talk about it and make it accessible. kind of contemporaneous to people learning that they could make watches. And, you know, contemporaneous to us, there's dozens of similar format podcasts who are no more, which is not to say anything about our skill. It's just that we like hung on, but these brands who kind of came up, we live across the street from that helps. Uh, But these brands who came up during this time fought and clawed and scratched and developed and innovated and sunk in their roots and they made it.
Everett And now Jonathan Ferrer is making watches with Alton Brown.
Andrew And Idris Elba is wearing them. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That was maybe cooler than Alton Brown for me. Yeah. Cause I don't think that Elba got that for free.
Everett We'll drop a note in the show notes, but Idris Elba was spotted wearing a brew metric this week or last week.
Andrew Recently. Recently. And it was highlighted in GQ. So like a double whammy. Jonathan, uh, way to go. Um, so we see this proliferation of small watch brands and then some hang on and Which I think is the stratification, because we still see tons of new watch brands, tons. But six years ago, new watch brands were coming in at $300 to $500 watches. And some of them survived. That's, I think, a little different than what we're talking about today.
Everett Which watch brand? I mean, not to compare podcasts to watch brands, but let's do it for a second. Which watch brand are we? I got to, I got to think of a watch brand that nobody really loves, but nobody hates. And then people are like, Oh, are they still making watches? There's got to, anyway, moving on.
Andrew So I would not insult a single surviving watch brand with comparing them to us.
Everett Oh, they still make watches. Um, so I think that's a good enough time to get. So why don't we, why don't we start Just to remind ever, no, go ahead. Can I, can I explain your fucking topic?
Andrew It's your topic. Whatever you want. I'll explain what my pitch is. Cause again, you didn't answer it.
Everett Hey, listen, if you're at home, feel free, feel free just to turn your radio down real low and do the crossword or something. Okay. We're going to be going for a while.
Andrew My prompt that started this, this conversation was Affordable luxury. How brands like Manta, Zodiac, Christopher Ward, Formax, et cetera, are reshaping our understanding of what luxury watches are.
Everett And going back to those words, but just in a different order.
Andrew And going back to the beginnings of where a person could buy a Rolex and wear it forever without spending their kid's college tuition. Because that's where Brands like Rolex, Omega, IWC a little later, but kind of contemporaneously, like really got really sunk their teeth in. And what, what I was looking at and what has gotten me kind of on this idea is that stratification and kind of the way we look at luxury watches, And why we look at luxury watches as luxury watches versus the every man's watches that we can get right now for relatively affordable dollar signs that are better than their 1950s counterparts and a comparable amount of money. Because a Manta Triumph or an Ocean King costs about what a sub would have cost you when it was released. And a sub now MSRP is 8.5?
Everett Something like that, yeah. 9? I think that's pretty close.
Andrew You know a Speedmaster MSRP in the On release was about 300 bucks Yeah, I think I think relatively like 1,700 which is now 2,000 Which is interesting and and this will come I'll circle back to this interesting inflation Erks so with that being said we're looking at Luxury watches and what's luxury? And comparing the luxury watches, OGs, perhaps, if you will, to the relative newcomers, because I don't know if you can really call Zodiac a newcomer. Certainly not. But I think that their position in the space is unique. You know, I think DOXA is kind of maybe in that same category, but
Everett Yeah. I mean, really in that, in that entry level, you've got Monta, Formex, Zodiac, and I just had it. I just had it. It was right there. Lunging, I think. Lunging's a good fit. Yeah. And then you bump up a little bit, you get Tudor, Oris, you know, and then above that you get Omega.
Andrew But Oris is in that in between. And then, and then like Omega is kind of like another like multi stratified brand, Tag Heuer, I think has reintroduced itself into the conversation.
Everett Why don't we go back? Why don't we go back way, way, way back, way, way, way back to the late 19th century where watches are really a luxury good.
Andrew I think we have to go even further back than that. Go back as far as you want. I think we have to go back to the mid Mid 20th century.
Everett Well, so actually the late 19th. So I don't know if you know how this works.
Andrew I think you're going too far back, but I want to, I like where your head's at and I do want to go there too.
Everett Well, there's a, there's a bit of a parabola here. So, you know, when we go back to really pre-war and, and even maybe a little bit before that, You have this period where watches are really a luxury good, right? They're incredibly complicated. They're hard to make. The means of production are still sort of rudimentary. So you've got a lot of handwork.
Andrew And the most accessible metals are precious metals.
Everett That's right. So, well, not the most accessible necessarily, but the only metals that would be up to the job. Uh, so, so really a pocket watch in the mid to late 19th century is a luxury good very much. So you did not have a watch unless you were well off and only a few, you know, it was, I think a luxury good is sort of defined as only available to the few.
Andrew So, and it's also an heirloom for those who finally have one, it's a true heirloom.
Everett And then as you move forward, as you move forward, you get, you know, really with the Civil War, you start to get these American brands. I think Elgin, Baylor, Waltham, these brands are all Civil War brands and started up to produce and supply soldiers, Civil War soldiers with timekeeping because it was this modern warfare and timekeeping was critical.
Andrew These brands- It's also contemporaneous with railroads and needing to keep time for rail schedules and- And navigation.
