Episode 41 - Intriguing $400 Watches

Published on Wed, 07 Aug 2019 22:05:00 -0700

Synopsis

This podcast episode discusses the most intriguing watch options around the $400 price point. The hosts Andrew and Everett share their top picks like the Lorier Falcon and Neptune, Smiths Everest, Seiko SARB033/035/017, Brew Retrograde, EMG Nemo diver, and Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical. They provide details on the specifications, designs, and value propositions of each watch while engaging in friendly banter. The hosts also mention some honorable mentions and other things they like such as the podcasts Radiolab and the Amazon Prime series The Boys.

Transcript

Speaker
Andrew Hello fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. This is the 48 and 20 podcast with your hosts Andrew and my good friend Everett. Here we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, how are you?
Everett Man, I'm really good. How good? So good. Drinking beer, obviously. That always makes me better.
Andrew A fine Pilsner beer, to be exact.
Everett A fine Pilsner beer, yeah. Just light. I like that they've gone back to just light on the can. We're drinking light.
Andrew A fine Pilsner beer. There is a huge battle going on in the domestic light category. A huge battle of epic proportions? A war. Before I left Anheuser-Busch, that's what they were calling it. They were calling it a war akin to the pricing battles of the 90s. i'm no longer a party to it so i don't know exactly what what's just getting cheaper and cheaper and cheaper yeah but this this time it wasn't cheaper and cheaper this this was all marketing and i see like the pricing wars were were just that people were like you could leave a store with an 18 pack for like 5.99 and in oregon we have a 10 cent deposit because we want to recycle and so what last year uh we had a new bottle bill that passed uh because there was a threshold that we had to have 90% 80% I don't know a pretty a really high percentage of depositable containers returned for deposits or the price would go up from 5 cents to 10 cents. So it went up because we didn't reach that threshold. We didn't even get close. No not even close. It was like 15% or something like that. The danger is they talked about and I don't know if that was part of the legislation or if they're gonna revisit it There was a time period where they have to revisit it. If we don't reach that threshold by then, it's going to go to $0.25. Can you imagine $0.25 a deposit?
Everett Yeah, you know, people are going to start buying two liters of beer is what's going to happen.
Andrew I'm not opposed to that. No, me either. I mean, even going to $0.10 a deposit, that was such a significant increase that people were stealing 30 packs of beer and had no intention of drinking them. They would just pour them out. They'd steal the 30 rack, pour the beer out, return to the same store. For three bucks. For three bucks. People are really dumb. People are, but then you can buy three hurricanes.
Everett Yeah. I bought these, I bought these 12 tall boys of, of light, a fine Pilsner beer for like nine, I think. But most of that was.
Andrew Oh, my guess was going to be like $12.99. I think it was nine.
Everett That's a, that's a deal right there. Plus a $1.20 in deposits.
Andrew Yeah. That's, I buy flats of water every once in a while and they're like 60 cents. But it's 30 bottles and like, all right, 364. Like what? What are you talking about? Right. Yeah.
Everett Deposits suck here. Deposits suck everywhere, man.
Andrew But I, I cleaned out my, uh, my bottle drop account today. I had 20 bucks on it. What's a bottle drop account? Do you guys not do this? No. Okay. So we have a service here in Oregon. It's I imagine it's pretty, pretty widely available. You go down to the bottle drop center and you pay them 50 cents and you get 10 bags They're green 13-gallon grocery bags and you get 10 labels. They give you a card and like a little kiosk like keyring card and then you scan it and you bring your, so then you go home. Then you fill your 13-gallon bag with depositable items, cans, bottles, anything that has a deposit on it and then you drive to the outside. You don't go inside because it smells like you'd expect. It's like you got, you have the folks who are there whose living is made by collecting cans and bottles. And then you have the cans and bottles. So there's a lot of aromas. But you go outside, you scan your card, you open a door, you put your two bags in, you close it, and then they count it and credit it to your account. Safeway has a little kiosk where you can print out your voucher. And if, if you want cash, you get 10 cents, you get your 10 cents back. But if you want an in-store credit at like Safeway, Fred Meyer, imagine a Kroger, uh, and a handful of others, other, um, other stores, you get 12 cents. and they just print out a receipt that you can take through the cash register and either apply to your balance if you get the 12 cents or just get in cash.
Everett It's fantastic. I'm not sure it's worth it, but it's fantastic.
Andrew No, it's, I mean, so it's nearish to my house. So I have, I have 13 gallon garbage bags in my backyard with cans and bottles to be sent back. Cause the bummer is you can only take it back two at a time if you're just dropping them. Yeah. So I just dropped two off every time I think about it.
Everett And when I, anytime I, anytime I engage in thinking about doing something like this, I think about my hourly rate. I'm like, yep, not worth it. I'll take your cans. You can have my can. Yeah, we'll work it out. Okay, good. You have a good weekend?
Andrew Yeah, the wife was out of town this weekend, so it was just pure bro time with me and the kid, which equated to a lot of television because that's what you do. It's also hot. Yeah, it's warm, yeah. It's too hot to be outside. And as we discussed earlier, I'm a day walker, so son and I don't agree. We tried going to a block party in the hipster district. And he lasted about an hour and a half before he looked, and he's totally down with heat. So when, and I, so at this point I was dying, I was pretty sure I was going to die, but I was there for the kid. Then he looked at me and said, daddy, I want to go home. Home is the best. All right, bro. Let's go. And we went back home. We laid in our underwear on the couch under the air conditioner and watch TV. I like your style.
Everett So that's a killer weekend. Yeah. I like your style. Yours? It was good, man. We went and played in the river for a little bit yesterday, and yes, went and got some lunch today, got some wings, and went to the new Elmer's. There's a new Elmer's in town.
Andrew Yes, over at VRC.
Everett We went to get some omelets and some pancakes at Elmer's yesterday. Where did you get wings? We went to Hot Mama's. Hot Mama's Wings.
Andrew Approve.
Everett I got their hot, which are sometimes
Andrew Was it the like secret menu hot or was it their standard hot?
Everett Their standard hot, which is really good. Sometimes. Sometimes. That's right. That's right. Today they made my head sweat.
Andrew I think it's the difference between like they probably use those, uh, those plastic tubs that every restaurant uses for storage. And I think it's the difference between the top or bottom of the tub. Yeah, very likely could be. When you get to the bottom, you know, it's, it's good. It makes your head sweat. It's hot. You get, you get phase three burning. That's what you want.
Everett I know what the recipe is. The recipe is Frank's butter pulped habanero and habanero extract. It's money. Perfect. Perfect. It's really good. It's my favorite.
Andrew Which is why I imagine the bottom of the bucket's the best. Yeah, I bet you're right. I bet you're right. I also need to order a Chimay soon. Do you want a bottle? Yes, I do.
Everett Okay. You're gonna get the three pack? Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. Well, well, uh, should we get into it? I think we might go long today. We do. We got a lot to talk about. We're talking about watches today.
Andrew We are.
Everett We are.
