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The Regrets of Buying and Selling Watches

Published on Sun, 22 May 2022 12:30:00 +0000

Jack, Cole, and Danny open up about the ones that got away (and ones they were happy to see go).

Synopsis

In this live episode of Hodinkee Radio, James Stacy brings together Jack Forster, Cole Pennington, and Danny Milton in the New York offices for a face-to-face conversation about watches they regret selling and watches they're happy to have moved on from. The discussion begins with nostalgic memories of early micro-brands and forum watches from the mid-2000s and 2010s, including brands like Ocean 7, Orsa, Helson, and Baffin's Hawaii that have largely disappeared from the market but hold special meaning for those who experienced them during their formative watch collecting years.

The conversation reveals different collecting philosophies among the hosts. James and Cole have been more active buyers and sellers over the years, while Jack and Danny have taken a more conservative approach to their collections. James particularly regrets selling his Omega Seamaster 2254 and Breitling Aerospace, watches that have appreciated significantly but more importantly held personal significance. Jack shares a fascinating story about receiving an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak 15300 as a corporate gift that left him feeling nothing emotionally, eventually selling it for tuition payments—a decision he doesn't regret aesthetically but wishes he'd timed better financially. Cole discusses his deep dive into collecting Omega Flightmasters, eventually selling his entire collection to fund a GMT-Master II, exemplifying the "upward consolidation" strategy many collectors employ.

The episode takes several entertaining tangents, including discussions about the mechanics and awkwardness of selling watches privately, the hygiene issues that can arise with pre-owned pieces, the changing landscape of watch pricing and availability, and the difference between being a collector with specific themes versus an enthusiast who simply accumulates watches they love. Throughout, the hosts demonstrate both the joy and occasional regret that comes with an active relationship to watch collecting, while also acknowledging that the experiences gained from buying, wearing, and selling watches are often as valuable as the watches themselves.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacy Hey, it's me, James Stacy, and this episode of Hodinki Radio is a rare treat because we're doing it live. Well, not really, but I'm in New York, so we're doing it face to face, no Zoom required. As such, I've dragged Cole, Danny, and Jack into the offices on a beautiful Wednesday morning to chat about watches we regret selling and watches we totally don't regret selling. As I'm sure we've all flipped a few pieces in the past, some perhaps a bit too hastily, it should be a fun walk down memory lane. Let's get to it. Hey guys, nice to see your faces in a traditional non-monitor sort of sense. Although I guess we did this not too long ago in Geneva. It's it's cool to be back in New York. I mean it's not functionally cool, it's it's a sauna in the room where we're recording. Uh Jack is complaining a lot. I've muted his microphone. Uh how we all doinging?
Jack Forster I'm dy. I'm very warm.
Cole Pennington Yeah. Just dying. It's that in between time. I guess you have to explain though. Like in New York, when you it the seasons change, the heating is controlled by the building, right? So that doesn't necessarily change with the seasons. right on time So it's spring, it's nice out, but the heat's on in the building.
Jack Forster Also, it's a steam radiator. And um, you know, tip typically the steam radiators in Manhattan were designed to uh to overdo it because uh a lot of them date from like the night period nineteen thirty to nineteen sixty. And the idea was it was thought that if you didn't keep the windows open and keep freshening the air, then um miasmas that caused diseases would build up inside. So the radiators are basically designed to keep um rooms warm even when it's extremely cold outside.
Danny Milton This is reference points radiators addition.
Cole Pennington Yes. Well radiators aren't the only ones that were
James Stacy designed to overdo it. I think that stands for most of us on this recording today. Look, so we're trying to figure out a topic and and something that always does kind of come up, especially now with with how the value of watches has really um accelerated in the last few years, is you look back on stuff and you kind of think like, oh maybe I should have kept that and sold it maybe now. Or you just regret it because you see a picture of it on your Instagram or or you go back, you know, deleting photos from your photo roll and you're like, oh yeah, that was a good watch. Why did I sell that? Uh so we thought we'd try and make that into uh into some sort of a a a grander discussion. Uh and and uh anyone listening, if you have uh regrets or non-regrets as far as selling or buying watches, uh drop them in the comments. Of course as always we uh we love to try and keep uh keep the combo going afterwards in the comments. So yeah, I mean I think we should probably just jump right into it. What do you guys have in your history as far as uh I don't know, maybe maybe something you regret selling uh a watch that you look back on and you kind of think like maybe I shouldn't have.
Cole Pennington I'll start from the beginning. Here. Start from the very beginning. I think I've talked about it before. You and I kind of come from the same era of like Frick or case, micro brands and so forth. So there was a whole craft of watches that I owned that were not necessarily expensive. They were cheap, like Orsa Monstrum. You remember those?
James Stacy Yep. Uh the Heli
Cole Pennington os Shark Hunter, Shark Diver? Not Helios. Oh, Helsinki.
James Stacy Oh, sure. Yeah, I've had a few Helson star drivers
Cole Pennington . And like the the crazy thing is, yeah, I I let them all go and I have never seen another one like Ocean Sevens or Nautic Fish or any of those early microbrand stuff. Let them go for cheap and, I've never seen another one to buy back.
James Stacy Yeah. And I just want to buy them for the nostalgia.
Cole Pennington Yeah, for sure. I just have not seen them. Well, and you
James Stacy had an LM7 as well, right? Which is Ocean 7's like Ploprof homage.
Cole Pennington Exactly. Yeah, I have. This is also kind of cool to watch.
James Stacy y You wrote a stor on that, didn't you or I did.
Danny Milton Okay. And it's no longer in the collection, un
Cole Pennington fortunately. However, and and that's one that I do ragret selling, you know? Um which is kind of the point of this whole thing, right? But um yeah, I was just kinda like going the earliest phase of flipping or whatever was getting rid of all the micros. Which I actually do regret, simply not because they're valuable or anything now. They didn't pop. You just can't find them. There was a very specific era of watches that hasn't happened again, you know?
James Stacy Yeah, no, I agree. I mean I I had a handful uh back in the day of Ocean Sevens and Orsas and yeah these these brands that and there there are definitely some that I look back on and I go like that was too big. I understand why I sold that or like it didn't really work out. But I do miss a couple of them. They were a couple of them were really sweet things and they would kind of connect me back to those like really early days where you were finding something a little different or left of center from a Pseco SKX or something.
Jack Forster When did the era of crowdfunding micro brands kind of start?
Cole Pennington 1415. Yeah, 1415 with K
James Stacy ickstarter. into watches and not understand how Kickstarter doesn't work uh a lot.