Everett Yeah. And so these brands get stood up to produce these working class functional tools. That's what the American watch industry was created for. And what we find is the American watch industry really threatens the Swiss watch industry. And unlike what will happen a century later, the Swiss watch industry digs its heels in. And they're like, no, no, we will not compete with you. Rather, we will distinguish ourselves and become on the next tier. So you Americans can make affordable working class watches. And we Swiss will make high end luxury goods. And that's where you see I think the first split. So we have a luxury good becomes a working class good. And then we see that fracture. The Swiss watch industry starts making really nice fancy things while the Americans really start making tools.
Andrew Yeah, the Swiss are making that the Swiss, the Swiss are honing their craftsmanship and their precision, the beauty. And the American watch industry is like, let's fucking do it. Let's get them out the door. Because that's what was needed, right? The American industry, the American industrialization at this point needed supply and bucket loads of it, and they needed it now. And American companies were churning them out to meet that demand. And Swiss companies were like, our shit's going to get bought. We're going to make them at our pace and they're going to be great.
Everett And then everything changes. And then everything changes. So in a bit of irony, we have World War II. or excuse me, World War I. And then later World War II. So, so World War I famously popularizes the wristwatch and then World War II necessitates, I'd say even. Yeah. Well, right. I mean, I mean as a practical matter, these fellas started strapping watches to their wrist because you know, you can't carry a machine gun and pull a pocket watch out of your vest. So, um, You know, what we see is the popularization of the wristwatch in World War I. And in a weird turn of events, that becomes a thing. But World War II, I think in some ways, kills certainly the American wristwatch. You know, it's not very long after, like, period of time, not much longer than we've been recording this show, that after World War II, the American watch industry dies for all intents and purposes.
Andrew Military industrial complex, because every single resource was allocated toward the war efforts.
Everett And it's also at that time that the Swiss watch industry really starts to hit. And where we see really in the fifties, where we see the tool watch industry emerge. So before this, we get the climbing watches, the mountaineering watches, but it's really like starting in 1950, everybody's sort of rebounding and, and resuming life after these, these, this half a century of world changing.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Globally significant conflicts that we see this tool watch, right? We've got the 1950s version of Gorp Core, right? Where, you know, now all these people who are outdoors, uh, inclined and who are, you know, veterans of these wars. And, you know, all of a sudden people are going deeper and faster and higher than anybody's ever gone before. And they're doing it with a watch. And we see the moon watch. We see mountaineering watches. We see, of course, the dive watch. I'm making hand motions up and across.
Andrew And the dive watch didn't, it was just, it was like just a wrist motion down.
Everett You know, racing watches really, you know, motor racing watches are sort of pervasive through this whole period of time. All of these, all of these athletic, pursuits, these tool watches, sort of emerge in this period. And it's interesting to think back, try to put ourselves back in that time. I mean, I was trying to think of modern examples of this thing, right? Certainly, corp core is, you know, late teens idea of, you know, wearing hiking gear for high fashion. you know, it goes back obviously much longer than that, but all these things were being designed with a task in mind, right? You know, we've got dive watches being developed. It's the Navy sea labs. We've got, uh, you know, Omega's designing watches specifically for the purposes of going to the moon, Bulova, You know, we've got, we've got all of these watches that are being designed with really specific functions, necessary functions, not superfluous functions in mind. And I think that starts something or it continues something, but that's a big moment.
Andrew Well, cause we see it on the heels of World War II where, where there were more than two varieties of watches, but there were functionally two varieties of watches. There were chronographs, some of them were not chronographs. Right? Right. And on the heels, these watch companies are like, well, now we have all these people back to work and all these people now with disposable income who seem to like to do things. There's a market for that. And that's where we see this proliferation. marketing, not even great design at the time, great marketing of I can make something for them and they're going to want it. You know, we see in the, in 1950, the introduction of the sub 50. So the sub I think is, is actually 1953.
Everett I think we see, we see like,
Andrew Omega dropping us a dive watch. Rolex dropping a dive watch. Blancpain, obviously. Blancpain. In the 50s of, hey, we now have 100 meters of water resistance. You adrenaline junkie who just got done fighting your way across Europe, Africa, or Asia, who wanna go do exciting things. Adrenaline junkie's a great phrase for this. We have a watch that can go with you. Because you're A11, It objectively cannot. It's not going to survive the things that you're about to put it through. But guess what? We're with you still. Here you go. And these were the tool watches of the era. This is like the true origin story of the way we see a lot of these luxury watch brands now is in this post-World War II accessible Tool watch. Every motherfucker could buy a sub in 1955. To account for inflation, it's about 1500 bucks. Expensive? Yes. Doable? Yes. When you need a tool to go on all your adventures with you. If you're just going to buy one watch and the one watch that you already have is the one that you were issued when you enlisted in 1939, 1940, but now you want to climb mountains, you want to dive, you want to do all this, that, and the other thing. Yeah, I can make $1,500 happen.
Everett Yeah. Yeah, that's right. You know, so the wristwatch becomes ubiquitous. in the 40s, 30s, and 40s. And then in the 50s, the wristwatch becomes a way to define yourself, right? So you communicate to people about what you're interested in in 1960 based on what kind of wristwatch that you're wearing.
