Modern Watches Deserving a 50th Anniversary Release (308)

Published on Wed, 18 Sep 2024 20:48:41 -0700

Synopsis

In this episode of the 40 in 20 podcast, host Andrew is joined by guest Frank to discuss watches that deserve a 50-year anniversary edition. They set parameters of watches released in the last decade under $10,000. Some picks include the Ressence Series Zero, Christopher Ward Belcanto and C1 Grand Malvern, Formex Reef, Tudor Black Bay 58, Bulgari Octo Finissimo, and the Seiko SKX. They discuss the innovations and impacts these watches had on the industry. Frank also recommends glow-in-the-dark pacifiers as a helpful product for new parents. Andrew reviews the Solomon X Ultra 4 hiking boots he recently purchased. They wrap up by encouraging listeners to join their Discord and Patreon.

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 forget about Everett, because he's not here today. We have my good friend, Frank, and here we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Frank, how are you? I'm good, man. How are you? I'm so good. I'm really happy to be here. So, uh, We don't have to forget about Everett. Everett is suffering from a case of the under the weathers. I saw him, though, when I went to pick up the audio card for the board and he looked pretty fine. I think he's faking it. I don't know exactly what he's up to over there, but he claims to be sick. So Frank is here joining us tonight to stand in for him. And honestly, you're much more pleasant to look at. I'm really pleased for that. I do wish you were local and sitting in my chair across from me and not over FaceTime, but you know what? I'll make do with what I can.
Frank Yeah. I wish I was in Pacific time zone as well. It's, it's my favorite time zone. Um, like next to mountain. I like mountain as well, but East coast is the worst.
Andrew It, it is. It's really the worst because you're way later than everyone. And traveling is harder. It's way easier to travel forward in time. Like the jet lag is just not nearly as bad than it is to come backwards. At least in my, you know, my humble experience of moving between time zones.
Frank Yeah. I do like the excuse to wear like a GMT watch, but I swear the older I get, the less I care. And also like, if I'm being honest, I'm, I'm pretty bad at reading them. I usually. get the time wrong whenever, whenever I'm wearing a GMT and I'll read it wrong. But I guess that's, that's kind of neither here nor there. Um, what are we talking about today, man?
Andrew Oh, so we have, uh, I know I, I, before we get into that, I find that when I'm wearing a GMT, I use just the 24 hour. It's like way faster for me to read as opposed to the, the traditional three hands of the remainder of the hands. I'm gonna be like, oh, it's about four o'clock. I don't need minutes. I just need to know how close I am from one hour to the next or generally what hour of the day it is. I could get by without a watch probably just based on the sun, except in the Pacific Northwest where you might never see it for like weeks at a time.
Frank Yeah, we get like equal, sunny days to you guys where I am in Western New York. It's like, I don't know, maybe we get, I think we get more rain and less sun than you do in the Pacific Northwest from Denver. I just, I guess that's pretty recent for you. I moved from Denver to Western New York. It was a full 180 day swing of sunny days from Denver to here. So I'm much paler and, uh, significantly more depressed now. I don't know how you read the military time thing, probably cause you were in the military. That's somewhat fortunate that you got that skill out of it. I missed a flight to Rome the first, uh, first time I was traveling like with a GMT watch. Cause I like preemptively changed my time zone. I thought I was like, I was so excited to do it that I changed my local time. Yeah. It changed the local time to Rome and like the GMT time to East coast. And I just, straight up miss my flight. Like they had to sleep in the airport in Toronto. My wife had to, uh, like travel alone to a different city and like meet me at the new city. It was just an absolute nightmare. And, uh, I still, still don't live that down. She's like, Oh yeah, you want to get a new watch? And it's a GMT watch. Like you don't even know how to read the time.
Andrew What are you doing? You're going to learn how to read it this time. So before we dive into it, uh, The last time I don't, I didn't write down the date, but it's been a good little chunk of time since, since you've been on what, what's new, what's changed for those of us or for, for those out there who, uh, are regular listeners and maybe not perhaps regular readers.
Frank Yeah, sure. Since the, the last time that we, I guess the last time we talked was over a year ago now. Um, I had a baby. That's great. My wife had a baby. So we recently had a son. It's been, I say recent, about four months now. So we're still very much in the thick of kind of new parenthood. That's been awesome. I really like that little guy. He's the best. I love kind of the whole experience of it. It's been incredible to see my wife go through the process and like to support her and be kind of that stabilizing force has been Really the joy of my life and I use it as a great opportunity to get a watch recently. I added a watch to my collection. I picked up a Sub 300 Doxa. I know that I've talked a lot of smack on the podcast and off about Doxa. So I'll take all the heat for that.
Andrew It's okay. The text that you sent me was, it just, it made my heart float. I didn't feel like I told you so. I was like, you know what? I'm just so happy that that you're back in the fold. Uh, cause Frank texted me just a picture of the watch and was like, I'm having to eat my words a little bit here. I did just pick this up. It's a pro. Like when I, when I first started kind of thinking about watches, every time I saw the pro I was like, I could never do an orange watch. And now the pro has a place in my heart where it's like, I want, I want the Caribbean because I really like that blue dial, but I also, I don't feel like there's too much overlap to also have the pro. I feel like I can have both and feel pretty good about it.
Frank You could definitely have both, especially like you could get the carbon, the carbon sub 300. They're crazy expensive, but they sell for peanuts on the, on like the used market. I have a buddy that just sold his carbon for like, I want to say $1,900, which is like $600 less than the steel is retail right now. Um, so if you're looking, you could get one for, for pretty cheap.