Andrew And so Everett posted on, and I'm going to say we posted on Facebook, really Everett posted on Facebook, Facebook, Instagram this week, asking for some suggestions on $400 watches. And we were asking for a friend. Yeah, for a friend. Just for a friend. For a friend. Pays no, it's not for us. So don't worry. So that's what we're on this week. The $400 category.
Everett And we should say sort of at the outset, there is actually a human being who's looking to buy a $400 watch. And as Andrew and I were discussing options for that $400 watch, Andrew, being the lazy fucker he is, said, oh, should we make that the topic for this week's show? And I was like, yeah, I get it. No, it's a good idea. You're busy. You're busy. I get it. I wasn't busy, though. I just thought it would be a good idea. This was the weekend. Oh no, it was a good idea. I liked it. You like it.
Andrew It continues to be a good idea.
Everett That's right.
Andrew For those of you who don't know, we did just take a brief intermission for us and we've been talking shit about the last 15 seconds that you heard.
Everett Well, I guess we should just get right into it. Let's do it.
Andrew Let's dive in. We got a lot to cover.
Everett We got a lot. So I guess set up the parameters. The parameters were What are, what is the most or what are the most intriguing watches at or around $400 right now?
Andrew So, so basically... And we stayed pretty strict at $400, plus or minus 20.
Everett Yeah. And, and I think, and I think, um, our, our buyer is thinking, you know, between 350 and 450 in that range. Um, and, and so yeah, the, keep it close, right? Not, not too, too much less, not too much more. And I wondered, what's the practicality of thinking about a watch purchase in this way? Well, you know, I think one of the things you might think about is if you're a watch seller or buyer, you maybe have a fixed budget for watches.
Andrew Some slush fund that you can't really pour into.
Everett That's right. Well, and also, you know, if you don't use it, you lose it perhaps, right? So if you have 400 bucks sitting around, and it doesn't get reinvested, it turns into beer. You wind up paying capital gains on it or whatever, right? Mostly beer though. Mostly beer. So, you know, I think a lot of people will take umbrage just with the basic idea, you know, that I have 400 bucks and I need to buy a watch. What should I buy? But, so feel free to hold that, to hold that opinion, but play along anyway.
Andrew Yeah. I mean, I think you hit it right on the head. We've got, in our hypothetical world, someone partying with a watch and coming into some money and wants to buy just one watch. This isn't like our three for 300 or three for 600 or what's, what's good under three. This is, this is a unique segment where someone's got a middle, a low end high, high end of middle of the end, middle of the road watch. And it's looking to, to get a different one.
Everett And so used new doesn't matter. Gotta be kind of available so you, you know, not a one-off, oh I saw this thing on eBay that you're gonna find once in a million years. Something that's generally available in that price range all the time. Or something like all the time. Most of the time. Most of the time.
Andrew Yeah. That's right. I think we came up with a good list. We were texting about this and this was a surprisingly easy and challenging list to make. $400 is a weird price point to find watches at because watches seem to be like $3, $5, $6, $9. Some in the eights, some in the sevens, but $3, $5, $6, $9 seems to be a pretty, pretty universal segmentation of the, of the watch market. So finding those watches in the $400 category actually created a, a pretty, a pretty similar, uh, aesthetic. Nah, aesthetic's not the right word. A pretty similar, what am I looking for? Feel, right?
Everett I guess so.
Andrew A lot of these watches are really similar. Most of them are coming from micros with, you know, excluding a few. Um, they're all really well-made. They're all really beautiful. Um, but it was hard in the sense of there was a lot more than I expected to find.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. Well, and we got some great suggestions from you guys. Some of them we have here on this, in our main list. Some of them are honorable mention. Some of them, you know, we just couldn't fit them, right? So there's so many great things that you might consider at this price point.
Andrew The one we couldn't find was a Datejust that someone was offering to sell us for $400. So we're still waiting on that promise.
Everett I said on the Instagram today that I was really hoping someone was going to offer me up their IWC Big Pilot for $400.
Andrew Yeah, I saw that. Yeah.
Everett But it didn't happen.
Andrew Not yet. Not yet. We're going to hold out hope. That's right. It could happen. We're going to have a Datejust or a Big Pilot and you're going to have to make the choice.
Everett Well, so let's roll right into it. Let's do it. The first watch, this is kind of, we really both came up with this watch. I think we both wanted it to be on our list and then we fought over it and we're like, well, fuck it. We'll just throw it in as a joint pick. Yeah. Which works because it's kind of, not kind of, it is actually two watches. So these are two watches from the company called L'Oreal. L'Oreal. L'Oreal or L'Oreal, one of the two, I'm not sure. Depending on how fancy you are. Depending on how fancy, that's right. So L'Oreal has, been sort of in the micro game for a while now. They've got some really wonderful watches, but right now they've got two watches that are in their sort of main catalog, and that is the Falcon and the Neptune. And in the car world, I think you would say these two watches had the same chassis.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Yeah, they've got the same chassis.
Andrew Like a Chevy S10 and a Viper. Doesn't the S10 have a chassis Viper or a Viper chassis on it?
Everett You know, I don't think so. A Viper is a Mopar sports car and a S10 is a small pickup.
Andrew We'll have to fact check that one because for some reason that's bouncing around in my head as being something.
Everett Fake news. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe there's something there. Could be wrong. Continue. Okay, same chassis. So, one of these is what I would call a field sport dress watch. I know that that's, I mean, it's a, it's a sport watch sort of in the, I think that's what a sport watch is.
Andrew It's kind of a field dress watch.
Everett Yeah, I guess so. I guess so. Yeah. Uh, so, so the Falcon is a sterile bezel 39 millimeter. Am I getting that right? 39. Yep. 39 millimeter NH 35 power, 200 meter water resistant sport watch with a spanned Fantastic a wonderful steel bracelet.
Andrew You know what I would like though if in my perfect world. I'd like the Neptune dial On the Falcon so the Neptune is because the Falcon has a great textured dial, but for this purpose I just I wish it wasn't I wish it was flat maybe glossed, but I I wish it didn't have the texture So the Neptune same chassis, but it's got more of what I'd call a maxi style dial you know that that classic sort of
Everett triangle dot dive dial and it's and it's a smooth dial right so falcon has this very beautiful waffle texture dial i am not crazy about the falcons very long baton markers there are they they are a little bit longer than i would expect them to be they're excessive they're excessive yeah and laurier has obviously made some very conscious design decisions with the falcon
Andrew and killed it killed it killed it i would if you if i would buy this watch yeah well yeah my god and not complain about it but if i could just tweak a couple little things if i'm the designer and there's no reason for me to be the designer so i'm not qualified but if i'm the designer those are the couple tweaks i'm going to make and we'll sell one instead of however many right right so 48 millimeter lug to lug on this so it's going to work wonderfully 20 millimeter lug width so it is
Everett I mean, we know how they wear. We wore one the other day. Definitely 40 and 20 approved. Um, a nice tapered bracelet, 20 to 16, uh, all steel, all the water resistance. Wonderful. Both of these are wonderful. The, the diver has a couple of different bezel variations. One of them is a standard, uh, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 triangle sort of dive style without graduations. The other is. Not sterile, but an unnumbered marker only dial. These are very classic. With a 15 minute indicator. With a 15 minute indicator, that's right. So these are very classic, almost retro, certainly in size retro, just kind of everyday, do everything type of watches. They're not going to be big, they're not going to be small, If you had one watch, either one of these could be that one watch.