Andrew And we also see some really brilliant posturing by Rolex in their partnership with Hollywood in putting a sub on James Bond's wrist. Yeah. Which is, the timing is just absolutely perfect to be grabbing these, who are now middle-aged men, wishing back to their glory days to be like James Bond, seeing a watch that he can wear, they've got disposable income, They've got the house. They've got all the stuff. They want to be like James Bond again and get the tool watch, which isn't just a, it's not just a novelty. The sub is terrific. Even in the fifties, the sub is terrific. A hundred meters of water resistance, a great case size. I mean, they go now for a hundred times what they were brand new. That says something. It's not just the collectability. It's that they were a fucking baller watch when they were released. They're, they're well-specced for watches now. Fuck, Patek has only got 30 meters of water resistance.
Everett Yeah. And then of course what we know happens is after, you know, 20 years of this ubiquity, sorry, We've got time and I think we're going through this kind of chronologically. So I'll stop here for a moment and say it's really important to note. So it's around this time that the American watch industry is just falling off. They just aren't able to keep up with some exceptions, obviously. But we see this drive. We see this drive at the time for precision. So there are a lot of watches being produced during this time. And it's not the same way that watches are being produced now. We still have tons of hibaches. Everybody's using the same movements by and large. You've got seven jewel movements and 15 jewel movements. But that designation, those movements, are really what's determining prices. So you may have a gold watch with a seven jewel movement that sells for roughly the same price as a lower specced case, but with a 15 jewel movement. And so it's unclear to me how people were valuing these things, but for a single driving factor, which is precision. So there were tons of watches being made in this time. Sears, Robux, Sachs, everybody is selling watches. And you could get a watch for not a lot of money, you know, 30, 40 bucks, you know, maybe 400, 500 today. Yeah. If we, if we'll just accept that from 1950 to now it's a 10 X. And so given that, you know, the market's not all that different, you know, of course there are very, very beautiful, luxurious Swiss watches being made still at this time. But the thing that's driving people is precision because This is still the way that you tell time.
Andrew Yeah, you can't check your phone. There's not at this point a phone number that you can call. Do you remember in the 80s and 90s having to call a phone number to check the time? Like that doesn't exist yet.
Everett This is how you tell what time it is. And so the more accurate your tool is, the more accurate you are in the things you're doing every day. Oh, you want to beat the bank? You better make sure your watch isn't running. five minutes slow, because you're not going to get your deposit or your withdrawal before it closes.
Andrew I wore my Alpinist the other day, even though I know it's way off. I lost nine minutes over 40. And I was like, I can't, I can't do this. I can't even wear it. I wish it wasn't an automatic movement and just, it would just be dead.
Everett So, so that, you know, that, that thing, that thing, that precision, that drive to have more accuracy is the only deciding factor. So you- That technological marvel. You buy a Rolex instead of a whatever Sears brand because Rolex is providing you better precision at the time.
Andrew And at the time Rolex is, and this is a big, big asterisk in this conversation, Rolex is using in-house movements at this time, which many, most other brands are not, which is a technological masterpiece.
Everett Are they using purely in-house? I think they're not yet.
Andrew It's hard to find for sure. And there's some Rolex nerds out there who I'm sure will correct us, do feel free to, but they're not buying off the shelf kind of shit. And it's not off the shelf in the way that it is now off the shelf, Rolex is largely doing in-house production and assembly.
Everett And so clearly during this time, the fifties and sixties through the sixties and into the seventies, you're buying Rolex, not because it's fancy, not because it's not fancy, not because it's a luxury good. It is a tool. This isn't about Rolex, but I think it makes sense to frame this in the context of Rolex. You're buying a Rolex because it is, a capable tool that is more precise than anything. Rolex is Festool or, you know, I'm trying to think of other brands that are similar, you know, where people are like, whew, that's a lot of money. But if you want the best, buy once, cry once, Rolex is the Arcteryx or whatever, pick your poison. Rolex is the one you buy because it's a great tool, and it's just that much better if you want to communicate to people that you are discerning.
Andrew It's buying a Garmin GPS. That's right. It's buying an inReach as opposed to other... It's buying the thing that you wish you could buy. And it's... Affordable. It's $1,500. So it's cry once, not mortgage your house once.
Everett So moving forward, it's in the late 60s that we start to see quartz watches drop. And quartz watches and electronic watches, these things are new. They're expensive to make. And they're high tech. They're expensive to buy. And they are the future. And as we know, I mean that both in the sort of social imagination of the future.
Andrew Tomorrowland.
Everett Tomorrowland. World's Fair is all about the 20th century or the 21st century.
Andrew What's tomorrow going to be? We have the Jetsons with flying cars and we have, interesting, it's contemporaneous with the Flintstones, but moving past that. But we have this drive towards not just modernization, but like futurization.
Everett People know that electronics are going to change the world and people's imaginations have been sparked by what we're capable of moving forward. We just didn't, they, we just didn't know that they didn't know what it was going to look like. And so this, this watch in the end, at the late sixties, like you said, it was perfect, Andrew. Cause I actually hadn't jumped to that yet in my mind. I mean, I hadn't come to that, that realization, but yeah, that's right. So at this period of time, the imaginations of people have been captured. And then you have this functional device that's doing the thing we've been trying to do for 5,000 years better than anybody could possibly imagine. Even just five, six, seven years earlier, like the whole world, it's turned on its head. And when I say the whole world, I mean watches.
Andrew I mean, the quartz watches is perhaps more technologically advanced than the first rocket that went to space.
Everett And so if what the reason you're buying a Rolex is because it does the job better. Well now you're going to buy a fucking Seiko because or a Casio or a Timex. Right. And this is the time when Timex like oh shit we got some look at this fucking guys out of Pennsylvania. Oh yeah.