Jack Forster That was also the you know the time when like w I think wider public interest in in watches kind of like outside the hardcore enthusiast community sort started to take off. So like you have all of these people coming into the hobby and there's these like, you know, they're looking for something that's kind of unique, kind of specific. This Kickstarter comes up, it's like, you know, the watch looks cool, the price sounds right
James Stacy . And uh it's it's kind of it's
Jack Forster tempting, right? I think everyone thought that they could
James Stacy do what Daniel Wellington did, which was you know, take a watch that maybe cost $12 and sell it for $115. And then suddenly everyone was wearing them. The watch had no real gender bias. They were everywhere. And I think that's like people saw their opportunity to do the same thing with a Ronda Quartz or uh a Meota Quartz and uh and and pump out, you know, several thousand watches per round of of Kickstarter funding. But I've said this I think on this podcast before. Like I think I'm one for five on Kickstarter where like I just never got the thing. It just never happened. I ne
Danny Milton ver got the watch. Not n I've never bothered
James Stacy with a watch. Okay. Um but like random tech items, camera gears, stuff like that. Like a camera strap, I think I bought and I got that, but like Kickstarter can be like really fraught as far as a platform for any of this stuff. So I I try and preach as much, you know, understand that if you do the Kickstarter thing, especially for something like a a watch brain that's never made a watch before, the first one's the hardest.
Jack Forster So like if you if if the is this is this the way it works? I've never actually like looked into Kickstarter all that much, but if you if you start a watch uh brand and you're trying to fund it through Kickstarter and you don't reach the minimum stated financial goal. What are you supposed to do? You're supposed to give the money back
James Stacy ? Well you don't get the money if you don't cross the the threshold. I think it's held by Kickstarter is my understanding. And I could be a little bit off by that, but I I don't think that you if it's not funded, it's not funded. pro Theject didn't work out.
Jack Forster Right. In in my experience with Kickst
James Stacy arter, the projects would fund and then the people just go dark. They take the money and they run.
Jack Forster That's interesting. Sounds like a great way to make an easy fifty grand.
Cole Pennington I thought of one, by the way. A more specific example. Baffy's Hawaii. Oh. I have one
James Stacy . Okay, so that was on my list. This is a fun one. Okay. Yeah, I had a uh 100 fathoms with the ruthenium dial,
Cole Pennington the the shiny sort of grayish style. The mother of pearl-ish one or no?
James Stacy It was in the vein. Like it's it's it's got just kind of a uh kind of flaky, bright silver sort of finish. And I absolutely regret something that watch. It was super cool. It was the right size.
Cole Pennington And totally unique viewpoint. Yeah
James Stacy . Do you know those, Danny? I don't.
Cole Pennington This is a this is a whole nother era of
James Stacy like watches. I
Cole Pennington would say early 2000s. Okay.
Danny Milton Early and micro brands?
Cole Pennington Yes. Yeah, before we were even calling them m
James Stacy icro brands, I think it was just one of these forum brands, right? Forum
Cole Pennington brands. Had a really speci
James Stacy fic design impetus to kind of make like a an everyday kind of casual sport watch, but it they had their own kind of look and feel. Do you remember the one that did you have one with the UV case? So it was like a purple finished case. Oh,
Cole Pennington I remember that one. No, I'm I always thought that would be rad to have
James Stacy as well. Yeah, that was. I remember on the case back
Cole Pennington it had a depiction of Hawaii, which is very cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
James Stacy No, super cool. I I I definitely missed that watch. That was a great one. Good good memory
Cole Pennington . Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The picture of Hawaii was
Jack Forster it uh all all of the islands or just the big island or all
Cole Pennington of it was the chain, yeah. Yeah, it was the chain. Yeah. And and I always wondered so obviously Badysawai moved into atomic timekeeping and so forth. And then after that, to my knowledge, they kind of exited. Exit stage left. You know, like
Jack Forster Yeah, I always wanted them to kind of like stick with the atom
Cole Pennington I'll throw another one out there. Two. I used to collect Flightmasters specifically. Like almost every at some point I had every iteration except for the all gold one, which is my fantasy watch, like Grail Watch. It'
Jack Forster s gotta be a heavy sucker.
Cole Pennington You just gotta try it. Oh no, I believe you. I believe you
Jack Forster . I mean in general I find flight master the I've only had Steel Flightmasters on, but in general I find they're they're a lot more comfortable than you than you would think just from the size and the thickness of the case
Cole Pennington . And I mean you do have to kind of lean into
Jack Forster it though. You're wearing like a honk and big super technical
James Stacy mechanical pilot's watch and and like you know
Jack Forster you can't look at and say, Oh, well, I'll think I'll stick with my thirty-two millim
Cole Pennington eter minute repeater from Pad
Jack Forster ley. Um and yeah, un
Cole Pennington fortunately, and this is a universal experience with watches, although there are uh I and I've encountered more and more people who just don't sell watches, period. But you go so deep on something, you come to understand it so intimately and so forth that you almost get to a point where you reject it. I don't know if this is a thing or not, but it's certainly happening. No, I think that that's I think that
Jack Forster I think that that's true. Like it it's not even I don't know if it's rejection necessarily. I mean it might be for you. Like for me what happens is I'll get a watch, I'll experience it, and I'll feel like I've kind of, you know, like drained drained the glass dry
Cole Pennington . And then there's a there's there's usually a
Jack Forster a period of disinterest that could sometimes last for years. But I've sold very few watches and one of the things that I've discovered is that sometimes I'll go back after I have have tr after I haven't worn a watch for like five years and I'm like, oh this is you know this is pretty cool. I'm I'm I'm really glad I didn't sell it
James Stacy I've I've definitely made the mistake of selling stuff on like I don't know, on a whim, I guess is the option. Like the one that jumps to my mind and only because the watch has increased in price in a manner that I don't know is necessarily equal with the experience that it provides versus a newer version of the similar ideas. Like my 2254 Seamaster, which is like a perfect, slim, super wearable, great looking watch. I had on a speedy bracelet. It was great on any strap, great on. And then I think just for whatever reason, I was like, oh, I I want, I think I sold it for like the equivalent of a may maybe a little under 1500 US back in the day. And maybe they've doubled since then. And when you hit start to hit like three grand, the competition's crazy in the in pre-owned. Like you could get a lot of watch from a bunch of different brands that are considerably more modern than the Eta base that's in that, in that Omega. And then, of course, if you buy a 2254 now, it kind of has to go in for service almost immediately unless it just has been. Just just because i I'd wanna take it and I'd wanna jump off docks wearing it, like I'd wanna I'd wanna dive with it, like all that kind of stuff. And you'd wanna get it pressure tested and probably serviced. And and luckily being an etabase, that's not like a big concern. It doesn't have to go back to Omega. But
Jack Forster James, when was the last time you actually jumped off a dock
James Stacy ? I mean October of last year. When was the last
Cole Pennington time you took a long walk off a short dock
James Stacy ? Frequently, yeah, for sure. No, it's it's almost like I mean I mean the weather in this exact room we're in right now is absolutely conducive to dock jumping. Uh but we're nearly back to dock jumping season. No, this is this is all the do all I do all summer. Do
Danny Milton you regret selling it because the cost has is now more than you're willing to pay for that same watch or because it's now the the value you would have would have had to be able to sell it today is more than what you sold it at originally.