Andrew And we've talked about this watch a handful of times.
Everett A number of times.
Andrew This fits perfectly into our Skindevour conversation. This fits into our versatile conversation of it could maybe be a dress watch, but it could maybe be an everyday watch. This could be a beach watch. This could be a dinner watch. This could be a go-to-work watch. This combo, whichever one you pick, extremely versatile. You're going to be hard pressed to find an environment that you frequent that you can't wear this watch to.
Everett The Falcon in particular, I don't think that there is a modern day scenario where you couldn't wear the Falcon.
Andrew It'd work with a tux. It absolutely would. I mean, nobody wears a tux. No, but it would work with one. It would. So would a G-Shock though. Like at that point, it's an ironic decision. I hope. But it would work with a tux. It wouldn't look out of place.
Everett You know, I think maybe black tie is the one situation where maybe put on a black croc leather bracelet on something tiny. But other than that, I mean, you can wear this, like you said, at the beach. You can wear it with a suit for sure. Wonderful watch. Next up. And again, just to clarify what we're talking about. These are the most intriguing watches, not the best. Although this may be one of the best.
Andrew We're talking about a watch that we would want to buy at this price point. What's most intriguing?
Everett If I have 400 bucks, What are the things I'm thinking about the most? So the next watch is a watch from a formerly defunct company brought back to life. A British company known for its ascent up Everest with Edmund Hillary or Edmund Hillary's buddy. One of the two. I can't remember the story. The Smiths. There's some debate. The Smiths Everest.
Andrew Oh, come on. This is Another, another one of those watches that is just not, it's obviously not just like the Falcon Neptune combo, but it is another one of those versatile, go anywhere with you watches. And these are a hundred meters, a hundred meters water resistance, another sport watch. So it's got that field feel. It has a little bit of the, of the, uh, the pilot feel to it, just the way that it's marked out, but just a perfectly proportioned sport watch. Remind me there, what 30, they come in 36 and 39.
Everett 36 and 40.
Andrew 36 and 40. Yeah. So, come on. Everyone can wear this. Everyone can get behind this. Beautiful bracelets. Just the fit. I want one now. I want one in the person right now. Maybe inside me. In your butt? Yeah. This is the kind of watch you hide. That you keister to create a family legacy with. The stamp on the bracelet, on the buckle is
Everett That clasp is killer. The clasp is killer. It's got a very sort of, it's got a, you know, I feel like there are a couple kinds of clasps. There, there are the cheap shitty clasps. There are the middle of the road clasps that all look the same. I mean, there's very little difference between the clasps on $150 watch versus a clasp on a $400 watch. Smiths has done something different here. This is a clasp that doesn't look like everything else. It's got a diver extension. It's, They've done something different, and I love it.
Andrew We just saw a clasp like this on the Helsin, on the Shark Diver. Yeah, it's got a pretty cool clasp, too.
Everett Yeah. Surprisingly cool. So, you know, for the money on this one, for, you know, whatever, 385-ish, I think, it's 335 in pounds, 334 pounds, which is a killer deal right now. If you've got to buy something in pounds, now is the time. Do it now. Yeah, do it now. Yeah, you know, I think it's great. I think it's great. I do. There is one thing I don't like about it.
Andrew The hour hand?
Everett No, I don't mind the Mercedes hands. I'm not a big fan of Mercedes hands. I don't mind them. But but what the dial is so explorery. And I don't love that. I don't love that. Because, you know, here, I think time factors in particular, has been very deliberate about getting the news out about sharing the story that this is an Everest watch, and that it shares that lineage with the Explorer. But in their listing for this, they show a picture of the Everest, the Smith's Everest watch, and it doesn't look like an Explorer at all. It's its own thing.
Andrew Yeah, they could have done a small second sub-dial.
Everett You know, even if they skip the small seconds dial, still, why don't you give me, why don't you give me the dial that you had on your Smiths? You know, because this is going to sell better. That's why, but that bugs me a little bit. They, they ape the Explorer. On one hand, they want to say, Hey, we were there with Rolex doing the same shit. And we just got unlucky. Uh, but they, they sort of sell themselves short then when they ape the Explorer. in their design language. So I don't love that. I don't love that decision, but it is what it is. It's a beautiful watch.
Andrew I accept it. And at 400 bucks, that's a, that's a, by all other accounts, terrific. I'll, I'll accept the, uh, I won't say ripoff isn't right.
Everett I like the fact that they offer it more than an homage in 36 and 40. Yeah. I like the fact that you can get this in a traditional sized sport watch. This is a his and hers combo right there. Yeah, perhaps.
Andrew Does it only come in blue?
Everett High Dome Sapphire. No, it's a black dial. I think with the AR, it looks a little blue, but it's a black dial and it's got this sort of old radium loom and this, the Everest. It says Everest on the bottom in this sort of ghosty black text. I couldn't even see it at the angle I was at. Yeah, it's pretty nice. I dig it.
Andrew I dig it. It looks really blue to me. I must have a problem. Next. Next up, you all knew it was coming. Not one watch. It's not one watch. No. It's three watches. And how could it not be on the list? Yeah. It has to make the list. It's the whole Sarb family.
Everett All the flavors. Not all the Sarb family. So the Sarb 033, 035, and then as a bonus, the 017. You're right. So these are all three discontinued. Womp womp. Womp womp. But if you've got careful eyes, you can still pick these up in new, like new, with tags type of condition at or around 400.
Andrew In fact, there are... I saw a box of papers on eBay for 400.
Everett That's right. So there are regularly 033s and 035s still up for 400 and regularly Alpinists up for 400. And we made the decision kind of together if you're gonna buy a watch for 400 bucks right now this has to be in the conversation and you don't own both they're in the conversation for sure yeah both that's that's how great this watch is that owning both colorways or two or three of the colorways is reasonable yeah yeah no i think that's right i probably wouldn't want to own both the 033 and the 035 just because that's how my mind works you think I probably would just want one or the other.
Andrew I'm inclined to go 0.33, 0.35 over the 0.17 in that combo. If I'm getting all three, 0.33 and 0.17, but just two of them, I think I go black and white.
Everett So I put my money where my mouth was and I got the 0.35 a number of years ago now and I just love it.
Andrew And he bought the 0.33 for me today.
Everett And I just love it. You know, I just really adore it. Uh, one of my favorite watches, wear it all the time. Uh, it's one of those things that I'm just never amazed when I'm never not amazed when I put it on. Uh, you know, I get tired of some of my watches. Most of my watches I get tired of. I never get tired of putting the SKX on. I put the SKX on and I'm like, and the SARB. Right where you belong. That's right. You know, the SARB is the other one. I put it on and I'm like, holy shit, this is cool.