Andrew Waterbury. Yeah. Waterbury. Waterbury. I don't know where
Everett Oh, yeah, Waterbury, right? Are we screwing this up? We should not screw this up.
Andrew Because we're just we're just wrapping we're not this is a research conversation let you down.
Everett But this is when everything gets turned on its head. This is when everything gets turned on its head. And, and of course, we know that the courts crisis is something that people just say all the courts crisis yet, but but right when in the context of this conversation, everything's going to change. And it's And the whole world is going to change, but everything in watches is going to change. As we know, few years later, Rolex starts marketing itself as a luxury company and an interesting thing here.
Andrew So this is a researched topic.
Everett Half of the, maybe three quarters of the watch brands in the world go away.
Andrew So in, in the fifties, the sub price was about 1400 bucks adjusted for inflation, seventies, 1500 bucks. 80s, $2,900. 90s, $5,600. On the tail of the quartz crisis in the 80s, Rolex comes back averaging the sub, which was previously an affordable tool watch. It wasn't just an affordable tool watch. It was the tool watch. Hey, Do you need a thing to go do all your things with you and that will outlast you? You can afford it. It's going to be a little expensive. It's going to hurt a little bit to buy it, but it's worth it. Doubles in price on the heels of being unwanted. What? What a fucking baller move to turn it from like, A, every person should have this because it's the best thing, to, you should want this because it's expensive.
Everett This is when Rolex, and I'm going to say Rolex, and you can disagree with me, but we're sitting with Rolex because Rolex is easiest to find information on. I'm going to go further than that. I'm going to take a step further than that. This is when Rolex turns the watch into a Veblen good. It's been approaching that, and in certain niches of the industry, it has been that. But this is when Rolex turns mechanical watches into Veblen goods. And I'm gonna give them the credit, you can disagree. I'm sure there are people who would say, well. What's a Veblen good?
Andrew I think there's more people saying that.
Everett So a Veblen good is an item that's price increases, let me just read it. So a Veblen good is a good that becomes more popular as the price increases. Okay. And so what we see, that's right. That's right, Andrew. This is when Rolex says, no, you're not buying a Rolex because we do it better. you're buying a Rolex because the Rolex is the ship. This is the watch for the discerning man. And whereas before it was, this is the watch for the man that needs the best watch. Now it's, this is the watch that you know you need. For the best man. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And it's at that point that the watch market sort of, the watch market is really reduced down to the minimum parts, right? We've got, I said three quarters, it may be more. Everybody died.
Andrew All these brands died.
Everett Everybody dies. Everybody dies. If you're not Casio, Timex, or Seiko, you're dead in the water. Or Rolex. Or Omega, right? There's obviously exceptions to this. But they're few and far between. We have a hundred watch brands in every store. Just five years earlier, they're gone. They're all fucking gone.
Andrew Take a look at just vintage watches on eBay. And there's more brands you've never heard of, never seen before, and will never see again. That's right.
Everett So we get to 1970 And then you've got to go all the way into the 90s before you start seeing affordable mechanical watches again. Yeah, late 90s. And then there's some exceptions to this. I'm obviously grossly overestimating this, simplifying this, but really you've got this gap where nobody needs a mechanical. You don't need a mechanical watch because a Timex is 20 bucks, less than that maybe.
Andrew $10. The F91 has been $10 for 40 years.
Everett You walk into the pharmacy, you grab the watch, you strap it on because you, you know, whatever.
Andrew Because the other one's battery died. That's right. It's easier just to buy a new one. The F, my F91, my, I gave to Mark and he loves using the illuminator. So the 10 year battery life was six months. I was like, dude, I'm just going to get you a new one. Yeah. It's a bigger pain in the ass to replace the battery.
Everett It's at that point, it's at that point that you don't buy a mechanical watch unless you want to communicate to someone, unless A, you just really love mechanical things, or you want to communicate to someone that you are thinking about this purchase. That you can throw some money around too. And you can throw some money around. That is when watches, all watches, become luxury goods. And I don't mean watches, I mean mechanical watches.
Andrew Oh, interesting position. Okay.
Everett And obviously luxury is relative, right?
Andrew Well, I think luxury is unnecessary.
Everett But you know, when we were kids, and I mean kids, like young adults, teenagers, well, maybe you didn't have this experience, but I had heard this legend that Rolexes are special because the second's hand doesn't tick. And you can tell what someone's wearing a Rolex because it's seconds hand sweeps. Well, this is, of course, before I knew anything about watches, I didn't know what a quartz movement was or a mechanical movement or anything. But what I understood was that watches had seconds hands that ticked every second and Rolexes didn't for some reason, for some magical reason.