James Stacy I just wish I hadn't sold it at all. Okay. And now to go back and rebuy one, especially like now I go back and I go, well, I had the 5.4. What if I get the non-AC, which had applied numerals? There's a titanium version out there that's like even more into the Peter Blake uh lineage, which is kind of fun. I mean the
Jack Forster other problem is that like a lot of the time what you want is you don't want like you don't want to buy like the same model. You want to buy you wanna get back that particular watch that you had because you have a history with it
James Stacy . Uh I mean uh not in this case. It didn't I wouldn't say that there was any like sentimental value on this one, but I do understand that that being a thing for sure, trying to get the exact same one.
Jack Forster Yeah. Um and that's kind of where I would stand with like
James Stacy trying to think of other stuff that I sold that I kind of wish I had in like my uh my aerospace in a moment of weakness. I flip my aerospace and I miss that watch every day. I think I just was wearing a garment all the time when I wanted a watch that had some features. And then now now I wish I still had that because they're not worth enough money to really worry about one way or another. And they've appreciated a bit in the last few years, but probably just get another.
Jack Forster You know what I wish I hadn't sold? I had a their
Cole Pennington soul. It's the devil. Yeah
James Stacy . You play guitar real well though. Have you seen this guy?
Cole Pennington No, I haven't. I should absolutely shredding.
Jack Forster Absolutely shredding. It's all it's all like crazy one seventy-second note arpeggios, man
James Stacy . Suck it up, Sat
Jack Forster an. This is a really obscure watch unless you're a high accuracy quartz enthusiast, but I had pulsar. Pulsar made two high accuracy quartz watches back in the day. I can't I can't even remember the manufacturing dates, but was the Pulsar PSR twenty, which was accurate to twenty seconds per year, and the Pulsar PSR ten, which is accurate to 10 seconds a year, which is, you know, 10 10 seconds a year was pretty fantastic. they They were were not expensive watches. I found one it must be like at least 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago. I found one, bought it, you know, it it ran really well. And the funny thing is it was really beautifully made. I mean it was not expensive to buy. The case was really nicely made, dial was great. You know, it was like an ultra ultra thin, high accuracy quartz watch, like super, super elegant. I would never sell it uh if I had it now. But I sold it for like maybe twice what I paid for it. And just because I'd like th I thought to myself, well, I've had this experience. I don't need to keep having it. You know, it's a cool watch for somebody else, you know, should experience it. And I I'm really sorry I sold that one. And I I don't see them for sale anymore.
James Stacy No. I mean I will you you brought that watch the PSR 20 up on a recent podcast and I had to Google. I didn't know it in our hidden gems. You mentioned it. And uh yeah it's a definitely a cool thing for sure.
Cole Pennington Here here's a question for you guys. So obviously with the value of watches rising so much, I have never I've always been behind. I've never sold a watch for a massive profit. Maybe a few hundred bucks. Like I would make a terrible dealer. Me too. I'm wondering if this feeling this feeling of regret, regret, goes away if you just make a ton of money on a watch. Like if a watch pops and you sell it, it just
James Stacy definitely doesn't vary. Like money always helps a little bit, right? It doesn't fix a problem, but it makes the problem less noticeable. R
Cole Pennington ight. Yeah. Um, you know, I think uh the one
James Stacy I would I would bring up is actually a watch I was going to mention to see if you remember it several generations back in terms of ownership and functionality Yemma, they did a Seiko-based dive watch called the Sea Spider. So it was kind of it was about 40 millimeters, kind of brightling-esque in some ways. Like it had kind of a Baroque bezel. I had one in a blue dial, and I remember I bought that on like Watchy Seek way back when I was I had no money to spend on watches. I paid 150 bucks for it or something. And then like a a year or so later, I was like, well, I had my time with it. I'm good. And I put it up on WatchySeq and I had like forgotten to put a price in the in the sales and before I went back to edit it, like I just very quickly put a couple photos up.
Cole Pennington They banned you from watch you see for doing that. I was not I
James Stacy was not banned. Somebody somebody sent me a thing and they're like, will you take like I think seven or eight hundred dollars. And I was like, yeah, I was just about to list this for 200 bucks, dude. Just so I could get my shipping money back. Oh my
Cole Pennington god. I feel like there's an article in there somewhere about
Jack Forster just like strange names for dive watches. This is a little bit of a tangent. Oh, absolut
James Stacy ely. You know, they just they seem to
Jack Forster attract um sort of weird, exaggerated, outlandish names in a way that no other category of watches.
James Stacy I think it's one of the biggest things that people don't talk about in terms of the appeal of the watch is its name. It mattered to me so little years ago. And now so much of a watch's name, especially the brand name, can really rub me the wrong way
Jack Forster . Yeah. Yeah. Uh and somet
Cole Pennington hing folks don't and I don't know if we even see it much anymore, but I used to pay attention to it a lot was case back art inspired by undersea adventures or or like caricatures of squids or ocean monsters. That
Danny Milton didn't do it for you or did? Well, uh back
Cole Pennington in the day I paid attention and appreciated it much more. Now I don't like think of all the major dive watches that we write about regular. Like do any of them have really cool case back art
Jack Forster ? I mean uh the submariner definitely doesn't definitely does.
James Stacy You could make it w anything you want. That's true. That'
Jack Forster s true. I wonder what the first um ocean the theme the again it's a tangent, but I wonder what the first sort of like ocean themed production engraving on the back of a watch was. Was it like the Omega Hippocampus? H
Cole Pennington mm, great question. Yeah, who knows? Like the sixties and seventies were full of very cool uh ideas. Like uh, you know, like contract or label watches.
Jack Forster Right. But they came up with totally out
Cole Pennington landish things like uh all the the Jenny or Yanni stuff had some very cool names. There's also, isn't there actually a Jenny C Lab
Jack Forster ? I think there was I wouldn't be surprised if there was.
James Stacy I think it was an Aquastar C Lab. Yeah, may
Cole Pennington be it's a Aquastar C Lab three hundred, something
James Stacy like that. Yeah. So it's it sounds like uh
Jack Forster uh Cole and James, it sounds like you've s sold watches a lot more actively than myself and Danny.