Andrew I, I have this thing. I've, I've never bought a used watch. I don't have any problem with buying used watches for other people or like other people buying them. But I, uh, I want to be the one that like, I left those scratches on there. I haven't, I don't know what watch is going to get me over that hump. Um, I imagine one will someday, but I want to be like, every time I look at my Santos and I'm like, God, who fucked, Oh, you did that. You did that to your, your bezel. Like that's on you, pal. Or like some of them are like kind of deep gouges in the case. I'm like, what the fuck did you do? But I think what I'll do is I'll get a 300 T and a 300 and just, then there's no real overlap.
Frank Yeah. And I feel required to, to complain a little bit, like because I talked all that smack and I, I am validated by it a hundred percent. This watch sells a brand new from them for like $2,600 right now. It has the clasp on it of a like $400 micro brand watch. Like it is absolutely ridiculous that they're putting this out there at, at $2,600 in the year 2024. Um, but the watch is so good. It's like, it's, It's just so good. Oh man. I really like it. I'm happy I picked it up. I picked up the pro. Um, I sold the pro to get into coffee, bought an espresso machine with that money. And I still had a little bit left over to go towards this, but wasn't it a GMT that you sold to? Yeah, I sold a, I sold the seven 50 T GMT for all you like kind of model number nerds, which was a kind of older one from, I don't know that the 2010s early, but was like not that great of a watch. If I'm being honest, like it really wasn't, I would say maybe if you were to re-release it today in that same quality, it would be like a thousand dollar diver, maybe, maybe 800 bucks. And because of the scarcity of it and because like the docs name there, they sell for unreasonably more than that. So it just wasn't a worthwhile to hold on to and be like, That thing is like driving a bus and then this is like a Ferrari on your wrist. Like the difference is just ridiculous.
Andrew That's a good comparison. So now that we're caught up, I've made you publicly eat a little bit of your words. Uh, that wasn't why I, we, you know, we brought you on tonight. Um, so we'll go ahead and queue up the music and be, uh, so, Tonight, as we're planning up our episode, it was a little bit last minute, we kicked back some ideas back and forth. What do we want to talk about? And one of the things that we like to talk about when we bring on guests is slightly different perspectives because you guys listen to me and Everett entirely too much. So thank you for continuing to listen to us, but we wanted to bring in some new perspectives. So our topic tonight is from the Discord. As suggested by Frank, which is always it, that's a winner choice. Watches that deserve a 50 year anniversary edition. And we set some parameters, right? And we both kind of took a slightly different route on how we got there, but the parameters were about under 10,000 and about in the last decade. And then we went to work. And then we got on to do our pre-show talk. And why don't you dive in Frank to the, the immediate hurdles that we both independently ran into without texting each other back and forth.
Frank Yeah. So, so first I want to give a shout out to the discord member, the member of the Patrion that suggested this idea. It came from admit to I'm Rowan and he puts in a bunch of different ideas to the potential, uh, topic show. channel that we have in the discourse. So I appreciate him putting that in there and you can join our discord. You are welcome. I think it's like a dollar.
Andrew Um, are you talking to me or to the, to the, to anyone?
Frank Because you know, it's great to get new ideas and plus, uh, it's, uh, it's good to be in the discord, but thank you. Ed admitted to I'm Rowan to submitting this. Um, when you're thinking about 50th anniversary watches 50 years from now and like the current status, We wanted it to be a new watch and the de facto brands at large currently don't really put out a lot of new watches. It's a lot of re-releases. It's a lot of anniversary. It's a lot of special edition stuff. And so we started looking at like newer brands, some smaller stuff, but then you come into the hurdle that they have to be around in 50 years to put out the anniversary watch. So you're really working with a small Quadrant of the industry that could foreseeably do this and then of that Like you had also like the watch like there was a few different watches on here that that I thought could make the list But I just wasn't really super into or I didn't think were Like revolutionary or meaningful enough to warrant picking And I think Andrew came into some of that same problem
Andrew Yeah, I very much did. I started like kind of churning over watches and I was like, Oh, this is a really cool release, but it's, yeah, it'll probably get a 50 year anniversary release. You know, I think I, one of the watches that we talked about in texting back and forth was the moon swatch. So we're just going to get that out of the way right now. The moon swatch will obviously have a 50 year anniversary release and the moon swatches also fully deserving of it. But the moon swatch, It is a pseudo re-release, re-imagining of a watch that was released in the 60s. It's almost like it was an anniversary release in and of itself. It's special. Absolutely. It represents a huge collaboration, represents this cool thing, but it's kind of just like a downstream of the original cool thing that it was modeled after. So that's, unless you have anything to add about the moon swatch, I'll kind of circle back to before I left this on this tangent.
Frank No, I think that that sums it up. Um, I, that's why I don't think it really should be included, but it definitely will have, um, some sort of, of, 50th anniversary and I think you can expand that to like any of those swatch collabs the the 50 fathoms obviously is going to and really any of those re-releases like the the new the latest Snoopy is going to have a 50th anniversary of its own any of these kind of like big collab of an existing platform we're looking for new platforms that were launched that uh that will have their own and that was kind of hard to
Andrew to do because, you know, when we see in this like 2010 to 2000, we'll call it 2020, there was a significant shift in small watches, right? We saw a change from small watch brands who make maybe one, two watches, both of them probably catalog to small watch brands that are really, really viable and successful who are doing true design. But the question is, are these brands and, you know, comes to top of mind, are brands like Manta and Notice and Brew and Boulder, like Baltic. No, not Baltic. Oh, boy. What's happening? Doesn't matter. A lot of brands come to the top of mind of like, OK, you're new in this 2010 to 2020 time zone. Are you going to still be here in 50 years? Like, are you going to be able to have huge money bags behind you and longevity in brand ownership? Because 50 years, that represents like more likely than not a change in ownership or at least a change in who's who's at the helm. So that kind of made it hard. And then as you're looking through other brands who are releasing, you know, we have a couple truly new releases from big brands. So it was, this was a little bit harder exercise than, than I expected it to be. Um, and then, you know, you get way up North of affordable, right? You get North of 10,000 and you start getting into the one of a kind watches that it almost doesn't deserve a 50th anniversary. Cause that would maybe cheapen the specialness of that one single release. Um, Yeah, so we ran into that same hurdle of what has really happened in the last 10 years that was truly innovative, truly new, and deserves to be actually recognized again in 50 years in a meaningful way. Why don't you, Frank, kick us off with your first pick?