Andrew So when I was in Afghanistan, this is prior to me even giving a shit about watches, But still, you know, being aware enough about the world around me to be able to recognize logos and, you know, iconic designs. I was in one of the local markets. Trying to think of a word to use. That wasn't going to get us canceled. That wasn't the word that I was going to use. One of the local markets. And this fella had a case of watches and I pulled out what looked like a sub and he had a $25 price tag on it. I was like, Oh, it's a sub. And I saw two things immediately. And as a non watch person was like, Oh, this is not what you are telling me that it is. Number one, it had an Omega logo at the 12 o'clock big red flag. Number two, the Cyclops wasn't a magnifier. It was just, it's just a lump of glass, just another lump of glass. And number three is that the second's hand was not sweeping. And I was like, Oh, that's not a sub. I, I probably shouldn't expect to get a sub for, you know, 30 bucks. Cause like if that, if the black market was that easy to get things on, I could probably get it myself. Yeah. But yeah, no, I had similar experiences and you know, I also remember being a kid and like looking at the JCPenney jewelry cabinet and seeing these fossil sub homages and being like, It's good. It's good. It's on a bracelet. It's, it's silver. Like I didn't, you know, honestly understand metallurgy at the time. Like it was not actual silver, nor was it probably steel. Probably not. Yeah. It's probably plated brass. But like those things, I was like, man, I want that. Cause that's fancy. You know, this is a weird time where dress watches kind of trend started, like began to fall by the wayside and transition into sport watches where wearing a steel watch on a bracelet was a dress watch because it was expensive not because it was a dress watch but because it was a sport watch that actually cost you money and not a timex or a casio that everyone else was wearing because the fact that presidents of these united states have been in the oval office wearing digital watches on rubber meant that if you wore steel You were more dressed than the president.
Everett Well, so here we are today. Here we are today. And of course this isn't comprehensive, right? We, we, and we don't intend it to be, but I think, I think a reasonable question to ask, and I'll just ask it to you, Andrew, what is a luxury watch you are wearing? You are wearing a $500 Traska. $499 money.
Andrew You're wearing a $500 Traska right now. And it's,
Everett gorgeous. It's a sport watch.
Andrew It is fucking indestructible. It's got there's not even desk diving scratches on the clasp.
Everett This fantastic hardness coating. It's got a mechanically very competent but mass produced movement. It's a beautiful really highly finished with tons of exuding quality. Every single pin and screw on that watch is a quality item. It is relatively accessible, probably about two to four times what I think the average person would consider spending on a watch, and probably at the very entry level today in 2024 of what a watch enthusiast would consider spending on a watch.
Andrew Trask is the I think, in my mind, the best entry-level watch on the market. Is it a luxury watch, Andrew? I think that depends on what your definition of luxury is. Because for a non-watch person, $500 on a watch is asinine.
Everett And I totally get that. Not asinine, but like, whoa, I'm going to spend some money.
Andrew Yeah, and I totally get that. Cause when I go back to thinking about what our show started at, we were looking for those, like the things that like, you know, $500 and under.
Everett Yeah. $500 was a big, a big ask. Yeah.
Andrew $800. No, fuck that. No way. Yeah. And, and part of that's due to, it's hard to say this word without it, without it sounding derogatory. Um, and, and this is by no means a derogatory usage of the word, but ignorance, you don't know what you don't know until you've held an array of watches ranging from 500 to $5,000 in your hands and truly seen up close the difference. And it's not ignorance in like a willful sense. It's just like, you don't know. And that's okay. But at the point that you and I were getting into this world, $500 is like, that's some dollar signs. And now I'd argue, like, just wait. Wait until you can spend the $500. Because there's a lot of watches under $500 that are really great. I just bought one. But for me, a luxury watch is something that you like that's not just expensive, but it's fucking good. And I, within that, I think any watch more than $10 is a luxury purchase, right? Cause an F91 is arguably the most accurate watch, one of the most durable watches and super replaceable, right? It costs 10 bucks. You can buy a hundred of them before it starts to become a financial ask. So anything over that is a luxury purchase. And if you're making it within the context of, I know exactly what I'm getting. I bought Traska. That was unusual. I might have just found a flaw. No, I just didn't have it buckled. I bought a Traska because I was super intrigued by their hardening methods. They're attractive. All the photographs I've seen of the finishing look good. They use a perfectly adequate movement. I like the design. It's boring. That's what I want. The size was right. And I bought it. And man, I love this watch. I wear it as much as I wear my Cartier.
Everett I think that's a better watch than a entry-level Zen.
Andrew I'd put it on par with the 556. I'd say if you're looking at a 556.
Everett That's a better watch than a 556.
Andrew If you're looking at a 556, buy this watch.
Everett Tip to tail, everything about that is better than the 556.
Andrew You can buy it today, and it's half the price.
Everett And it's just better. It's better. It's better at every single angle, dimension. Everything about it is better. So the question is, Is it a luxury good? How do we define this? And we don't have to answer it. In fact, we're not going to. But when we talk about luxury, we say, oh, you know, Rolex is a luxury brand. Fucking Trask is a luxury brand. All of these watches are luxury watches.
Andrew But if we look at inflation, if we look at dollar signs only. If we think 1950 to current 10x, you're buying a Sub at $150, $175. 10X puts you at $1,700. At $1,700 today, you're getting into, and we're not exactly, right? We're neighborhooding. You're getting into Manta. You're getting north of Christopher Ward.
Everett And I think- Or the best Christopher Ward sports watches.
Andrew Yeah. You're getting into Zodiac, which is contemporaneous, but different. You're getting into Doxa. You're getting into true fucking tool watches. And I think that one of the things that, and this is not a bitch about Manta, but it's just a thing about Manta. I don't think they really push into their tool watch nature. They're really refined. They're really elegant. they're like almost too elegant for what they really are is that these are just daily bangers. And I think that's something really special that the sub captured in balancing this tool watch with subtle kind of every man elegance that has been tried and tried and tried to be recreated throughout the industry. and just never quite hit the mark in the same way. And I don't know if it's just the legacy of Rolex that makes it that way. Like if it's the way, if it's the way I see Rolex in my head, or if it's truly the design. But if you look at everything after Rolex, or with maybe next to Rolex, the Sub did a thing in creating this really elegant tool that hasn't quite, at least in my mind, been captured in the same way.