Danny Milton A hundred percent. That's true. Yeah. Like I'm sitting
James Stacy here listening to it and I'm like, you guys went through a peri
Jack Forster od where in one year you sold more watches than I've sold in my entire Yeah
Danny Milton . I mean back in the day when when I was before
James Stacy , you know, way, way back when I first got into this and I started writing for watch report, I was basically buying a watch to review it and then to sell it and then take that $150 and buy another watch so that I had something we had no industry contacts. You're kind of out there on your own and you made little moves to try so that I had something to write about. And it and it does like, you know, the first hundred watches over a few years, like that's a good way of learning. It's good, you know, you you you experience a lot of trash. You experience a lot of stuff that people didn't care for. But it does kind of bring you up to speed and it gives you this um like visual literacy, especially for like at the time all it was just ups as uh not that dissimilar to now, but it was dive watching. I mean let me
Jack Forster ask let me ask you guys another question. I mean since you've become you know, full time professional watch journalists. I mean, you get to experience watches that you don't have to buy because they're sent to you for review. They're sent to you for coverage with a frequency that obviously was not the case just in terms of direct experience of watches when you were kind of collecting privately and you know before you started doing this for a living. Have you have you reduced uh your watch buying and watch selling activities?
James Stacy Extensively. I hate selling watches.
Cole Pennington I will say and this hate is it's really
James Stacy difficult now. Uh kind
Cole Pennington of a larger conversation, but uh there was a certain, you know, NWA new watch alert. Like there was a certain excitement about getting a $400 watch in the mail
James Stacy . Still is. Well, yeah, there's
Cole Pennington there still is, but I don't know if I get the same sort of excitement as I did back then. You know, I ever
Jack Forster y nothing like cracking into a fresh psycho bo
James Stacy x. That's true too. I was just gonna say, like I have
Jack Forster I have I have a couple of kids, you know, uh both both college age. So like my watch buying activities have been severely curtailed for, you know, uh purely practical reasons. But every once in a while I just order a SICO five off Amazon. And like, you know, when that when when when that box comes and you know you get that little burst of serotonin, you're like,
Danny Milton ah It does feel good. Even like a G Shock. Yeah. Even like a $40 G Shock. It it I I get that.
James Stacy And I like I like the low stakes. You know, you we we're you're saying buying and selling. I I find it, you know, it's it's difficult now, not only obviously because there's a certain profile that comes with being a writer in in the watch world that you know people might recognize your name and the rest of it. So you you obviously have to operate at a very high standard when it comes to selling a watch. It's a lot easier to use a service like Crown of Caliber, Hodenky Pre-Own, there's my plug. But uh like I've I've genuinely had some really strange experiences. When I sold that two two five four, I priced it at what I thought was absolutely fair for its condition,
Jack Forster right. It's its requirements for serv
James Stacy ice. Everything was a pair paragraphs of stuff.
Cole Pennington Under your own name or no? Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So like you signed the the message, the DMs, James Stacey.
James Stacy It was on Watchy Seek. Okay, yeah. And and I I was selling it actively in Vancouver, like meet face to face. It's all fine. I've worn this watch. It's all over my Instagram. The rest of it. And that I none of that's the problem. But then because of how I priced it, which I felt was very realistic, I think it was 18 or 1850 C A D at the time
Cole Pennington . And it had a few goodies and a a
James Stacy cool like omega zipper case and the rest. But another guy in the Vancouver scene took all the pictures and everything and immediately posted on the same forum another sales post saying that he was gonna sell it for twenty two hundred dollars or something. So he thought he was gonna buy it from me for eighteen fifty and then sell it on a slightly different form. And then immediately people started sending me this saying, like, which one is the one that you're selling? I'm like,
Cole Pennington This guy needs to take a long lock off for sure. Yeah, yeah. Kick
James Stacy rocks. Kick rocks for sure. That ain't cool. Uh so and then when I brought it up to him, because I knew him, he was like, Oh, I do this all the time. And I was like, Yeah, but you shouldn't
Cole Pennington . Yeah, that's not right. You're confusing people and
James Stacy also you're avert advertising to sell something that I'm never gonna sell you now.
Jack Forster Danny, have you ever sold a watch? I
Danny Milton have used a watch as currency to buy another watch. So I've used a Chopard Mila Melia to
Jack Forster beautiful. So I I asked weird
James Stacy . I I asked you if you ever sold a watch and you
Jack Forster said I have used a watch as currency to buy another watch. Such a lawyer thing to say.
Danny Milton Well the reason I say it is because I
Jack Forster Yeah that watch came to me.
Danny Milton It was it was something of a gift, even though it wasn't really, it belonged to my mother of all things, but she just didn't wear it and had no connection to it. And by virtue of that, I had no connection to it. I did wear it for I would say maybe two years. Strangely enough, I people would notice that watch more than any other watch that I would wear. I think the like the tire tread rubber strap had something to do with it. And it's got an interesting enough dial. But yeah, when I wanted to buy my GMT Master 2, the the Batman and there was some value in that watch and when I when I used it to trade it in I'm got a pretty nice price to do so.
Cole Pennington How much? About two grand. That's really good considering what they sell for. Ye
Danny Milton ah., I think that's right And I I don't regret it, but at the same time, maybe I I do a little bit only because I felt a little bad. You know, it was it was it was kind of a gift. I I cleared it with her first. I was like, I'm gonna yimbling. Oh, I'
Jack Forster m gonna ask, man, did you like to ask? I asked. I I did the right
Danny Milton thing. But I I don't really like to sell watches. I it's just not my it's not my style. Yeah.
Cole Pennington Well there's another concept that we haven't really we've kind of touched on it. So selling watches, you can kind of upgrade, right? Like you move so now that's a Batman. That's a very valuable watch that you might keep for life or whatever, you know. I
Danny Milton plan to, yeah. So through sell
Cole Pennington ing, I mean, selling is a vehicle to get to where you're going, right? So it's not like we just love selling watches. It's it's more like it's a journey. It's a journey
James Stacy . It it always depends on on the person and their personality. Like I s we when I when I asked all the general colleagues that are normally on the show, some people were like, oh, I've literally never bothered to sell a watch. I just keep them all.
Jack Forster I hate the mechanics of selling the muscle. Yeah. It's just
James Stacy I mean it's easier if if you're in the States. Like when when I sell a watch, I have to be concerned about how to ship it, how to ensure it over a border, what how what that's gonna do to the kind of appeal of the watch. So a lot of times you tr you try and keep things in the Canadian system as it were, we're un you know, federated to that country versus this one or whatnot. So the it it is kind of a a weirdly complex thing. And I think that's why there is, again, another plug, but I why there is value in using, especially when the watches of a certain value and up in using an intermediary, because then you don't have to deal with having enough posts on WatchYouSeek to be allowed to post or putting something on your Instagram and then dealing with DMs and people flaking on you and trying to figure out how to get payment.