Andrew Every time I see the SARB, I'm, I'm, just struck by it. Nothing about it says it's a $400 watch. Nothing.
Everett It was a $325 watch when I bought it.
Andrew That's not that much of an inflation rate.
Everett No. You know, I think that they're kind of MSRP, not the MSRP, but the sort of going rate on these is closer to five. But if you've got a keen eye, you can still get these. So you guys all know the SARB. We've talked about it a number of times, but it's a I think 38.5mm sport dress watch, 100m of water resistance, hardlex obviously, which people don't love. Oh no, hardlex on the back and sapphire on the front. It's got a 6R15, which is Seiko's sort of Elabor equivalent, you know, it's a little bit nicer version of the NH35, the 4R7S type movement. Um, I don't think that there's probably a huge performance gain, but, um, it's in a little bit nicer version of everything about it.
Andrew It's just right.
Everett Yeah. And the proportions are great. It feels great. Um, and it looks killer. People worry about the size. Sometimes I don't have any concerns with size. Um, I'm not, I'm not sort of a size queen as it were. Uh, I don't really like the bigger watches. But, you know, when I started buying watches, I liked a little bit bigger than I do now. And I got this, this was the smallest watch I owned at the time. And I was like, oh no, it's perfect.
Andrew It sits nice and flat on your wrist. The way this thing wears is perfect.
Everett So the other side of that coin then is the Seiko Alpinist. And we're not talking about the limited edition Houdinki, although that's cool too. Really cool, but not 400 money. Not 400 money. So you can get an alpinist oftentimes brand new in the box for 400 bucks on Reddit and or watch a seek forums. People are coming up with them and selling them.
Andrew You can get this one on Amazon for 475.
Everett 475 right now today. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. So 39 and a half also discontinued, right? But, but you can still pick them up. 39 and a half millimeters, 200 meters of water resistance. Beautiful sunburst grade green dial gold markers. Uh, I mean, it's just sort of classic Japanese goodness on a leather strap though. Well, a leather strap. Yeah. These things don't come on an OEM bracelet. There's no OEM bracelet for these.
Andrew Um, which is the bummer of it because that watch fits so perfectly on a bracelet.
Everett I feel the same way. Strap code does make bracelets for these. So in fact, cool but I want Seiko stamped. I've seen a lot of people wear these on two-tone bracelets. Intriguing. Green and gold? Yes.
Andrew No, silver and gold. Yeah, a two-tone bracelet. Yeah, like what you'd expect. Green and gold could look cool though.
Everett Really good on a two-tone jubilee. Strapcode makes a two-tone jubilee for this and it looks really good.
Andrew I don't know if I could pull it off. I don't have the confidence to do gold jewelry. I just don't. I don't have the confidence to do cool hats. That's It's a cross-eyed bear. I used to work with a guy who wore a duster and a bowler to work.
Everett I'm sure he was a riot.
Andrew He's weird. Yeah. He also didn't have the confidence to wear them, but he wore them. And we reminded him that it wasn't it didn't work.
Everett He has a comic book collection.
Andrew Oh, yeah. No, he does.
Everett Like that's real.
Andrew Yeah. No, that's real. He does. Yeah. They're all in plastic.
Everett There's nothing wrong with comic books.
Andrew No, but I just knew those two things, those three things go together.
Everett He was a duster and a bowler. He also collects comics. I knew.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Kind of nailed it.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett So it wasn't hard. So Sarb033, 035 and 017, if you're in the mood. Sell it, buy in. This is an intriguing watch, but we got to move on, man.
Andrew Yeah. We're, we're spending too much time on the Sarb. Okay. Retro graph from Brew Watch Co. So
Everett I think this was the first of all of these to be sort of chiseled into the tile, right?
Andrew I think so.
Everett Yeah. This was, this was the first one or maybe the second one. Um, but this was the first one that we were like, dude, if you got 400 bucks, you need to be looking at this and you need to be thinking hard about buying it.
Andrew I think this was, this was first or second that we chose. I don't remember if the Saab was, or if the, It was top three. It was Sarb, Laurier, and Brew. Those were our first three. Who knows which they might order though.
Everett I think it's such a cool watch because it's different than just about anything else on the market.
Andrew Yeah, you're not going to find any modern iterations of watches looking like this.
Everett The design cues are pretty, I mean, pretty standard. There's nothing shocking. in the design. So it is a sort of square tonneau case with hooded lugs. That in and of itself isn't bizarre. It's got square-ish chronograph sub-dials. So this is a chronograph. Rounded corners. Rounded square, rounded corners. Rounded corners. That's right. It's got sort of an aggressive minute track around the outside. Which, or second track I guess, are on the outside. Uh, also nothing crazy about it. Six o'clock date windows. But when you put it all together, it's sort of like, oh, that's different. That's different. And then when you- But not at the same time. It's familiar. And then when you realize that it's primary function is to time the- Espresso? Brewing of espresso. It's like, oh man. Give me three. Yeah, I mean they've got four versions available on the site right now, so you might as well take four.
Andrew What, the brass one a couple weeks ago?
Everett I think we perhaps talked about the Technicolor a couple weeks ago. I talked about it. They've got a PVD, the Phantom.
Andrew They've also got... Oh yeah, the kind of copper dialed one is what we talked about.
Everett That's right, the King Nerd Retrograph. Um, which is a little bit more expensive, but these come in at $350, brand stinking new. I think the one that I like the best.
Andrew And they're in New York too. They're, this is an American born and grown company. I don't know anything about their, their assembly process, but what I can say is that the, it's, it's an American company. Yeah. Maybe not to the American made standard, but it's an American company.
Everett So details on this guy. So, um, 38 millimeters by 41 and a half millimeters lug to lug. That's deceiving. It's deceptive in a couple of ways. One, that 41 and a half millimeter lug to lug is not going to be indicative of how it wears, nor is, I don't think, the 38. Because it's a square-ish watch, it's going to wear bigger than either of those dimensions would indicate.
Andrew But still, the only square watch I've spent any time on my wrist is the Horizon. Yeah. And that's 38 by 38. And that watch did not feel big in any way.
Everett Yeah, but it wears a lot bigger than I think of when I think of a 38 millimeter watch. It felt like a 40 watch.
Andrew It felt like a 40, maybe a 42, but more, it looked and felt like closer to a 40. Yeah. So, I imagine this is going to be pretty similar.
Everett I think that's right. So, VK64 movement in this. Which is a movement we just talked about and a movement we love. Yeah. That's a Mecca quartz for those of you who haven't listened to our quartz watch episode. Coming out of Hattori, right? Yes. Seiko arm. Yeah, Seiko, yeah. I'm
Andrew They have to be making their money somewhere else.
Everett That's right. And the graduations all sort of point you towards between 35 or 25 and 35 seconds, which is the average amount of time it takes to brew espresso.
Andrew And I love this, the, this Technicolor one, it's got a, uh, a five second yellow indicator between the six and seven.
Everett Between 30 and 35 seconds. Yeah. Yeah. It's a cool watch, man. So next, shall we? Yeah, let's do it. Why don't you talk about this one, because this is your favorite.