Frank Sure. I have for my first pick a watch. I think a lot of you will know, but maybe not at the time. I'm going to choose the release from the 2010 Baselworld by the brand launching their very first watch, Resence. And Resence launched the Series Zero in 2010. And this is an oil-filled watch that has a completely unique winding mechanism and time setting mechanism. If you've never seen it before, it's like, I don't know, a completely circular disc watch case. There's no curves on the side at all of the case. And then when you look at the dial, it's almost opaquely black. And then you have three rotating discs that tell the time in a different way than really has been done before. And the dial is completely filled with oil. And it's based off a 2824 movement. So it's, it's not creating some brand new movement, but it's just telling time in a unique way. And you wind the watch with this kind of folding onion crown that pops out. And these came out at $9,500 at the time they go for significantly more now. Like I want to say. upwards of 15,000 is their starting point. And they go all the way up to like 40,000 for their type three black, which I think is the coolest one. They've done a bunch of cool collabs, but when this launched, there really was nothing like it at the time. And since there isn't anything like it, it was made out of titanium 42 millimeters. And when you saw the images come out, it was like, What, what even is that thing? It looked almost kind of a postmodern era. Like when I looked at it and you think of this topic and the watches that have been released in the last 10 years, all being kind of inspired by the, the 60s, 70s dive watches and, and sports watches and the, and the great dress watches of the, the era previous to that, the designers of those would look at this watch and they probably wouldn't recognize it. I think it really is an example of modernity.
Andrew It's kind of one of the first examples we see of this postmodern design that's like very 80s, like not inspired, but very 80s of like, this is the watch of the future. This is what the future is going to look like, right? Like I think of the Jetsons and we're well past the year of the Jetsons and I don't have a flying car, nor is my house floating. But that's what people had this, this idea of what the future looked like. And then, you know, as we, as the, the future turns into the present, we're like, Oh, let's just like be imaginative of things that probably aren't like, we have no idea what it's going to look like, but let's make something for it.
Frank This is a cool watch. I want one at all. I want one now, but I can't afford it. And I want one in 50 years from now. I probably, maybe if I'm still alive, we could swing one. If we pool our money. Um,
Andrew We'd have to share it. We'd have to come up with a custody agreement. I'm cool with that. I'd be, I'd be pretty okay with that. Uh, I probably, I probably won't be alive in 50 years and that's okay. I'm not, you know, that's not morbid or anything. It's just realistic. Um, okay. So my, my first watch, I'm going to cheat and I'm going to do two at once because they're from the same brand. So it's not super cheating. And since Everett isn't here, there does have to be a cheater. Um, I'm going to start with what I think is maybe the more appropriate of the two and then move to the close second. I'm going with the Christopher Ward Belcanto. And Christopher Ward Belcanto comes in at like $4,200 for a minute repeater. And I maybe need to say it again, $4,200 for a chiming repeater watch made at fully out of titanium, all in house to make this happen. Previous to this release, you're not going to touch a chiming watch for anything less than double this. And it's coming from an affordable watch brand. You know, this, like when this came out, This was far and away the most expensive watch that Christopher Ward produced by like almost twice, right? Like you're getting in the low 2000s for some of the C60s, but like this was revolutionary, right? Like Mike France in a trench coat is flashing this chiming watch at wind up at people because it's such an amazing feat and it showed what an innovative brand can do to compete with high horology in a really real way. Everything about this watch is fantastic and it's more affordable than it isn't.
Frank It's also beautiful. It was shocking, absolutely shocking when it came out. Like when they launched the watch, the entire industry did a double take. They were like, where, what the hell, what are you guys doing over there? Like they had really come, come out with up until that point, fairly like standard issue stuff. Like they did some cool things for sure, but nothing even in the realm of. That watch the, the Belcanto puts them in a different category altogether and completely separates them from really most of their peers.
Andrew Um, and probably every single one of their peers, there's no, There's no similarly sized company or similarly affordable company, right? Cause we can't just look at production or like amount of SKUs. There's no one doing a chiming repeater watch for under $10,000. Christopher Ward's like, Hey, here you go. We have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Oh no, sorry. About five SKUs of it. I was counting bracelet and strap on their website. That's too many. Like we don't have 20 skews of the bell content. We got like four, four or five. And there's been a couple of special editions. There was a red one, right? Um, but this is not just a one-off. This is an in production. We're making this and selling it to you. Watch. This is, this is a game changer for, small brands. And it's not just that what we as a consumer can access, it's demonstrating what smaller brands can achieve and have access to.
Frank Yeah. And it's when you talk to anybody in the know, like when you talk to your local watchmaker, this is the watch that they want. Like this is the watch that the watchmaker Um, that's behind the counter and they're like fixing stuff and they don't face with the public. This is the one that they're buying. It's incredible that they were able to accomplish it and, and pull it off. And it absolutely will get a 50th anniversary. And I wonder what, what it looks like. It's probably going to look, I would say significantly different, right?