Everett Well, you know, so you kind of bring up a good point, right? Because Manta, I don't think it's any secret, Manta is absolutely without, and I don't think Justin or Mike would deny this, Manta is absolutely looking to capture what the modern Rolex sports watch does.
Andrew And they're really close.
Everett without really tipping into that cost. So in some ways, Manta is like, we're going to give you a Rolex quality watch for a quarter or a tenth of the price.
Andrew Which they do. I don't think there's a person with two legs that can stand on that argument that they don't.
Everett It's really close, right? With that said, it's interesting when you look back at the very most sort of in-demand watches created in the 60s, perhaps, or the late 50s, what we see is these materials, right? We've got, perhaps, radium. We've got aluminum. We've got soft steels.
Andrew We've got... Shit that we wouldn't look twice at.
Everett Molded metals. We have these materials. And the ones that are the most expensive are the ones where the radium is leaking brown. The black paint is brown. The red on your aluminum bezel is gray. The examples of these watches that capture our imaginations and make us think, oh my gosh, I want that $500,000 watch or whatever, are the ones that have patina, whereas For a modern, say, Rolex or whatever, we want the ones that are going to withstand that, right? We want glossy ceramics. We want sapphire.
Andrew We want... We want 316L steel.
Everett We want Swiss Superluminova that will never change color. And you know what? If you want it to change color, we'll just start it off brown because it's not fucking changing.
Andrew No, we'll add some dye.
Everett And so there is there's a bit of a inconsistency there that I don't know that we're going to have time to reckon with today. But it's just an interesting observation, Andrew, based on based on your last thought. So as we as we, you know, have another 65 years of watches. We'll have to revisit this. So on episode 7,952, we'll come back to this.
Andrew That was good quick math.
Everett We'll come back to this and we'll talk about it. But there's a bunch of things that we haven't figured out, right? And so we don't know. But what is a luxury watch today? You get to decide. Because it's all just fucking jewelry. It's functional jewelry.
Andrew I'm prepared to opine on it. The watch brands that are the Rolex of our era are brands that are selling them consistent with inflation and consistent with quality of production. Now, there's no denying the fact that Rolex is doing in-house shit, in-house movement shit. Omega is doing in-house movement shit. That has yet to be achieved by many, most all. There's a couple brands like truly doing it that aren't mega brands, but they're different.
Everett Well, yeah, you've got, you've got Seiko, you've got Rolex, you've got perhaps Citizen. Um, but, but yeah, no, you're right there.
Andrew There's that's a, that's a Delta that has yet to be covered, but the, what you can get at the speaking of production watch brands is your point, right?
Everett Speaking of production watch brands. Yeah.
Andrew But what you can get at the 1500 to $3,000 price range, which is consistent with inflation of a sub to now, you can get things not just marginally better, but orders of magnitude better that are comparable to what a sub or an explorer or a date just is. And you know, like I think even, even Tudor is a good example. You can't get into a Pelagos brand new in box for 3000 bucks. And I think Pelagos is the best tutor. You can get into Arranger for a little less than that. I want to say like 28. I might be wrong. And BB-58 too. Yeah, you can get in there like in the zone of 3,000 bucks. But at that point, you're paying for a label, not just the specs. And I think that's something that really like drove our beginnings. I was like, what are the specs? Hours, you mean, you mean, uh, 14, 14, 20s. Like what are the specs? What can you, what, where's the bang for your buck? The objectively best. Yeah. Which is why our objectively best scientifically trademarked scoring system exists. Cause it's not just about the logo at the 12 o'clock and the odd occasion, like the nine o'clock, which I fucking hate. So yeah, it's all luxury. Anything over an F91 is luxury.
Everett I think that's right. Yeah. Well, I obviously we haven't solved anything today, but today was more just going to be a conversation about how we see watches. And so if you're, if you're new here, frankly, I think this would be a great episode. If you're new to watch podcasts, I think this would be a great episode to tune into if If you're listening to this and you're like, you know what, I know a guy, I should send him this. We would love you if you did that. Not even that we're trying to push our show, but I think it's these types of conversations that people can have outside of any sort of formal podcast or reading. You can have these conversations and think about these things, and that's what makes the hobby fun. If you know someone, send them this episode. Say, hey, check these guys out.
Andrew They're not total and complete assholes. Well, we are.
Everett But yeah, enjoy your watches. Think about your watches. Love your watches. Or don't, right? But if you're going to, do. Andrew, do you have any other parting thoughts? I know we had kind of built in some other parts of this show, but as we're a little bit long in the tooth, I think we call them.
Andrew I'm super happy with where we got.
Everett Yeah, me too.
Andrew I liked talking about watches with you.
Everett Other things besides watches. What do you got? I'm going to revisit another thing.