Andrew Oh, baby. So next up, this was personally the hardest decision I've had to make this month, was deciding between this and its competitor, its main competitor in the conversation. The winner today is the EMG Nemo Diver, a watch that you guys have heard so much from us about. We've talked about it a lot, yeah. But I have to say, it deserves every bit of it. Eric isn't paying us to say that. We don't even have one of these watches with us. Eric, you can pay us. Or you can send us one. Or just send us a watch. Up to you. But this is my favorite dive watch that I've ever worn. No, I think it might be me too. And you guys have heard the list of dive watches that you have all sent us. So if you want to topple this, feel free to send us some more dive watches. But this is my favorite dive watch I've ever worn. I think maybe me too. It's perfectly sized, is extraordinarily comfortable, and it looks so good. Every detail about this watch is thoughtful, makes sense, and fits. There's not a single component to this watch that is even a little bit out of place. Right down to this fucking beads of rice bracelet that just flows around your wrist. You do not feel like you're wearing a watch when you're wearing this. And it looks terrific. It reads easy. The tactile feedback on that bezel is so satisfying.
Everett That's what it sounds like.
Andrew Sounds just like that. I'm at a loss for words at this point.
Everett You know, so as an owner of an Emperor, which is... A cousin. Which is a cousin to the EMG Nemo. And if you don't know that story, hit me up and I'll tell you. I think we've talked about it on the show once or twice, but a hundred times probably. Um, you know, the EMG Nemo was born out of the Emperor Diver and as an owner of the Emperor Diver, which I love, I felt like this is a watch that I had a hand in creating and designing. And, uh, and that's really special. But you know, when we had Eric's, his prototype model, not even the final product, when we had one of Eric's Nemos in, I always lamented that The Emperor wasn't the Nemo. People to buy these things are taking care of them.
Andrew And there's some killer colorways out there for them. We had the yellow. We had the yellow. I didn't think I was going to like the yellow. I loved it. No, I love it. I love it.
Everett I love the yellow. There's a powder blue out there. It's got this matte steel, matte PVD bezel. And the matte goes all the way out to the edge of the bezel.
Andrew If y'all are not familiar with the Nemo, first of all, go ahead and catch up on all the episodes up to this point. Second of all, get familiar with EMG watches.
Everett Just Google EMG NEMO. This is 40 and 20 approved. It's a 40 millimeter, 40 millimeter case diameter by 20 millimeter lugs, which I feel like I have to, we should repeat this every episode because people ask us every week. Because Everett's 40 and I'm 20. 40 and 20 means the perfect watch dimensions of 40 millimeter case diameter, 20 millimeter lugs. And this is it.
Andrew And it's thin. This is the most perfect that I've encountered. iteration of a modern skin diver.
Everett Yeah, no, that's right. It is the best. It's the best. And you said it, and I had never thought that thought in my head, but maybe the best diver I've ever tried on.
Andrew I think it is. And we've tried it. You guys have heard the watches that have been through here, and I'm standing by it right now. There's nothing that beats it yet.
Everett So for my $400, that's a great choice. So now this, I think that our buyer may eventually settle on this watch.
Andrew Yep. And this is north of it. You broke the rules.
Everett Well, it is north of a new, but you can pick these up in very good condition. I saw a bunch of a 375 for 350 to 375. But the watch we're going to talk about today is the Hamilton khaki field mechanical, the 2018 iteration. So, so Hamilton revamped these in 2018. Um, and this watch is just wonderful.
Andrew Can I say something first? Please. I like your S and K more.
Everett You know, that's interesting. I do not like my SNK more. I love my SNK. And, and, you know, if I got, if I was, you know, got this watch, I wouldn't get rid of the SNK because I think they could do different things, but.
Andrew Yeah. One of them, you don't feel bad about throwing at somebody. This, which seems to be my go-to solution for like watch durability, but I feel like that's a good description of, of watch durability. You can throw it at a person. Right.
Everett So this is what? This is just sort of the quintessential field watch.
Andrew Yeah.
Everett Uh, what's the size on these is 38, 38, 38 by nine millimeters thin by nine millimeters thin. It's a mechanical movement. It's because it's handwinding. So it's a 28, uh, it is 2801 movement, which is a very sort of compact thin movement.
Andrew It is, this is, this is the King field watch. It's not the khaki King, but it's the, it's the Hamilton field mechanical.
Everett That's right. And so I should say that all three, so there's the classic sort of field officer, the Hamilton field officer, which is the previous version of this, which is very similar, but a less retro dial. There's the khaki king, which you can get on a bracelet brand new for under 400. And there's also the khaki automatic that you can get on a bracelet for under 400. So there's a number of watches that are very similar to this.
Andrew They've got a great entry line, which isn't, I think is unique of a watchmaker like Hamilton. Most of them don't have a line that is the same quality, but accessible. And Hamilton does. They've got this, they've got this line of accessible field watches that bear the Hamilton name and live up to the Hamilton standard, but don't cost you fingers.
Everett And I love that. Yeah. I mean, under 500, you can get into They've also got, um, I think that they're, they make a khaki field diver, perhaps that is, um, well, they've also got a diver. So, so Hamilton also runs a diver that's in this sort of 500 ish sub 500 range. And you know, they're doing things that, that is, that is pretty tough to do. at a really affordable price. And these are Swiss sort of entry-level luxury watches. Very dynamic to look at. Yeah, I love them.
Andrew I mean, they're Swiss. I feel like we've covered it. The Swiss are making luxury goods.
Everett Stainless steel, sapphire. I think it's like a 48-millimeter lug-to-lug on these. I gotta be taking a loss here. You know, I doubt they are. I mean, I doubt they are. They're probably not terribly expensive to make, and it's an ETA movement. I think they're probably doing just fine on these. I love them. They come in three dial variations now. So they make a white, they make a brown.
Andrew Are they going after the SNK market, do you think?
Everett Yeah, perhaps. Perhaps now that the SNK prices are going up. You know, they make a brown that has like an earth, pvd i think is what they call it but sort of a brown pvd coating um which is really cool you should take a look at it and they all have this old radium loom and they all have a very vintage look to them they're all it's very sort of g10 or or you know classic field watch style that's that's what's inspired what they're they're inspired by they're going right back to the roots the origin of this watch and growing it in size to be
Andrew modern sized and selling us a terrific product.
Everett You know, I'll say the thing I don't love about the watch is the long lugs.
Andrew I like that because it creates some versatility in what you can put on it. I think it limits you to a pass through. You think? I do. I don't think that lug is long enough and it all, I mean, I guess it depends on where the spring bar holes are.
Everett They're all the way out of the end. Oh, are they? Yeah. You, there's big, big strap gap on these when people put them on leather.
Andrew Oh, that's a bummer. Yeah.
Everett It's, I think it's really similar to my, uh, your Bertucci that you're, oh, no, not the Bertucci, the, uh, the Seagull, my HKAD, my HKAD 1963 has those really long sort of reaching lugs. I think this has a very similar thing going on.
Andrew Oh, the Boulder Venture was the other one that had, that you can only put on a pass-through. Yeah, that's right.