Andrew I bet it's going to be less money and have a tourbillon like just like, right. Cause Christopher Ward can do this. They just, they, they have their, their. their flagships, right? Their primary SKUs, their constant catalog so that they can do this really cool shit. And and now is a decent time to pivot to like the close second place. And it's going to be the Christopher Ward C1 Grand Malvern, which is the first light catcher case. So Balcanto came out two years ago. So we're square in the in the rules of 10 years. First light catcher came out in 2014. So we're, we're, we're in the zone. And the light catcher case is this really subtle, but super apparent game changer in case design, in playing with light and how to, how to manipulate our eyes and how we perceive the information that's coming in off of a, off of a watch dial. And I'm, I'm wearing a, a C 63 right now in this light catcher case. And there's, there's just nothing like it. There's, there's similar watches, right? And I understand there's, you know, there's a fixed amount of angles you can cut a mid case with, but this is, this became their, their gold standard of case making. And that was new and different and not nearly as, um, It doesn't make as big of a splash, but I think it's equally awesome and important and another great demonstration of a brand doing something new and different to show that they're new and different because this is maybe a better way to do it and absolutely deserving of a 50th anniversary.
Frank Yeah. It was the first time that you're seeing like fanfare. for enthusiasts pulled from higher end luxury Swiss watches and brought to a lower price point. When you look at the case profile of any light catcher case and you compare it side by side with like iconic 90s Omega sport watches, they're really close, but average Joe was not going around buying an Omega Seamaster 300. Like they just weren't doing that. Um, and they couldn't, and now you like feasibly can, like you could save up and buy one of these and have on your wrist, maybe the most beautiful case, um, within two to three times that price point. It's, it's great stuff that Christopher Ward put out.
Andrew You're not, I, you're not getting a case profile as good as the C63 until you're starting to get into. that two and $3,000 range, and maybe even higher, right? Like Seiko, some of the five series, you know, the DressKX profile is absolutely stunning. The SARB case profile is stunning, but they've got a whole lot more ass to lose money and a whole lot of other places to develop that technology, where Christopher Ward is putting, like, it's a little bit different environment. You expect it out of Seiko. You expect it out of out of Rolex and Tudor and and these luxury brands. It's meaningful and noteworthy to see it out of an affordable brand.
Frank So I think that that concludes the the Belcanto.
Andrew Chris Ward, my Christopher Ward talk.
Frank Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I you've sold me. I kind of I look when I was looking at the the watch to buy this, you know, for the child, I looked at the C60 hard and that was the main driving point was like, it's just such a beautiful, beautiful side profile. The next watch that I want to.
Andrew Yeah.
Frank Oh, sorry. Sorry. Go ahead, Aaron.
Andrew I look at, I look at that watch. I look at that watch all the time. Cause I want to get like a good spec dive watch. I'm like, man, I like, I really, really like the C60 profile. but I want to spend more money. So maybe, maybe they can just charge me double and I'll feel better about it.
Frank That's like, that's definitely true. Right. You're like, ah, it's, it's just not quite enough. I was willing to spend this much and that's what I'm going to spend. Um, the, the next thing I want to, the next watch that I want to talk about is from a brand by some, you know, kind of industry juggernaut, uh, familial ties, the, the folks over at Formax, are kind of born, raised in the Swiss watch industry. I think that they will be around for a long, long time and have the, have the chops that I think their brand probably will survive some sort of ownership change. Like in 50 years, I think they're still there because they were there many years ago, but it's not in the form of Formax. The, the owners of a Formax, they have ties to like the actual manufacturing and, and The Formax watch brand was born out of their manufacturing plant. They decided to put it all together and make their own watches. So I think there'll be around and I'm going to say the, the Formax Reef, but really it's, it's kind of the Formax essence. And then the reef was came off of the essence and like was the same platform. So I guess it's the essence, but I'm going to talk about the, the reef today, because I think that's the most compelling watch that they have.
Andrew I like the reef better disagree.
Frank Yeah, maybe. Well, he bought the essence, so.
Andrew He did, and it was the strangest transaction I've ever seen. He had an envelope of uncounted cash and he goes, hey, I think this will do it. And he he took the envelope and didn't even look at it like it could have been Monopoly money and was like, yeah, that'll do it. Like like he's a cash counter by weight. It was a it was a really weird transaction. I've seen a lot of hand to hands in my life, and that was the strangest one.
Frank The old handing somebody cash, it has to be a certain person handing the cash and then also like accepting it. There's a whole genre and swath of people that will not accept that anymore. And I think it speaks also to the folks over at FormX being a little bit more old school and that they would take it. Also, like they're not even American. So like the fact that they just took an envelope full of American cash is kind of funny to me.
Andrew What do we have like? I don't know. Maybe they hit the like hit the exchange rate kiosk in the airport or they had a really great night. Like it's it's hard to say how that how that shook out.
Frank Yeah. So why the the Formax Essence or the or the Reef? They have some truly different technology going into their case. So like their suspension mechanism so that their case is like suspended from the actual like external part of the case is bonkers. If you've never had one in person, like you can press up on the case back and the watch case actually separates from like where the lugs and the external part of the case are. And it's like completely caught me off guard the first time I had one in hand. And I'm not entirely sure the, the science behind why or how that's so much better. but it is significantly more comfortable because you have like this flex built in. And then they did the same thing with their, um, expansion class. Their expansion class is just like flat out the best of anything, even remotely close to, to their price range, like within a, within four to $5,000, I feel like they have the best one that might be a hot take, but it's incredible.
Andrew Oh, we're all about hot takes here. Uh, I'll second your like, this was a, this was a really revolutionary case design. And with the reef, we also saw this really cool modularity of just like pop your bezel off and then pop it back on. It's perfectly aligned. Like everything's good. You're straight. Um, it, it's the strangest thing to be able to like have a, a fidget spinner case with a, like an exterior case with almost like a, a movement and dial housing. suspended within it that that doesn't float free, right? This is it's not floppy. It takes some some a little bit of force to compress it and move it around, but it's it's a straight fidget toy.
Frank Yeah, I want one to fidget with and the whole. Every component of this watch is like is modular. Their their straps, their bracelets, their clasps, their their bezels, the whole thing, and especially at this price point, I feel like you've seen maybe stuff that has kind of the same concept in terms of modularity at a much, much lower price point.