Andrew Because that's how much I like said other thing. So I think two years ago I talked about this. So I think I think we have an acceptable amount of time between the original and the current. It's kind of a revisit and also just I can fucking do it. Shortly after I moved into my current house, I had some more space on my patio. So as a tradition, actually, when we bought our first house, I bought a grill. And shortly after I bought this house, I bought another grill because I had more space on the patio. And I bought a Masterbuilt Gravity Series 560. And this thing is phenomenal. I also have a pellet grill. It's one of the compact, what do they call them, tailgater editions. I have a Pit Boss portable tabletop pellet grill. I really like the pellet grill. Um, I've used it in at my house. Like I've pulled it out of the trailer to use it because I needed more space. Uh, so first I'll say don't get the five 60, the five 60 right now at home Depot is 400 bucks. Go all the way and get the 10 50 on Amazon. They're $900. That's, about twice the space. What's the number? The 1050. Okay. Which refers to the cubic inches of cooking space. Okay. Um, get the 1050. The 1050 has a collapsible, uh, worktop in front, which is super nice. Cause I have to, it, there's like a whole maneuvering of quarter sheets and shit when I'm using every single cubic inch of that grill space. Yeah. Um, so here, here's the reason I like it. It has all the same functionalities and digital capabilities as a Traeger, right? Everyone loves Traeger because you just, you just set some buttons, you do your thing. It churns your fuel, which it, which it all does. in the gravity? The gravity can mix your fuel. So you can use lump, you can use charcoal, you can use charcoal, or you can use wood. They don't recommend you put more than two pounds of wood into your hopper, but you can put a bunch of wood into your ashtray that just smolders and then filters up and into your smoking chamber. It can get up to 700 degrees, which is better than the Traeger. And it gets there fast. It's super quick. I go, I start my fire. I go back inside five minutes later, I'm at 500 degrees. Oof. Like two minutes later, I'm at 250. So I can just throw things onto the grill. It comes with all kinds of great attachments. It has like a, uh, rotisserie attachment. It's, I use this thing during the winter. Like I, I will go outside bundled up to use this grill during the winter cause it's super fast to start. It's super easy to keep clean the, the trays and everything pull out really easily. The way the inside of your, of your cooking vessel is designed is super easy to scrape. It's summer is upon us. You probably need a new grill. Get one of these master build gravities. The only thing I'll say about them is that the switches on the, so there's several electronic switches. It won't run the fan if any of the lids are open for like as a safety mechanism. Those aren't super reliable. They fail. So if your firebox door is open, there's a switch to indicate that your firebox is closed, your hopper box, and then your actual grill lid. The switches are 10 bucks and they're plug and play. My lid switch is custom in that it doesn't register if it's open, which is not problematic. A friend of mine who has a gravity, his firebox switch is broken. That doesn't register that it's closed. So his fire, like his fan won't blow. So we had to replace it. It's 10 bucks. This is a, just an absolutely terrific grill. Go big. I got the 560. I got the smallest one cause I was going kind of cheap. I do wish I had the extra, cubic inches of cooking space. Spend a thousand bucks. It's expensive, but you're going to fucking love it.
Everett Oh, I could. I, I've been thinking about a smoker slash grill. It goes low too, right?
Andrew It goes down to 170. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a good, maybe lower. It goes really low. I've done a lot of smokes at 180. But like when you power it up, when you push the button, another complaint, it does have to be plugged in. So you do need to have an extension cord to be able to reach it. But when you turn it on, it defaults to 225. Oh, nice. It's just like, oh, I know what I'm here for.
Everett That's great. I like it. I'm glad you came back to it. Yeah, I remember when we talked about it. I remember you saying you got the smaller one and I thought,
Andrew Yeah, no, and I hold my regrets of buying the smaller one. You cheaped out, you played yourself. But it fits perfectly between the columns on my grill, if I'd have gotten, or on my patio, if I'd gotten the bigger one, it wouldn't fit between the... You'd have to bump it in. I'd have to divest my other one. And I really like having an offset, because there's sometimes when I want to do an all wood, smoke and just like sit on my porch and tend to fire all day.
Everett Yeah. Cool. Cool. Good. I like the recall. So that's the revisit. Andrew, I've got another thing and it's not a revisit. It's a brand new thing to me. So a few months ago, one of my law partners, I'd been talking about getting a computer for my office, or excuse me, a television for my office. I hadn't really thought about what I was going to get. I was just going to get a television, but I've been talking about it for like six months. I'm like, I'm going to get this. I'm going to get this. And I just, I just wasn't getting it. And so he sent me, this is probably March, early March. He sends me a link to Amazon and says, yeah, I remember the deal. I almost got it too. He says, now's the time. And the reason why was that Samsung had just started pre-orders for its new model of the frame is what Samsung calls it. So Samsung formerly known as sort of the best TVs, I think that they've taken some flack in recent years for the quality and their operating system sucks and blah, blah, blah, their UI sucks. Anyway, Samsung has sort of fallen from grace in terms of TV, but the frame is still highly regarded both in terms of what it does and the way it works. So the deal was, if you pre-ordered a Samsung frame, you got free a 65-inch entry-level Samsung TV, which works because I had moved in, I think, 2021 and had taken my 55-inch TV to the new house in which it was really too small. Our living room is a lot bigger. The wall you put it on is
Andrew It's enormous.