Everett I, so I think that putting this on leather, you might not love that, the big gap, the big lug gap, but you're going to wear this thing on a pass-through anyway. Because that's what it's meant for. It's designed to go on a pass-through.
Andrew I don't know if I'd keep it on that one. I'm sure it feels really great. I'm not, I don't like the color scheme.
Everett Yeah, so these things come on a couple of different colors. They come on like a sand, sort of desert tan. And they also come on this green with brown leather, which is sort of what it was introduced on in 2018 when they came out with this thing. I don't love it either.
Andrew No.
Everett Don't love it.
Andrew I think this would... Put it on toxic shit, isn't it?
Everett Hmm. Habston 1936. I think it would kill on the 1936 V. I think it would kill on a gray Chisnet. Um, or, or, you know, even any sort of, um, any sort of tubular NATO too. I think it's going to be just fine.
Andrew Yeah. So the 63 would look dope on that.
Everett Run through our honorable mentions real quick. Let's light it up. Okay guys. So we had some honorable mentions. Like we said, there's just more watches than we thought. So many more watches. We were going to come up with, but there's six of these that were so close to making the list. I mean, really, we were in the last 10 minutes before turning on the microphones today.
Andrew Arguing, fighting, fisticuffs even.
Everett Fisticuffs. So both versions of, both modern iterations of the Turtle, I guess, although they're not both Turtles, but the SRP Seiko Turtles, the SRPC Seiko Mini Turtles. Yep. are killer entry-level dive options.
Andrew And the mini turtles coming in at 42 millimeters and 390 bucks. The full-size turtle, that's too many for me, but the mini turtle is... I think you can get SRP turtles at under 400 brand new. I only looked at it on Amazon for the mini turtle, 390. I didn't do any hard looking, I just pulled it up.
Everett Yeah. And that's a great price for that watch. Yeah. Which I think is sort of the successor to... you know, the entry level Seiko diver. Now that we know the SKX has been discontinued, I think the Mini Turtle is where they're putting their entry level diver chips. And I think it's a great choice. I haven't personally worn one. I haven't either. I've worn an SRP Turtle and I loved it. So both of those, the Smith's PRS 29, which is a sort of classic field watch type thing, and that was pretty close, I think, to the mechanical, the hack-hacky mechanical. I think, objectively, it's maybe better in a few ways.
Andrew Probably so, but aesthetically, that's what we're looking for right now. What do I want to buy right now?
Everett Yeah, you know, and Smith's just doesn't have the, it doesn't have the same sort of brand recognition, and Hamilton holds that down. That's their zone, and so Smith's is kind of on the outside looking in. They could get there though, but 100 meters versus 50 meters. I mean, objectively, I think it could be as good if not a better watch, same movement. Um, you know, it's pretty close, but it doesn't say Hamilton comes in 38, 36, excuse me. It comes in 36 and 39 millimeter iterations. Um, the 36 with acrylic, the 39 with Sapphire. They've got NSN numbers, which is pretty frickin' cool.
Andrew That's really cool. For those who are unfamiliar, an NSN is a national stock number and is the item number tool used by the military.
Everett It basically means your shit's legit. Yeah. You're, you know, there's like all marathon watches. A lot of shitty products that have NSN numbers. Tons of them.
Andrew I have dozens, piles, duffel bags filling my attic.
Everett Literally duffel bags in your attic full of shitty NSN stuff. Four of them. That in and of itself isn't anything, but it's still kind of cool. It's a cool thing. Like the marathon watches. Also really long, weird lugs on the Smith's PRS 29. So... Next up, Nizumi's Baleen.
Andrew Nizumi Baleen, yeah. The dive watch we've talked about before. I think we talked about it last in our skin diver episode. Another vintage inspired, excellent example of a skin diver. They come in at under 400 bucks. Like, I don't know why I don't have one.
Everett And I think the last one that Ganar Elbril mentioned, actually two watches again, is the Lako. The Lako is sort of entry-level pilot, so I think it's the Augsburg.
Andrew Yeah, that sounds right. Aachen and... Yeah.
Everett Not English. Yeah, they're German words. So Lako has two entry-level pilots that come in automatic iterations right at the $350 to $400 mark. and those also made the list.
Andrew And this is a list of 12, pared down from 100 or so?
Everett Yeah, maybe not 100, but, you know, I thought, you know, we could even just, I could even just rattle off some of these. Do it. Light it up. Some of them, I love them. So, you know, these are watches that didn't make the list. No, they're not on our list. They're not on the list. Stop writing. They're not honorable mentions, but they deserve a mention. So, other watches under $400. Other teams receiving votes. Dan Henry 1972, which amazing. Siegel has a chronograph with a moon phase. Just Google Siegel chronograph moon phase. Dagaz makes, Dagaz the famous sort of psychomotor makes his diamondback, which is a sub style. And he also makes a T2 typhoon, which is a 6105 homage. The Full Metal G-Shocks, we got more suggestions for the Full Metal Square G-Shocks than I can even count. It was like 30 people were like, Full Metal G-Shocks. The Draken Tugela 2.0. Tiso Visodate. Tiso Visodate. Notice, oh my gosh, notice. We could have talked about 100 notices. And in fact, Kontrol almost made both the list and the honorable mention list. So, retrospect.
Andrew It got crossed off and added to my list a couple times.
Everett Trieste, Kontrol 39, all wonderful. Glycine Airman or the Glycine Combat Sub. Both were on my list and then crossed off. Borealis Adraga in bronze.
Andrew Esterel and Beluga. Traska's line up right now.
Everett Traska Freedriver's on here. The Alpina Star Timer, which is a watch that's not even on my radar, but it came up a couple of times. And Gavox, you can get a Gavox Rhodes for under 400 bucks. The list goes on, folks. The list goes on. So, those are all watches that were in play at various times through the day and just... We just couldn't... I mean, this episode would... We're at 50 minutes right now.
Andrew And we're not even at other things.
Everett Man, this was fun. This was fun. You know, when we started back in what? November, October, November? October? Something like that. You know, we would occasionally put out calls to action and... Like, hey, what do you guys think of this? And we would get like over the next 24 hours, like one or two people, uh, you know, geez, Louise, I, you guys are awesome.
Andrew But now we've had a call to action. I'm like, stop, stop. We have more than we can deal with.
Everett I, well, no, I mean, really that it was an unmanageable, the information, the load of information was unmanageable, which is wonderful. It's a wonderful problem to have. And I just am so appreciative of you guys, you know, but it's like, uh, it's like, Overwhelming almost, like holy cow. How cool is it that these people are all sort of here and playing with us and ready to help out? You know, I hope it was clear we were asking about a show topic and I think it probably was. And, um, I'd love to shout out names, but it's literally probably a hundred people that supported the show today and super hard to, super hard to shout everyone out. Yeah. Y'all are great. They should drink a beer with us. You know, uh, actually, I'm not sure who it was, but the notice guys helped us out specifically. I reached out to them directly and I was, cause I just trust those guys. They're sort of have their finger on the pulse. Um, so, so specific thanks to those guys. Um, you know, but yeah, this is tough. This was a tough one. Harder than I expected. Other things we like Andrew go.