Andrew Like we're talking like, or much, much higher.
Frank Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But nothing that's doing it like with Swiss precision at a respectable, like manufacturing that is going to be respected across anybody that looks at it. It hasn't been done before. And I think it absolutely will get a 50th anniversary. Yeah. I,
Andrew Also we'll probably have a tour beyond because another company who's like, how much technology can we pack into these, the, into this available tiny amount of space? Like how much bet? And they, they do it in a really attractive way too. Like this is an absolutely revolutionary technology. A, I don't think you can even call it game changing cause no one's going to do this. I don't know how they're doing it at an affordable price because it's, it's gotta be like prohibitive.
Frank Yeah. The only reason you can is cause you already have the manufacturing. Like if somebody else wanted to do this, they would have to go source manufacturing and then convince them to just like do something completely different for no apparent reason other than just like, it's cool.
Andrew And, and every part about this watch is unassuming, right? It's, that, you know, the reef is a pretty typical looking crown guarded with a matching symmetric guard on the other side of the case. Dive watch. You wouldn't look at this top down and go, wow, they did something really cool and special here. And, and they found a way to do that. I think that's good. That's pretty great. All right. So what do you have?
Frank What do you have next?
Andrew Next up for me, hang on, I gotta, I gotta reorder my tabs here. Um, I gotta put them in order. I gotta do the notes. Uh, next up for me, and this was one I kinda, I kinda struggled with, um, picking. Uh, and I ultimately decided on it because it marked a big change for this brand that I think is going to be meaningful and for that reason deserves a 50th anniversary. And it's the Black Bay 58. The Black Bay 58 is only, 14 years old. It came out in 2012. And Tudor has always, not always, you know, not since the beginning of time, but since Tudor has been Tudor, it's been a watch brand that you could argue has maybe hung out in the shadows of its older brother, right? It's been there, it's been a participant, but it hasn't been on the forefront necessarily. Because it's got a bigger brother. And with the Black Bay 58 coming out in 2012, which is by no means a revolutionary design, this is a special watch, it's a cool watch, what it really represented in my mind was the Eli and Peyton Manning effect. Eli's always and forever going to be the younger brother, but Eli's a baller in his own right. doesn't have to stand in the shadow of his last name created by his older brother. And this was a huge release, right? Everyone loved it. Everyone continues to love it. The the Black Bay 58 in blue broke the fucking Internet. It was just blue. I don't remember the last Rolex release. Period. I definitely don't remember the last time Rolex did something that was new or different in such a way that everyone from enthusiasts to like high horology people were excited about. I don't, I'm not like the hype that the BB 58 has generated around Tudor is, is really meaningful. And we see all this other cool stuff happening. post 2012 for Tudor. We see a revamping of the Ranger. We see whole new lines and we see new sizing lines. I mean, Tudor is really where it's almost like they're fighting to be more relevant than Rolex. You know, we've got the, the 36, the 39 and what the, is it a 34 of, of the black Bay? 34. They're the 30. Yeah. The 34. So they're, they're just, diversifying and trying to reach this greater market and they're not satisfied with their 12 catalog watches and that's it. And the Black Bay 58 is not necessarily the beginning of this, but it's an indicator of what Tudor is doing and expanding their line and expanding their accessibility. All it like, you know, five grand is not exactly affordable. but it's not unobtainium and you can buy it today, right? You're not going to have to go to an ad and get on a waiting list. You can buy almost any tutor in their catalog right now today. And I think the black Bay 58 is a, is a good representation of that, of them stepping out of the Rolex shadow and, and standing on their own achievements.
Frank It, it marks a fork in the road for two door. a moment where they completely breach what they were doing and end up going on their own little path. And the Black Bay 58 is this moment for them where they leave the market that they were currently selling to. They started, they breached into non-watch people. Like when we saw the swatch get released, it was all these enthusiasts that were excited about the swatch, but it got so big that you had regular folks that were walking around knowing about it. And when you see a Black Bay 58 on somebody's wrist, you kind of have a 50-50 shot that they're into watches because it got so popular.
Andrew I think it's even less than 50-50.
Frank You think so?
Andrew I think it's less than 50-50. I think probably 30% of people you would see a Black Bay 58 on their wrist are like actually watch people. And the rest of them are just people who are like, oh, I really like this watch and I have $5,000 and I can buy it right now today.
Frank Yeah. If you go into the jewelry store to buy a watch, the Black Bay 58 stands head and shoulders above anything else that that is in the case that you can actually purchase. It's, it's clear why it was so popular. And the 50th anniversary is something they're going to do 10 year. They're going to do 25 years, 30 years. They're going to do anniversaries for this watch at every chance they can get because it is a cash cow.
Andrew It, Yeah, I work with a couple people who wear a Black Bay 58, and both of them went into a jeweler to buy a nice watch, saw a sub, couldn't buy it, bought a 58. Yeah. Yeah. And they don't give a shit about watches. They're like, I just wanted a nice watch, and I know that Rolex is a nice watch, but the guy was like, hey, this company is related to Rolex, The watch looks pretty similar and, and, and you can have it today.
Frank I'm sold. Okay. Yeah.
Andrew I'm sold, but this is, this is not revolutionary because it's a big new design. It's revolutionary because of how it affected this brand and then how it affected the watch industry. You know, this didn't put Tudor on the map, not by a long shot. But it changed the perception of Tudor and I think paved the road for it to be able to do things like the Black Bay 34 and 36 and break the internet with a blue watch and introduce a 39 millimeter Pelagos and do all these kind of new things with eyes on them in a way that's like people are actually going to buy their shit because they know the brand.