Everett That's like a home theater wall. It sits on this massive wall. And so the 55 inch screen head was just a little bit undersized. And so it was like, well, this, this works. I'm going to get my office TV and I'm also going to upgrade my front room TV. And so I bid the 65 inch came immediately. The frame, because it was a pre-order didn't come until this week. And I don't really know anything about this television. So if you don't know, a Samsung The Frame is a TV that's been designed to, when you're not using it, display artwork with a special finish on the screen and a reduced frame rate that looks really good. It looks like art when you're not using the television as a TV. sort of fits into the office vibe, right? Or perhaps like a nicer TV room where you want to be able to not have a TV in that room sometimes. So came in this week. Um, I hung it today. I actually hung it today and I, after being goaded, yeah, well, I, you got bullied into it. I was pretty busy and so I didn't really have time. Anyway, today was the day. So, and I knew today was going to be the day. So I, open the box up and I start pulling things out and I'm like, what the fuck? Like just kind of confused. Um, you know, instead of having like a wall mount where, you know, you just screw something in the wall and you'd hang the TV on that thing and then you can move the TV. It comes with these two square brackets.
Andrew Cause it's got to hang us a wall cause it's a frame. That's right.
Everett These two flat square metal brackets that catch these screws that you stick on the back of the TV and the screws sort of slot down in and then set took me, I don't know, probably about 20 minutes to kind of figure out what I was doing. And I get that they give you this piece of paper, you hang up on the wall to sort of line up your potholes. I got it all mounted.
Andrew And is it heavy enough that you need to hit studs?
Everett uh for me no it comes it's not designed to go into studs so certainly you could put it into studs but it's it's pretty light i'm just saying like i have a old plasma and that bitch gotta go into studs no for just the just the wall mount has to go into studs for the 43 drywall anchors i think are fine um But actually the mounting, once I figured it out, the mounting solution is really clever. I said earlier self-leveling. It's not self-leveling, but it's got a leveling function. You'd have to see it, but essentially there's these diagonal slots that the screws go into that mirror one another that give you the ability to level it once it's hung. So like Andrew said, so you just have to get them close. Yes, you get these squares up on the wall, level, close to level. And then once you hang the TV, you've got a little bit of room to shift. Anyway, I get this thing up and- It's like bracketed hanging wire. And I turn it on and I'm using the TV. The TV's fine. I don't know much about TV specs. It's fine. It's bright enough. The blacks are black enough. It plays baseball. It plays baseball. It's fine for a television. But it's when you turn it off and you put it into the art mode, that I was blown away at how good it looks. You know, I, I knew the whole, the whole gist is it's going to look like art when you put it up. It's, you know, the finish is this or that to make it, I put this thing into art mode and it's like, it is a sleeper. If you walked into my office and you weren't like looking, You would have no clue, Andrew. It just looks like a finished or a framed print. That's what it looks like. It just looks like a well-framed print.
Andrew It is stunning. How fast is the transition between watching television and back into art mode?
Everett Five or six seconds. Okay. It sort of shuts itself down. It's got like a little shutting down signal, you know, artwork thing in the middle.
Andrew Okay. So no clandestine television watching while you're billing to like go back to Monet.
Everett Well, I own the fucking place so I don't have to be clandestine. In fact, all afternoon, so the, the, well not all afternoon, the Mariners game came on at four. I think I've turned the pregame on at three 30 just to have it on. And, uh, one of my partners came in and talked to me too. Both of my associates came in, we're, talking to me about stuff, and I just had the fucking television on, and I don't care because I own it. I own. Well, you lease the space. Sure. But it's my, I don't care. Yeah, I have the Mariners game on. Fuck off. Like, I don't have to hide it. You know, they make these, I love it. I don't have to hide anything. They make these websites, oh, you can hide it and it'll look like it's a spreadsheet.
Andrew Incognito.
Everett I don't have to do any of that shit. Yeah, the Mariners game is on. Do you want to watch? No, get the fuck out.
Andrew I was really intrigued by it. I'm actually, I, I, I like that, uh, that review. Cause I've been for the, you know, our recording studio, I've been considering a frame. So it doesn't look like a TV room, even though it's a, I don't know what I'm trying to hide in here. It's a fucking train, children's train table and a basketball hoop in here and a faulty light. Uh, I've been considering the frame. I like, I was really close to cashing in on that same deal.
Everett So prices on these, you don't get 65 inch anymore, but prices on these, I think the 43 is 900 bucks and that's the small one. There's another size, I think 51 or 52 that's in there. The 55 is 1400.
Andrew The 75 is $2,500. And if you're going to buy anything less than a 75, you're a bitch.
Everett I think the 75 is the big one. That's $2,500. And then the 65, I think the 55 and 65 are going to be the ones people mostly buy. And they're $1,400 and $1,800, respectively. 65 currently is $1,800. 55 currently is $1,400. That's what I just fucking said. 85 is $4,200. So I do amend my statement of if you're going to buy anything less than 75, you're a bitch.
Andrew If you're going to buy anything less than 85, you're a bitch. Go all the way. Get something as big as the as the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and and buy the TV.
Everett Andrew, speak now, forever hold your peace. I am. I don't have anything to contribute. Hey, you guys. Thanks for joining us. for this episode of 40 and 20 watch clicker podcast. Do me a favor, go to our website. It's watch clicker.com. You know the deal. That's where the articles are. You can also check us out on social media at 40 and 20 underscore watch clicker or at watch clicker. If you want to support us and really you ought to, cause you're listening, you're doing it for free. Go on to patreon.com slash 40 and 20 and throw us a buck. Uh, that's, that's where we get all the money to make this thing. Keep going guys. And furthermore, finally, before I let you go, don't forget to tune back in next Thursday for another hour of Watches, Food, Drinks, Life, and other things we like.
Andrew Buh-bye.