Cole Pennington Reselling your match from more. And then of course now now
James Stacy yeah. Or that. Um then you have the the more recent thing, and I think if I don't bring this up, people will mention in the comments is you now have PayPal and these other companies are reporting
Cole Pennington ten uh values over a certain amount, right? Yeah. Anything in the right. So now
James Stacy now now you're not moving watches to disguise value in in any place, especially not in PayPal. And of course we would never recommend that you do that. Keep your watch as a watch if you'd like to hold its value that
Jack Forster I
James Stacy Yeah, bearer bonds, yeah. Like uh yeah, I think
Cole Pennington to solve all these problems you need to come up with a fake identity and you need to only operate in ca in whatever you non support users on a cali
James Stacy ber. Stacks of Hundos. Yeah, stacks of Hundos
Cole Pennington . And like I don't know what what Dan
Jack Forster ny, is that the only watch you ever sold? Excuse me. The only watch you've ever used as currency to buy another watch.
Danny Milton Yes, I also returned an SKX double nine, which I regret was within the return of the return
Cole Pennington . Back when they were like 185 bucks. Ye
Danny Milton ah. And I regret it because I I think I I wanted a GMT master Pepsi at the time and I was just like this isn't scratching that itch.
Jack Forster Yeah. Which was dumb. I think I was influenced
Danny Milton by others to think that way. And now I just dou
Jack Forster ble O seven and double oh nine are they're like getting expensive. I have the
Danny Milton double oh seven. I kept I I wear that watch fairly often, but I I regret not keeping the double o nine
Cole Pennington .
Danny Milton I was like twenty-six, twenty-seven.
Cole Pennington So not that long ago. Five years ago, something like
Danny Milton that. Yeah, and I just uh I it it's a thing in the moment it didn't do it for me, and now I wish that it was still here with me
Cole Pennington . Well I got one. Speaking of buying selling, I have a few extra SKX09s. Double N9s. A few. We can we can make that happen. We might be able to work something out here. This is
James Stacy the the you're talking to you're talking to the guy who I sent like one message to about possibly wanting a Seiko monster and I had one in a few days.
Cole Pennington We'll talk business later. Okay. J
Danny Milton ack, I'm I'm I'm curious. Have you owned anything
James Stacy and then you sold it and you were happy to see it go? Like like the the inverse of a regret?
Jack Forster I had a very weird experience many years ago um when I was not burdened with tuition payments. Um I had a Royal Oak 15300, which was the first reference that had the 3120 in it, the caliber 3120. And you know, that watch was a big deal. Ye
James Stacy ah. I got it as a gi
Jack Forster ft um, you know, for a company from a company that I was working for at the time, you know, when I started working for them. And um they gave me the watch we had a few drinks I went home I put it on the nightstand I woke up the next morning and I put it on and much to my shock and horror I just felt nothing like I felt nothing. I f didn't I'm empty not cold
James Stacy and inside and this watch isn't that. That'
Danny Milton s right. It might actually be highlighting it.
Jack Forster It was actually making things worse. It filled me with a creeping sense of existential dread and an awareness of the pointlessness of human existence and a random and infinite multiverse.
James Stacy And it's still and it and
Jack Forster on top of everything else. And um, you know, like it's a great, like it's a great watch. I mean, it was an objectively great watch. The caliber 3120 was like a huge deal when it, you know, when it first came out. I mean, I remember showing the watch to a guy who um was a watchmaker for Paddock Philippe and he was like, oh good movement, good movement. And I was like, you know, I I felt like validated for like forty seven seconds. Then I was right back to existential dread again. And so anyway, I finally sold it to make a tuition payment. The only thing that I regret about selling that watch is that I didn't wait so that I could sell it for watching more
James Stacy tuition payments. And like you know, again, this is this
Jack Forster has nothing to do with like, you know, how I feel about AP, which is a company I respect enormously, obviously. It has it doesn't even have anything to do with how I feel about the Royal Oak. I might have felt completely differently about that watch if it hadn't had a white dial, you know, if it had if it had had like a blue dial.
James Stacy Yeah. Or a salmon dial. Was
Cole Pennington but it was just it was just I looked at it and it was
Jack Forster like I I felt like I was looking at the surface of a frozen pond with like a body barely visible beneath the surface.
Cole Pennington Wow. You should write the PR copy for
Danny Milton AP. Yeah. That might sell a while
James Stacy . They're not going to move a lot of white dials onto under that messaging jack. We might need to workshop that a bit. I
Danny Milton 'm swayed. No, no, I mean like I mean I mean
Jack Forster it's like it's it's not you, it's me. Like that's how it works. It reflected
James Stacy the frozen tundra of your own soul.
Danny Milton Wait, but Jack, to to to bring up Cole's question, when did when was this
Jack Forster ? Oh gosh. Probably ten years ago
Danny Milton . I feel like today you might not have made the same rash decision.
James Stacy We all could have owned Royal Oaks ten years ago.
Cole Pennington And was it here's the important bit too is you said it was a gift from the employer as it was it kind of a signing bonus and was it semi-used as a financial instrument? Like
Danny Milton I don't uh in in what
Jack Forster sense statute I just want everyone to
James Stacy know in a past life I did work in uh in A
Danny Milton ML, anti-money laundering. So uh if anyone wants some tips on the
James Stacy I I actually did two very briefly. Yeah.
Cole Pennington I should leave this room. Yeah. Oh
Jack Forster oh so oh oh I get it. I get it. Um I mean not I get it. Not really. Um I you know, I mean I I obviously felt uh you know grateful and incentivized to work hard and uh do my best, although I always do that because, you know, I have a work ethic
Cole Pennington . But was it designed for you to sell? Like it's like
Jack Forster maybe we can't pay you X, Y, and Z, but we
Cole Pennington 'll give you this watch and then you remember this was back before like
Jack Forster the Royal Oak became the thing that it is today. Like you know, I I'm I I don't I don't know what the street price back then was versus the street price now, but I bet it's a pretty big delta.
Danny Milton Pretty vastly it's vastly multiple. Yeah. It wasn't down payment on a house back then.
Jack Forster And it certainly uh it would be now, I think.
James Stacy I was trying to think of a of a a non-regret, something I was like very happy to sell. And the only thing that could possibly come into my mind is definitely not anywhere anywhere uh uh in the same vein as a uh as a royal oak. But I, you know, I every now and then I convince myself that I can wear a white watch. Like with a white case and a strap and and
Jack Forster like a fully white ceram
Cole Pennington ic. No, this is just like a I think the last
James Stacy time I tried and I learned that lesson, I think. We'll see. Um was uh like a white G Shock, like a like a sort of MM style white 5060. And I I I I I've talked about this recently on a podcast, but I I literally got it out of the mail and I was like very excited. And I owned a couple other G Shocks at a time, so it's not like I didn't know what I was getting into, and I took it out of the thing and I put it on my wrist and I walked like one lap of my home at the time. And I went, oh uh-uh. Right? Took it off, put it back, like took one photo, it's $40, right? Like took, took one photo and immediately put it maybe sold I
Jack Forster mean maybe if you lived in Florida instead of Canada, you would have kept it
Danny Milton . Actually I own that nineteen ninety five Apple Watch that I wrote about last year. Yeah. And when I bought that, it came to me with the original rubber strap that could not be on the watch anymore because it had crumbled. But the seller still sold it to me with it in a little tiny like dime b
Jack Forster ag with just crumbled bits of rubber
Danny Milton strap. Complete
Jack Forster with original strap.