Frank From Tudor. I'd like to go to maybe a slightly lesser known brand across like regular people. But it's definitely been around for a long time and is hoity-toity. I think they got their teeth cut in the jewelry industry and then kind of moved into watches later on. And again, a release from Baselworld back in 2014. This is right on the cusp of 10 years, but it's there. And it's not within 10 grand, but they've made a lot of versions of this that you can pick up for somewhere in the realm of, you know, 10 to 15 and many that are way over the top. But we're going to talk about the Bulgari Octo Finissimo and this is such a good pick. This is, this is such a good pick. I I'm excited about it. It's, it's one that I've always been. just head over here, heels in love with. Why is it cool? The Octo Finissimo, if you've never seen one, it looks kind of octagonal. That's why they call it, it's why it's got the Octo name, but Bulgari launched a tourbillon movement in this watch that was 1.95 millimeters thick. And this is in 2014, resulting in a case that was only five millimeters. It was the thinnest at the time. got since broken, but then they've continued to, to re break their own records. And then the competing, um, companies records since then, I think they currently hold it or, or maybe they were just beat out by, by a watch. That's like the size of a dime, but this was the watch that kicked it. Yeah. Yeah. This is the watch that kicked it all off though. And really put everyone on notice that Bulgaria was here. Um, not to play and they were going to come out swinging with with the Octo Finissima.
Andrew This is this is such a I'm so glad you picked this because this is. A perfect watch for a 50 year anniversary watch, because Bulgari is not a brand that I think most watch people take seriously as. A watch brand, right? It's it's primarily a jewelry brand. They ventured into watches. I don't understand how people don't give Bulgari the respect that they absolutely so deserve for being a constant competitor in the thinnest watch category. They're making an accurate watch under five millimeters thick. And we're still settling for 13 millimeters. Like 10 is like, oh, that's a, that's a bit of a thick watch. No, that's like exactly twice as thick as what's happening here. And this is an attractive watch, right? It's an octagonal kind of, it's an octagonal internal side of the bezel, a round bezel, a square case. Like there's interesting things happening here. And we're just like, ah, it's Bulgari. They don't make watches. No, they make some of the coolest watches.
Frank Yeah, right now, the thinnest one that they have, the Octo Finissimo Ultra, is 1.8 millimeters thin. For those of you that don't speak metric, that's incredibly thin. It's like less than a coin. Less than a quarter.
Andrew A human hair is two millimeters thick. Right. It's it's it's wild. But and I think I think part of it is because a lot of the other stuff that Bulgari does is just trash. Right. They are still a jewelry brand who are dabbling in high horology, like maybe perhaps for the prestige of holding this record. It doesn't seem like they're making watches that for people who care about watches, they're making watches for people who care about the status of that watch carries. But the status that a 1.5 millimeter watch carries is pretty significant.
Frank Yeah. I, I would love to, to wear or to own an Octo Finissimo at some point. And I think that it's worth, you know, you're not getting the type of hate that you're going to get if you walk around with like a Hublot, but if anybody wants to like talk shit that you're wearing an Octo Finissimo, because you don't, they're not a real watch brand. Like they don't know what they're talking about. These are sick.
Andrew But we give all the respect to Cartier.
Frank Yeah, well, Cartier, I think, is a little bit more tasteful with most of their stuff.
Andrew Yeah, their watch selection is thin, but it's still a jewelry brand.
Frank Yeah, that's what I meant. I think Cartier's jewelry is class. Oh man, they do good stuff over there.
Andrew They really do. I was a little bummed when we went to the storefront and we didn't get champagne and all the stuff I was told I would get like a personal shopper.
Frank Is Cartier, Richemont's, Bulgari? This is off topic. We can just go to the next thing. But are they?
Andrew Maybe.
Frank Right? Like kinda.
Andrew They seem like to be a little bit more deliberate.
Frank Yeah, but isn't just but I think more deliberate.
Andrew It might be on to something here. You might have opened up a whole can of worms that like could be an episode in and of itself. And my last one, we're going to do it quick because we're coming up a little long, as as we always do. But, you know, we have a guest today so we can do that. This was a this was a big cheat. But it's here's how I'm going to justify it. and I'll justify it after I announce what I'm going to talk about. The Seiko SKX deserves a 50-year anniversary watch and not in its reborn again Seiko 5 sports models. The SKX is a 1996 watch. You know, this is a 24-year-old watch. Doesn't fit in the parameters. But in the last decade, we lost this watch. We lost what the last maybe 15 to 20 years of new watch people highly regarded as like the reason they care about watches. This was the gateway drug to I can't even venture a guess at how many people who give a shit about watches, not just in and out of the industry, but like people who care about the watch that they wear on their wrist. They got a well-spec'd professional watch at an affordable price. And it got people into watches and it did the thing, right? This was a huge, it had to be a huge loss leader for Seiko because it was spec'd. Way too good. To be the price that it was, but everyone could afford it. And people knew it.
Frank Yeah, it was a best kept secret for a long time, and you can you can absolutely chart the reclamation of watches in like the modern space turn of the century from the courts crisis courts era. with this watch. And like, of course it had to be Seiko that did this because they were, you know, they were the ones that caused the crisis. Like, like they started this crisis and then simultaneously came out with the SKX.
Andrew And so the reason I feel like it fits is because we've lost this watch in the last five years. This, this watch that used to be, Available to anyone for $100 to $125 is, it's just not there. I don't, the last time I looked for an SKX, it's been, I don't know, probably two years, they were hovering around like $400-ish for a brand new box. I think the new old stock has got to be dried up. You know, there will be a couple little pumps of like, oh shit, we found all, you know, we found these couple hundred in the back of a shipping container, in the storage room of this department store that's closed. But by and large, like this, like this deserves a 50th anniversary just in memorial of the, the watch that was preceded by a lot, a watch that's better in a lot of ways, but just isn't, isn't the watch. You know, the, the, the Sex KX is, is great. And it's better in a lot of ways, but not all the ways. And it doesn't have the same, it didn't continue the legacy that the SKX really held, right? The SNK and the SKX marked this period in affordable quality watches that we will never see again. You know, $100 watch, mechanical movement or an automatic movement, that's well spec'd out, those days are behind us. And for that reason, we need a 50-year anniversary SKX that's $150 and spec'd the same way but improved to be what we want the SKX to be. That's what I hope the 50-year is. All the things that we wished the SKX was, it is at the price point that We remember that.