Andrew I think we've talked about Radiolab before. I'm sure we have. We must have talked about Radiolab. It would be weirder if we didn't. It would be weird if we hadn't. But it's possible. Like some things just slip through the cracks.
Everett Anyway, I listened to... Didn't we talk about the shrimp, the mantis shrimp, the punching shrimp at some point that sees in a billion different colors? Did I steal your other thing?
Andrew Okay, go. I don't think we've talked about that. It's not ringing any bells. Okay, go. Anyway, I listened to two Radiolab episodes this week. One on the history of eugenics, specifically its relationship to American laws and American practices. And about 10 years ago, one of the frequent guests or hosts of Radiolab was in law school and came across a Supreme Court ruling, which I forgot to write down, that basically said, yep, nope, it's totally cool to sterilize people. And that bothered him. Who'd have thunk? And so he started working through a list of all of these 50 states to find laws still in the books that made involuntary sterilization still legal. There was one state remaining that he could find, good old West Virginia. He reached out, did some probing and some asking, and ultimately they changed their laws so that they couldn't take it to the Supreme Court to overturn the sterilization law. Anyway, it's about an hour and 10 minute episode talking about eugenics in the United States, and it was crazy to think of how recent this what seems to be deep history experience is, but how recent it is in American history. The next topic that I listened to, yep,
Everett I don't, I want to say something. So as a, as a guy, as a guy who knows about, uh, who has a surface level knowledge, at least the reason would hope so people get kind of freaked out when they realize their state has crazy old laws on the books still. And there's a number of reasons for that. The main reason for that is this issue called this issue called mootness. So by and large, the only way to challenge. a law that's on the book is if the state tries to enforce that law against a specific person. So there's got to be someone who's actually facing a person or an entity, which as you may or may not know, an entity is a person under the law, that is facing a unconstitutional ramification as a result of an enforcement of this law. So by and large, a lot of these weird bad laws that are on the books, don't really matter.
Andrew Which is why that Supreme Court ruling, there being only one state that still had an opportunity to challenge that Supreme Court ruling, when they overturned their law, it was a disappointment for them because no one could take it to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn this law. Because every state has laws now governing how involuntary, non-consensual sterilization is managed.
Everett And you know, really, the odds that there would be someone who was facing involuntary Sterilization are so low even in a state like what was it? What did you say West Virginia, West Virginia, right? It's so low that the odds that someone would have an actual just a Justiciable controversy.
Andrew That's the that's the term of art In order to to challenge to challenge this law at the Supreme Court level is so low So yeah, no, I'm virtually non-existent, but that's why it bothered him that it remained on the books So anyway, it's worth listening to it was called um unfit The next, I don't remember the title of this one, dove specifically into a case about fentanyl. And what they looked at was an EMT who had a fentanyl overdose response after treating someone who was overdosing on an opiate. So we hit him with Narcan, dude wakes up, they get him in the ambulance. Narcan, for those of you who don't know, is a, I don't know the actual name of the drug, it's long. But if you just Google Narcan, it's a tool that first responders carry that reverses temporarily the effects of an opiate overdose. And it's, they call it the Lazarus drug. And having seen it in person, it is the most, it's one of the craziest things I've ever seen. Somebody like looks dead on the floor and suddenly they're upright and talking to you. It's bizarre. Anyway. EMT shows up to a dude overdosing, they hit him with Narcan, they get him in the ambulance, and 15 minutes later he's showing signs of an overdose. They hit him with Narcan, get everyone in ambulances, and take them to the hospital. So it's this long exploration of fentanyl as it relates to how dangerous it is to people, kind of the origin of fentanyl, its rise in the United States, and then it goes into uh some interviews from toxicologists from pharmacologists from folks who are basically saying the overdoses that we're seeing in first responders from fentanyl are chemically impossible you can't just aerosolize something spontaneously you can't just spontaneously absorb something through your skin so there's still some some debate out there as to what exactly is happening and why super fascinating especially in the midst of the third wave of the opiate crisis in the United States being fentanyl.
Everett You know, Radiolab is one of those shows that is just amazing at taking a benign sounding topic and making just a wonderful hour of entertainment.
Andrew They're such good storytellers. They're way better than we are.
Everett Yeah. You know, it's probably the best podcast that's ever been made. that would be my that would be my guess among them for sure yeah and well you know certainly top two or three it probably gets my vote for best uh you know i've never not a single time turned on an episode of radio lab and haven't just thoroughly enjoyed myself so dig it you're really gonna vote for them over us yeah yeah no yep i will wow radio Jazz and whatever.
Andrew Unrelated, we're also looking for a new host for my good friend role.
Everett Yeah. Yeah. No, it's wonderful. You know, I brought it up briefly when you started, but they do this episode on colors where they wind up talking about this mantis shrimp that punches really fast, but that sees in all these colors and it's fascinating and wonderful. And then later, They had to come back and say, you know, everything we said about this mantis shrimp seeing in all these colors is maybe flawed because it maybe actually doesn't really see in all those colors. It has the ability, but anyway, wonderful. Radiolab's always wonderful.
Andrew I feel like any argument when you're talking about an organism site that you're going to make is inherently flawed.
Everett Yeah. Well, perhaps.
Andrew How do you, how do you know? Like this is what a dog sees. How the fuck do you know?
Everett You know, I think it's, well, So not to get in the weeds.
Andrew There's some science behind it, but there's still no way to definitively tell, right? That's right. Because brain receptors are different. Like, they're comparing it against what we think we know about things.
Everett And it's based on the cones in the eyes and... Which may work entirely different.
Andrew I don't know.
Everett That's right. That's right. So anyway, long story short, the Cutler's episode where they talk about the mantis shrimp is fantastic. And then later when they talk about how maybe their science was flawed, also fantastic. So I've got another thing. Do me. So Amazon, I bet like 75% of our listeners have already watched at least some of this. But there's a brand new Amazon Prime series, brand new, last couple of weeks, called The Boys.
Andrew Boys, as in adolescent males. Boys. Not The Voice. I had this discussion earlier this week with somebody else. Not The Voice on NBC. The Boys.
Everett The Boys. So The Boys is a comic. It's a cinema or a serial television adaptation of a comic of the same name, The Boys, which is this very critical and counterpoint view of superhero culture. You know, and I think what they do is I think the easiest way to say what they do is they try to explore what superheroes would actually be like in our American capitalist society.
Andrew So... Like what they'd be like when they were not wearing the cape?