James Stacy It's like those uh those fake um Star W
Jack Forster ars toys where it's just
James Stacy one of the burnt up bodies of Luke's aunt or uncle. Yes. I'm also using the case little chard bits and a plastic figurine
Cole Pennington .
Jack Forster Man, it's the it's the best is when you buy a w when you buy a a a pre-owned watch or a vintage watch from somebody and it comes and it's got like it's clearly got the uh shed uh epidermis of uh many previous episodes I don't want this
James Stacy on the show. I don't want this on the show.
Danny Milton Let's talk epic. We've all seen it. We've
Jack Forster all seen it. Yeah, but it it's not fun to talk
James Stacy about. It's gross. I'm having a great time
Danny Milton . God, I I had something to say off that point. I won't say it. All right. I I mean I did I did get a watch in for a review recently where it had clearly made the rounds.
James Stacy Oh yeah, yeah. That that definitely happened. It's been been
Jack Forster rode hard and put away wet. Road very
James Stacy hard. When you take like like a
Danny Milton paper towel to the back just to make sure like to see is that what I think it is and it rubs off.
Jack Forster Yeah. It's just not a great probably what hap
Cole Pennington pened was someone uh you know, so the brand told someone to send that wash to you and they were like, Danny Milton from hoodie, I'm gonna wear this thing out in the mud and stuff and then send it to him. It's it's ex
Danny Milton tra humid today. I'm going for a run in this leather
Cole Pennington strap. It was it was done on purpose. Yeah, you could you could
Jack Forster you could you could DNA test that stuff and figure out exactly who it was
James Stacy . W
Danny Milton hat is it, uh twenty three and me or whatever? You
Cole Pennington guys are all fired.
James Stacy We're we're this is the last Hodinky reading. What's the
Danny Milton topic of this pod? I don't remember.
James Stacy Gross grossness and watches.
Jack Forster It was it was buying and selling uh regrets, but now it's turned into like you know some kind of weird hygiene biology thing
Danny Milton I do really regret that SKX double nine and now that we've been talking
Jack Forster about go for it.
Danny Milton I gotta I gotta talk to Cole later. Yeah Cole's got good
Cole Pennington so you mentioned plastic degrading over time. This is very it's a well known problem. And I think uh Uncle Seiko solved this problem. But the Z twenty two and then the GL straps, they particularly get crumbly and non-functional. That's the problem with those watches, specifically.
Danny Milton Speaking of rubber straps and Seiko, I do think people complain about the OEM rubber straps on SKX.
Cole Pennington Yeah. Especially the Z22
James Stacy . I can tell that that would happen to them over
Danny Milton time. Yeah. But I do like them because they don't attract dust the same way that some of the other straps do.
Jack Forster They're like a harder compound. Much harder. They
Danny Milton actually don't, like no dust really gets involved in that scenario
Jack Forster . I just want to I w I if I
James Stacy want an SKX I want it like on a jingly jang
Danny Milton ly dime
James Stacy store jubilee with you know rolled links and that that's the way it goes.
Jack Forster Do you though? Yeah, absolutely. Oh all right. I like fe
James Stacy eling it jingle jangle around. I thought you would it throw on something.
Jack Forster I bought a bottom for sure. Speaking of Seiko fives, I bought an Arabic dial Seiko five. Actually bought two of them. Um the the big one and the smaller one just because, you know, at that price, why not have you know why make a choice when you can have both? And it was the jingliest, jangliest bracelet I have ever put on in my entire life. It was like three times louder than an SKX double bracelet. I mean it sounded like freaking Marley's jumps
James Stacy . Yeah. I I boug
Cole Pennington ht one of those watches too, off uh watches of Esther Nazareth's recommendation. And they're cool. I had it uh PVD'd for a magazine story.
Jack Forster You're kidding. So it's the Saco Five. And and actu
Cole Pennington ally it's I think uh I just saw the story and saw the photography and it's awesome. This is a watch that begs to be Pvd. Are you
Jack Forster gonna are you gonna sell it? I can'
Cole Pennington t really sell it. Also it's that was a a hundred and thirty-eight dollar watch. Yeah. So like do you really even want to sell something like that when there's
Jack Forster But you know this is that that is uh a situation where you can find out exactly how much um uh the Cole Pennington name is worth like if you just sell it as a you know a blacked out
Cole Pennington of I don't believe in that I don't believe if you sold it as
Jack Forster the Cole Pennington That
Cole Pennington 's ridiculous A well so I mean Don'
Jack Forster t tempt him he'll do it so that that
Cole Pennington that brings up an interesting question provenance like I actually am of the school of thought like I would rather put my own stories into a watch. I don't think I want to buy someone else's watch. So I never really got that. Wait till
Jack Forster you're as old as I am and you realize your entire life is empty
James Stacy I'm I'm a huge proponent of pre-owned watches. I'm like I I think that the world has a lot of things that aren't made to last and watches, even inexpensive watches, can literally last as long as you're willing to take care of them
Cole Pennington . And and I think there's a lot to be said,
James Stacy not not about necessarily sustainability, but about preserving things that were designed to be made. And sure, I don't think that means you have to keep the watch forever. But I like that there's a buying and selling aspect to this. I like that about cars. I like it about garage sales. Like I just I'm wired for this. I me
Jack Forster an look you're gonna be a dealer. There's watches there's there
James Stacy are watches there are watches in the Brit
Jack Forster ish Museum that are four hundred and fifty, five hundred years old, you know. And um it's I mean it it's perfectly possible that five hundred years from now somebody's like Orange Monster is gonna be in a in a museum.
Danny Milton Can better be can I turn this conversation to is there one watch each of you regret having the opportunity to buy
James Stacy I can do I can this I can give you a long list here.
Danny Milton I just said I knew this could be a separate podcast. The watch
James Stacy that's on your wrist I turned down for a song. I could have bought two for half the price of what they're selling for now. And
Cole Pennington that's a tell them what it is. That's a 142
Danny Milton 70 explorer for those for those. I had one
James Stacy 14270 offered to me for a few grand. Also a one one four two seventy on a Jubilee also for a few grand. And at the time I was kind of like, Oh, think about it for the afternoon. And then I just didn't think about it anymore and I I moved on. And it was a mistake. I should have bought both. Ye
Danny Milton ah. Man, in the early two thousands, back when the twenty
Jack Forster sixth street flea market was like had a lot of watch dealers there and you know, I mean Right. There was somebody selling a IWC anti-magnetic engineer. Um, you know, the one with the like with the five hundred thousand uh uh amperes per meter magnetism resistant. And like they were selling it for like 800 bucks, which was a lot of money for me at the time because I was still in graduate school. And I remember looking at it and thinking, ah, it's kind of small, you know, and like 800 bucks, I would have snapped that up in an instant.