Frank Yeah, give me a spring drive SKX at. What it would be 10 years from now. The 58th anniversary. 20. 20 years, OK, so 20 years from now, give me an SKX with spring drive for 1200 bucks in 20 years.
Andrew No power reserve indicator.
Frank No, I want like. kind of same dial, but give me like, like do more at whatever's a cheap price in 20 years from now, you know, up the ante. But I think you'll be happy to know the price on these has come down. You can pick up an SKX pretty regularly for under 300 bucks. New old stock ones, you're going to pay a little bit more if you're going to get like the new ones.
Andrew Yeah, I don't want a used one. We've talked about this already today. I don't want a used one.
Frank I don't know. I think you're going to have to get over it with that one. So you could get whatever.
Andrew Anyways, yes. And the watch, that's going to get me over that hump. It's not. I don't even sell watches, the only watch I've considered selling to and the. One of them was a consideration when the Saab was discontinued and their prices went through the roof. I don't know what they are now. I haven't looked in a long time, but I expect they're probably still hovering around like 700 bucks.
Frank The new old stock Seiko SKXs are, depending if you want the Japanese version or the, um, what is it? Thailand, the rest of the world, right? They're like 600 to a thousand bucks, a thousand dollars for an SKX is crazy.
Andrew I mean, I might just be getting old, but no, that's nuts. This was a hundred, $125 watch. That's what it was meant to be sold at. But that's why I want a 50 50 year anniversary because we lost it in the last 10 years, which is why I feel like that wasn't the cheetest of cheats.
Frank Yeah. So I'm going to add one honorable mention that is a cheat, not even a cheat. This is actually real. It's just not going to make everyone mad, but is the most deserving. And it is actually the watch that broke the industry the most. And that's the Apple watch that came out in, uh, in 2015, 2015, it was only 2015. And they're the leading seller of watches in the world.
Andrew Yeah.
Frank I would believe you if you told me like 2005, I'd be like, yeah, that makes sense. But 2015 they've overtaken the entirety of the industry. They sell more watches than the entire Swiss watch industry combined in nine years. That's bananas. Bananas.
Andrew Yeah. I bet, I bet even Garmin sells close to as much as the Swiss watch industry.
Frank Maybe in watches, but probably not in revenue. Apple does it in revenue. It does it in both.
Andrew Yeah. Yeah. That's wild. They, they, you know, what's, what's interesting though. I think if you were to, if we were to be having the show in 2015 talking about the onset of the Apple watch, I bet we would have, um, Proclaim the court's crisis is here, right? The next, the next great die off, the next great extinction. And we haven't seen that, right? Post 2015, we've seen probably the most, the most industry growth, not among the big watch brands, but the most new watch brands that have survived, done cool stuff. It's almost like a parallel market that doesn't really have an impact.
Frank I think you just had more people thinking about the idea of a watch. Just more is more.
Andrew Yeah, absolutely. So, Frank, here we are. Just about an hour. We need you to transition. What have you got for me for others? Well, not for me. I'm interested. But what have you got for the people listening in the way of another thing.
Frank Yeah. So you talked to me at the beginning of this and asked me what was going in the, going on in my life. And I mentioned that I just had a child and that is very difficult to take that credit. Yeah. My wife had a child. I mean, I caught the baby, I was there alone. And so I wanted to talk about a product that, that I got that's, that's recently came in and really been helpful. Um, I do like all of the night shift and if I'm going to, you know, push my two cents on those fathers-to-be or fathers that are dealing with the babies. You can handle pretty much all of it except the actual feeding, unless you're doing bottled, then you can do that too. But if your wife's breastfeeding, you can handle the whole overnight. And I do, I pull that night shift with the baby because it's helpful and I can do it. And the one thing that is the worst is when you're rocking the baby back to sleep and they like just spit the binky out and then it goes on the ground You can't find it. You're trying to get the binky underneath the crib and you don't want to wake them up while you're bending over. It's just awful.
Andrew I got these glow in the dark... You need to have a pocket full of them. I do. You need to have spares in your pocket.
Frank We got like 40 of them, but I just got these glow in the dark pacifiers. they glow with better loom than like my dive watches. I sent you a video, Andrew, of comparing my new Doxa to the pacifier. The brand that we got is called Tommy Tippy. They're breast-like night pacifiers. We bought a six pack and they glow extremely brightly and our child likes the pacifiers, which is the most important thing. I recommend having a bunch of different types of pacifiers. He goes through phases, he likes a small one, then he likes the bigger one, and then he doesn't like it again, and then he switches, he comes back. But I like the glow-in-the-dark ones, because when he spits it out, and it's dark in the room, I can see where it went, and I don't have to hunt it down. It's much better.
Andrew We're not looking for the titan here. We know exactly where it is.
Frank Yeah, exactly.
Andrew I remember that we also got, for nighttime use, the clips. So we would clip the pacifier to the, to the onesie. So spit it out if you want, you'll, you'll be able to find it by yourself. Um, and I also kept like a pocket load of them when I was doing the holding thing, like, Oh, spit that one out, got a new one. And I'd keep a variety. Like maybe you want the big one today. Maybe you want this shape today. Like I just, I just ran through the cycle.
Frank I like the clips too, but when I'm doing the like final transfer to where he's going to sleep, I don't like to leave the clip on him because I don't want the rope in the, the bed with him. He's kind of, he's kind of a lunatic. He's very cute, but he's kind of lunatic. I don't want the rope in there. And then if I have it on me, I like one in the receptacle, wherever he's going, if he's going to like the bassinet or the crib, I like to leave one in there. So that way when he fusses or cries or about to wake up, I can quickly see there, boom, glow in the dark binky, snag it. pop it in, maybe he goes back to bed.