Everett Just what they'd be like, period. So these people are superheroes, and they're famous, and so they're kind of like pro sports athletes. Tom Brady. They're Tom Brady, but with a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie line. Okay. They have got all the money. They're the most famous people on earth. They're prima donnas. How do they make money? They're drug addicts. They're, they make money through movies and government contracts and you know, all the things that you might expect that you could make money doing. So they're insanely wealthy. They're controlled by this major corporation. Um, but the major corporation can't really control them because they're superheroes, fucking superheroes. Um, so they're just nasty, shitty people by and large, um, with all the power in the world. I'm not even good at things and I'm like that. And what happens is they piss a few people off to the extent that there's this good and evil battle that foments. Are they the evil? And they're the evil. Okay. It's wonderful. It's really good. I'll tell you, don't watch it with the kids. don't watch even 10 seconds of it with the kids because I think in the first maybe two minutes of the series was a conversation about the difference between laying pipe and laying tube laying something else anyway but but the conversation evolves to well laying pipe would be having sex but what you said is actually just me shitting all over your apartment It's like in the first, like, minute of the series. I don't even know the shitting you've mentioned. It's wonderful. It's really good. And then, you know, then somebody dies in a really horrific fashion and there's blood all over people's faces on multiple occasions. Pink mist, the full meal deal. Ooh. It's very good. I'm intrigued. It's very good. It's graphic. It's excellent. It's excellent, excellent television in 2019.
Andrew Once I exhaust black sales. Black sales. I'm going to move on to the boys. We'll talk about black sales next week. Yeah, next week will be will be the black sales conversation.
Everett Buffalo Bill. OK, so before we move on, there is one thing that I want to talk about. So after our quartz watch episode, which that was maybe our most well received episode, which kind of surprised me. Yeah, because we're not scientists. We're not scientists. We're not engineers. We're not terribly smart. No. I got a question from an Instagram user, a listener. Instagram at it tells the time and I'm going to call him out. I hope that's not a problem. Sorry, bro. He's a public account, but it at it tells the time which reminds me of which reminds me of you know, it puts the lotion on the skin a little bit. I don't know if that's intentional or not only a little bit and I think it's just us but he asked me this he said hey, what is so you've got these 14 flip-flops. So we've got 32 768. and we flip-flop 14 times to get down to, you know, 2 iterations per second, a tick and a tock, which gives us a 1. Why couldn't we flip-flop fewer times, say 11 times, and give us 8 ticks, 16 ticks and tocks, 8 ticks per second, which would closely mirror the 28800 standard? And I said, gosh, I don't know, let me look. And so I went to the high-accuracy quartz forum on what you seek and ask this question look nobody's a scientist there are well there's people who are scientists there are so few people who know how this shit works that nobody knows the answers but i think i've narrowed the question down i when he asked me this i said you know that's one of the best questions we've ever got uh yeah i didn't think about it and and i don't know the answer but let me do some homework so over the course of about three days had a good conversation with these people, and I think it comes down to a couple things. One, when the quartz movement technology came out, it was very special to be able to measure time in one second increments. Visually, to be able to see each second elapse in a distinct fashion was very entertaining and helped you with accuracy. In fact, There's also a, there's also a mechanical, a mechanical, um, function that is called deadbeat seconds. And a complication, if you will, deadbeat seconds makes a mechanical movement into a one second jumping, you know, like a quartz movement. And they're very expensive. They're very hard to do. And nobody does them because it's kind of, why do we want to do that? So the question that was posed to me got me thinking, yeah, why don't we do that? The answer is to start with. because it was better to visually do one second. So there's, we talked about the number of reasons why 32768 was picked, why it was stepped down to one second, because that was cool. That was cool. It was useful. It was practical. So answer one is because one second's better. Answer two is because we've got this very mature technology that there's no reason, it ain't broke, so no one wants to fix it. It's not affecting sales. Answer three. And I think that this is probably the least significant factor, but it is a factor. It's going to be less efficient to move a court secondhand multiple times per second.
Andrew I would argue that's the most important. Well, the efficiency of the movement.
Everett I think at some point it might be, but, but I don't, I don't think it probably takes the cake, but go ahead.
Andrew I think the efficiency of the movement is the cornerstone. Wow. is the cornerstone of the success and of the value of courts. Courts movements don't look sexy. Sweeping hands look sexy. Spring drives look sexy. Courts movements don't. Courts movements are efficient and they are accurate. And I think the more bells and whistles you add to it, the more components you add to it, the more changes you make to it, it becomes less accurate, it becomes less efficient, it becomes harder to manufacture. And when we're looking at something that originated in Japanese manufacturing, we're looking at the most efficient way to accomplish a task. And the most efficient way to accomplish that task is to have it to do one thing, count seconds.
Everett And this came up in that thread, right? This came up in that thread where people say, hey, look, if you increase the amount of times we're ticking per second, you're going to decrease the efficiency. You're going to decrease the lifespan of the quartz. Decrease the lifespan of the battery, which in turn is going to increase your service interval, which is in turn going to decrease the lifespan of the movement in and of itself. So that is a factor.
Andrew I think it's the most important factor for the origin. Now there's no excuse. I think that's right.
Everett I think now we're in a place where with solar movements and with some of the alternative technology, it could be done. And so I think right now, that's not the biggest factor. I think the biggest factor is probably it ain't broke, so we're not fixing it. It's not hurting sales numbers of quartz movements any to have it ticking secondhand.
Andrew It'll make quartz movements more expensive, which is is one of their selling points. So they're less expensive.
Everett They're efficient. They're cheap. The technology is super mature, even unthirgable compensated. So yada, yada, yada. Anyway, I wanted to respond to that question because it was a fantastic question. And it motivated me to kind of engage in this just a little bit further. And I need to put a caveat on all this. I'm not an engineer. I don't believe anybody who is helping contribute to that conversation was an engineer. So short of getting a oscillator, oscillation designer or engineer involved in this conversation, I think that's the best answer we're going to get. I have a person. I will talk to them. Okay. There we go. Well, that's all I got. Do you have anything else today?
Andrew One last thing from me. I just want to say thank you to all y'all for your feedback, for your input, for your engagement. We started this, I don't know, nine months ago-ish, whenever, October. I don't know math good. And we didn't know what was going to come of it. We could have very well just been two dudes drinking beer in a room, which we would have been doing anyway. even express to you guys how thankful we are, how appreciative we are for your guys' engagement with us, for how much you trust us. Thank you for sending us your stuff. Thank you for talking to us. I would, a year ago, it felt like it was weird if people from the internet were talking to me. Or sending me $700 watches. Yeah, and now I dig it. I love it. I love your guys' engagement. Thank you so much. You make all of this worth it. Because Everett and I are going to drink beer no matter what. We're most likely going to talk about watches no matter what. We're not going to get to talk to you. Thank you. Keep engaging with us. We love it. That's all I have.
Everett Amen. Right? Yeah, no, I was actually talking to my wife today. I'm really proud of what we've done here, and I'm just super thankful, just like Andrew, of all the opportunities. You know, just this week I met up with an Instagram follower and had beers, you know? It was like, shit, how cool is this? Because you didn't even text me. I saw it on Instagram. I told you that it was going to happen, and you were in Salem. Disagree. All right. Thank you for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20. If you'd like to follow us, check us out on Instagram at 40 and 20. Better yet, if you want to support the show and let me tell you, we need the support because we just spent $800 on recording equipment. If you'd like to support the show, check us out at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Don't forget to tune back in next Thursday. for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like.
Andrew you