Danny Milton But that brings up a good point, because I had a situation once, I think it must have been like twenty fourteen ish. I had been wanting to buy a Batman for years. When I finally did get it, I was really happy about it. But this was when I was first starting to look and I went into uh a Rolex boutique in in Europe actually and someone was like, We don't have one, but here we have this. And they pulled out a Hulk, like still in the plastic that it comes in with the styrofoam or whatever. And my reaction was, no, I don't like that one. You know, but like, but that's what I miss. Like to your point, like, oh, it looks small. I I had an opinion unencumbered by anything else. You know, like and I feel like watches have now reached a level where
James Stacy I'd still say that if I was offered a Hulk today. I don't like that one
Danny Milton . I think it's tra it's trading. It's something like near forty K. Crazy
James Stacy . But I just I'm I
Danny Milton miss to be able to just have a straight up solo opinion on the aesthetics of a watch, whether or not I want to wear it or not. Pure. But you know, like this
Jack Forster is a really interesting point, Danny, because it's absolutely true. Uh I mean there's the demand is so high now and it's become so difficult to find really, really popular models that like that factors into your perspective on a watch when you see one and when it's offered for sale. And, you know, like back in the day, and the day that day was not all that long ago to your point, you know, it was still possible to look at a watch and uh, you know, and pass on it just because I mean regardless of the street price, you you know, you would pass on it because it just wasn't for you. Ye
Danny Milton ah. Well I I mean the the the maybe
James Stacy one that hurts more now that we're now that we're really going down this this sad this sad chapter of our lives, but was the the the explorers that I turned down was one thing. I came like I spent a lot of time trying to buy a C Dweller, the a 16660. Still probably my favorite modern ish. I love that that little nod where you there's no cyclops. And I could tell from the other side of the room that it's not just a sub. And I think maybe, maybe, maybe I was in the negotiating range of like between five and six thousand dollars. What a huge mistake. I didn't have five or six thousand dollars that could go unaccounted for. I would have had to sell watches and figure some stuff out. But that's that's the fun of it sometimes, right? Especially an uh an upward consolidation I'm always a fan of
Cole Pennington the upward consolidation. So what I was talking about earlier, the the the journey. Ye
James Stacy ah. Is actually simply upward consolidation
Cole Pennington . It's not a side hustle for anybody. It's us
Danny Milton ing it's just proving that this is an addiction. We're using other watches to continue
Jack Forster . I was gonna say the exact same
James Stacy thing, the paper clip. Yeah. They started out with a paper clip
Jack Forster on the book on Craigslist and end
James Stacy ed up with uh Porsche Boxster. So like
Jack Forster he might even have gotten a house after the boxer.
James Stacy So like what's a great story back in the day. Early internet. At what point do
Jack Forster you at what point do you abandon uh upgrading uh just through watches and start upgrading you know like other stuff? Like the watches become cars and the cars become homes and the homes become several homes.
Cole Pennington Well, I'm not at that level yet, but I've definitely sold cars to fund other cars. The the trio of flighties that I was talking about, I actually sold to fund the GMT Master 2. So I've had this thing two years-ish now. And actually, yeah, do I miss the flighties? I miss them a ton. However, this is just the way thing this is how things go, right? I mean like you need to be up a col
Danny Milton lection of I
Cole Pennington gave up, yeah, three flighties. Yeah. So a day qu
James Stacy alifies.
Cole Pennington So it had the yellow acadmium hands. And then two 9-11s. And sold all three of those to buy this watch. So it didn't hurt as bad.
Danny Milton Yeah. And you love that watch.
Cole Pennington And this touches on something else. It's like less is more sometimes, and I'm finally getting there. Like I would like to consolidate down to two watches. Consolidate up.
James Stacy Yeah. No, I and that that's a a specific pressure that kind of comes and goes for me. If I don't look at my pelican case of watches very frequently, then I I case
Jack Forster says I stop worrying about the fact
James Stacy that I have so many watches that I don't wear that frequently. And some of them have emotional value, some of them just aren't worth enough. Like it it'll be something I'll give to a sibling or a or a niece or a nephew or something like that down the road. But other ones you like you're like, oh I could list that, but then I and then you have to go through the whole headache. That's the
Jack Forster thing, you know like the rest of it. not it's not there there's basically two categories. One is um it's not really worth the effort trying to sell them unless I sell like a lot of them and I don't want to go to the trouble and I like them anyway. Ye
Danny Milton ah. Yeah. Well plus what would you care for if
James Stacy you weren't making sure all your G Shocks were charged and getting their atomic signal..
Jack Forster You have no idea
James Stacy So it's like it's like they're sitting in a in a like
Jack Forster the roses in a window box. I literally have them sitting in like not one but two windowsills in my house. Just wa
Cole Pennington it till the next tuition payment comes, Jack. It'll be
Jack Forster it'll be it'll be selling one window sill
James Stacy of watches. Lot lot only. The J
Jack Forster ack Forster windowsill collection of G Shocks. That's right
Cole Pennington . But then the like the other group that I have is watches
Jack Forster that I uh the you know the high value the higher value ones are are watches that I um am really really in love with and I'm just I'm just not I'm not interested in selling them. I mean they're they're keepers like um you know my um you know my yellow gold day date. I have a tank Louis Cartier, which um, you know, took a while uh to get. I mean, um they're ev even if you have the scratch, it takes it just takes it take it takes a while for uh you know, for to get delivery. And like I don't want to sell those watches. Yeah. You know? I I mean I have a Louis Vuitton smart watch I don't want to sell. You know, just 'cause like every once in a while if I'm gonna like you know, if I'm gonna take a walk around the block and it's after dark, it's a really fun watch to have on. Yeah, for sure.
James Stacy Yeah, and and there is that put there is that fun. And I'm sure some some people listening to this don't understand half the perspectives we've shared on this because maybe they're not buyers or sellers. Maybe they're smart enough to have picked one or two great watches and then put put on the brakes. But the movement in and out is kind of like the core of what I love about this. Fun. I like experiencing the new watches. I like my return to the monster. Um I like having a couple that that have like worked out long term that I really love. My Explorer 2. I I get a message once a month asking, like, hey, they're worth this much money now. Like, you think they're finally gonna sell it? I was like, I don't care, but like this is a watch I've always wanted, and I've got it, and and I'll definitely not be able to buy it again if I sell it. You know what
Jack Forster this makes me think is that there's like the you can have a collection without being a collector. So like I don't think of myself as a collector. I have like I basically I have bought watches that I like when I see a watch I like and I can afford it. And that's that's that's just what it boils down to. And I don't have any shape or
James Stacy form. Yeah. It's not like I
Jack Forster I'm like avidly collecting you know yellow gold daydates or avidly collecting vintage tank Louis Cardiers or even avidly collecting G Shocks. I mean I have a collection of G Shocks because it's really easy to have a collection of G Shocks. And if you think G Shocks are cool, and I do, you know you can end up with a lot of them. And it's just really enjoyable to see them all sitting in the windowsill. For sure. But that doesn't make you like you know, we we know a lot of people who are real collectors who like the whole um transactional part of it is like part of the fun. You know, it's like a big part of the function. Spe
Cole Pennington cificity and themes and stuff. Yes.