Andrew It's a long shot. You don't keep some extras in there, so if he's thrashing around and finds one in his hand, he can just pop one in?
Frank No, that's what I'm saying. I do. But then when I get up, because he's fussing, I can see the glow in the dark and I just grab it and boom, pop it in. It's great.
Andrew Got one. I like it. I remember all of those struggles and everyone's like, oh, cherish these moments. You're going to miss them when they're gone. That's not true at all. What I missed was like being able to sleep through the night and now I can do that again And I don't I don't miss at all being up more than I was asleep like They're they're they're just wrong about that. I Got another thing. So a couple months ago. I was in the market to get a new pair of hunting boots and I've always worn like six to nine inch shank boots, and I wanted to try something a little bit, um, like a, like a mid, a mid height boot. And I'd obviously Solomon is like a premier company in the way of hiking boots, shoes, outdoor wear. Uh, and I got the X ultra fours, uh, mid with a Gore-Tex liner and I put them on and they were comfortable right out of the box. And because of the, um, because of the material that they use, I don't get sweaty feet. Even with a, even with a Gore-Tex line boot, I'm not sweaty footed all day, which is like kind of one of my biggest complaints when you, when you wear waterproof boots is they tend to not be super breathable, which is great if it's like cold or wet on the outside. Uh, you get, you're going to get wet no matter what. It's just, I'd be rather be wet with sweat than with exterior water. But these breathe super well. Um, the, I do have one critique. If you, if you're kind of soft footed, these are, these have a pretty stiff, uh, midsole. So they're at thus far like really baller hiking boots. They don't roll up under your foot. They like really support your foot. a support your heel. I haven't had any comfort issues or hotspots or anything like that. I have absolutely dug these, um, from Solomon there. Oh shoot. Where's the price here? Let's add it to the cart and see what happens. I don't need a second pair, but, um, the cart we're going to check out. I'm not buying another pair, but we're going to do that. Oh boy. $175. I got them from REI at about that price. Like $150. Or no, I got them from Cabela's actually. So $150, $175. Come in a good handful of colors. I super dig these boots. They've been really comfortable. I've worn them like just day to day. I've worn them in less than optimal terrain. I've worn them in the backcountry. They're great. I will say, I probably won't get mids again for a hunting boot. I think I just want a touch more support, but I'm very, very pleased with the Ultra 4s. If you're in the market for perhaps a new hunting boot, or just like if you're a person who likes to dress like Oregonians, like at any moment a hike could break out. These are a winner. I have nothing super critical to say about them. or even moderately like they're they're mid-height hiking boots and I like them. They're very comfortable. Oh, no, I have one complaint. Because of the shape of the tongue, the tongue pops out at the very top. I'm going to show Frank because he can see it. You guys can't, but it doesn't matter. The tongue like pops out away from the ankle of the boot, which causes the tongue to like catch the front of your pants and you're wandering around like a little kid with your pants tucked behind the tongue of your boot. But that's kind of whatever for most applications.
Frank Yeah, I would tuck that in. You can't. You can momentarily. Pants over it.
Andrew Yeah, but you're constantly doing that. Because the tongue pushes itself out and then it grabs the front of your pant.
Frank I have, I guess, childhood trauma, but Cutting weight has affected me long term and now whenever I'm outdoors, really doing anything that's not like public facing or public appearance, I tuck my pants into my socks. So that wouldn't be a problem for me.
Andrew I have a lot of questions about the why. Uh, we can save that for when we're not recording. Uh, yeah, that's an interesting, Here we are getting insights into into Frank's weird personal life wearing his his trousers bloused into his socks and not pants. That's a weird thing to do, man.
Frank Yeah, no, it's great, because then ticks can't get on your skin, for one. I like that a lot. That's what gators are for.
Andrew Gators. Yeah. They go under your pant, under your boot, like under your heel. There's a little strap and then you tie them around your leg. It also keeps your pants from getting wet and then the pant from soaking up the water and then your socks soaking up the water and then the water going down your boot. Have I revolutionized the way you look at anti-tick behaviors?
Frank No, actually, this is this is maybe too much. We can end the show and cut it. But I was recently looking at pantyhose because apparently the ticks can't get through them. And so you could just put on pantyhose and then you're golden. But from the waist down, if you know, you tuck your clothes into the pantyhose. But if you look at man's like men's pantyhose, it's it's awful. They're awful.
Andrew Don't Google that. We don't never condone you Googling that. That is. Yeah. Big no. But if you do send Frank the pictures. Yeah. Or post it. So this court. Also, yeah, that's an option. Well, here we are just a little over an hour. Frank, do you have anything else for these fine people?
Frank No, I don't, man. Thanks for having me today. I had a good good time. It was nice to get a little break from from baby post post bedtime and I had a great time talking to you. Thanks again to admit it. I'm Rowan for for suggesting this.
Andrew Yeah, just a great idea. We maybe need to do a little bit more. Ideas from the Discord. So if you've got a good ideas for a show or something you want to hear about, do post it in our Discord. To have access to our Discord, you got to join us on Patreon. Submit a buck a month, a couple bucks a month. Patreon is what keeps the lights at 40 and 20, the watch clicker, on. You can find it at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Check us out on social. at 40 and 20 or at 40 and 20 underscore watch clicker. That's where we post things, right? We've got reviews, pictures, fun stuff, things that you want to read about. And we would love to share with you because we've got a lot of people contributing and they're putting in a lot of hard work. Go support them by reading their stuff. So thank you for joining us for another episode of 40 and 20 of the watch clicker podcast. Don't forget to tune back in next week for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Bye bye.