Jack Forster I'm not, I'm an enthusiast. Yeah,
Cole Pennington if you get deep enough into something to be a
James Stacy big C collector, that typically means you're also part of a network that these watches bounce around in. So it makes it a little bit easier if you want to sell something really high-end or really just sell something in general, you've got a a a little network on your WhatsApp or whatever that is your first point. You know, something like a forum would be way down the list. You'd go through your buddies and then after that, maybe their buddies, and then after that a crown of caliber, a hoodie key prior, something like that
Jack Forster . Oh fantastic. I mean that's that's like that's real. That
Danny Milton was amazing. Yeah. I think the the theme
Cole Pennington here is scholarship paired with ownership. Like like people
James Stacy Yeah, in specificity. Yeah, in specificity,
Cole Pennington exact. There's no s like you you you would look
James Stacy at my Shim Shams quote unquote collection and you'd be like, you haven't you didn't start with a plan and you don't have one now. You're fired from the hips
Cole Pennington . Same way for me. I'm trying to get down, right? But I would say the the flight master is the only watch where I did that with. I felt like uh the more I learned, the more I wanted the next iteration and so forth. And then once I did amass all of them except for the gold one, I let them go. So what does that say? I don't know.
Jack Forster I mean I I I collect the way like a tribe of hunter gatherers in the Paleolithic gathers food. Like it doesn't it seems like a region?
Cole Pennington In Mesopotamia or Tigris and Euphrates?
Jack Forster Well, hunter-gatherers in the Paleolithic. Yeah, yeah. Could be could be any of them. But you know, like it doesn't matter if it's like, you know, grubs or roots or you know, the least rotten part of the rotting carcass of a deer that was killed by that was killed by a European lion. You want something that nourishes you. And there's a lot of different things that, you know, that that sort of nourish me in terms of horological enthusiasm. But I don't know. I mean I would I would actually find like collecting necessarily means narrowing your focus to some degree. And sometimes it's narrowing your focus a lot. Like collecting just Seko monsters is a pretty narrow focus. But there's also so many of them that you can really, really enjoy building up a colle
Danny Milton ction and not feel like you're depri
Jack Forster ved of anything. Same with G Shock. Like
James Stacy the fact that you can start an actual collection for at I mean let's let's not even just say G Shock. Like there's some Cassios I adore that are thirty five dollars. That A five hundred, the little world timer you can get in gold.
Jack Forster Yeah. I bought like three of those. I just keep giving them
James Stacy away, but I love getting them. Yeah. I have
Jack Forster I al I also less than a pizza. I also bought three of them and um I I haven't given them to anyone. There you go. I'm like, hey look, it's three world timers. It cost me less it cost me a lot less than like dinner for me and my wife.
James Stacy For sure. more than a handful of those watches. Like you it's it's fun that you can get into this for not that much and then if your if your sickness, if we'll call it that, scales like it does for other people, you just get in over your head and you just kind of keep treading water
Jack Forster . You know what makes a watch that you've had a while uh feel like a brand new watch if you haven't worn it in a while is just just putting a new strap on it.
James Stacy Oh for sure. Or digging out the bracelet if it's been like several years and you're like, Oh this d I did buy this on a bracelet. Sometimes I do that just for the change of pace.
Jack Forster I found when when we we we just had our apartment painted for the first time in 20 years, which is something I probably shouldn't admit in public because it had gotten like things had really gone downhill over the course of twenty years and we we accumulated a lot of crap. And um I was going through all of my stuff and you know, a lot of stuff I boxed up and put in storage, a lot of stuff, you know, we tossed out like all of my books from grad school, which were like twenty five years old I got rid of because it it's like they're so they're ridiculously out of date. And I found two tutor boxes and I was like, Why do I have two tutor boxes? I only own one. I only own a tutor. It took me two days to realize I actually own two tutors. Oh, are you serious? Were the watches in the box or no? No, no, no. They were uh the the boxes were both empty but
James Stacy sharks. I have like
Jack Forster so many watch boxes in my apartment and so many watch cases. And um the fact that it took me two days to remember that I actually had two tutors and I was mystified by finding two boxes, that says something about like just how far gone I am.. Yeah I
James Stacy mean great stuff. In most scenarios, that story I don't know w wouldn't make me feel super happy, right? But because it's you, it's just that's this all this all checks out. A surprise tutor.
Jack Forster It literally, it was like literally thirty- hosiursx before before I started thinking, wait, do I actually have two tutors? Wait a minute. Wait a minute.
Cole Pennington What are they and will you sell them to me? Uh
Jack Forster one of them is a ranger and no, and the other one is a black uh black bay, uh the last year that they used uh in a movement and um Alaska. So you forgot you owned the Ranger, I'm gu
Danny Milton essing. I forgot I owned the Ranger. Yeah. Ranger's a good
James Stacy watch. It's a great watch. I was like, you know, then
Jack Forster I found it and I was like, oh man, this is a great watch.
James Stacy It's like you got it, you got to buy it twice, but you only had to pay for it once. Yeah, and
Danny Milton they're both valuable watches, right? They're both discontinued. Are they? Yeah, because you have to get the Edda Black Bay, right?
Jack Forster It's gone. Yeah. Smiley Dale.
Cole Pennington Jack Forster Tudor Ranger. Can be yo
Jack Forster urs day.
James Stacy Well look, guys. Uh this has been fun. Uh it didn't go in any direction that I'd necessarily planned on, but I think that's kinda perfect. We don't get to do these face to face that often. Uh I think the lesson here is um m maybe don't always record podcasts in rooms that are uh hotter than the Serengeti uh at midda
Jack Forster y
James Stacy An another twenty minutes we'll all be remembering watches we forgot. We all right guys, this has been super fun. Thanks so much. And uh like I say, if you're listening and you enjoyed this episode or any of the episodes, all I ask is that you tell a friend. Send him a link, let him check out the show. And other than that, we'll chat to you in about a week's time. And if I have the schedule correct, it's a pretty cool episode. So uh get ready for that. And uh Jack, Cole, Danny, thanks so much. Over
Jack Forster . Thank you, John. Thanks, James.