Special Episode: Porsche Design With Drew Peterson¶
Published on Mon, 30 Sep 2024 16:55:00 +0000
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Synopsis¶
In this special Hodinkee Radio presentation, James Stacy sits down with collector Drew Peterson to explore the fascinating world of Porsche Design Chronograph 1 watches, specifically focusing on the Orfina-era pieces from the 1970s. Drew shares his remarkable collection of military-issued chronographs, including rare variants made for the U.S. Air Force's 23rd Tactical Fighter Group (Flying Tigers), German Bundeswehr, NATO forces, and the Royal Navy.
Drew's journey into watch collecting began unusually—through sneaker retail at Stadium Goods, where he noticed high-end clients wearing exceptional timepieces. His passion for the Chronograph 1 became personal when his father gave him a watch that had been passed down from his grandfather. This connection sparked an obsession with researching these largely undocumented watches, leading Drew to acquire examples whenever they appeared on the market over a five-year period.
The conversation covers the technical evolution of these watches, from early Valjoux 7750 movements to later Lemania 5100-based calibers, and the various case finishes including powder coat, PVD, silver, anthracite gray, pewter, and olive green. Drew explains the challenges of authenticating these pieces as fake parts have begun appearing in the market, and discusses his work with other collectors to create a comprehensive reference database similar to what exists for vintage Rolex models. The discussion also touches on Porsche Design's modern reissue of the Chronograph 1, which Drew praises for staying faithful to the original design while featuring an in-house movement and titanium construction. Throughout, both collectors express enthusiasm for filling in the gaps of these watches' largely unwritten history and making that knowledge accessible to the broader collecting community.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| James Stacy | Hello, and welcome to a special presentation for Hudinky Radio. My name is James Stacy, and today we're taking a special deep dive into the world of the Porsche design chronograph 1. This is one era of that chronograph, and all of these watches were uh brought to us today by my new friend Drew. Drew Peterson. A pleasure to have you. Thanks for bringing your watches. Yeah, no |
| Drew Peterson | , thank you so much for having me. It's it's completely a surreal moment. You know, I remember, you know, watching the first talking watches with John Mayer and kind of being in awe of his table. I mean that pulsation validona I dream about. Oh sure. And you know I'm I'm just I'm so thankful for what you guys and your and your whole organization has done for this community and and kind of really you know brought it all together. It's it's really uh it's really a |
| James Stacy | maz Oh man, our pleasure of course and a huge thank you to Porsche Design who helped kind of connect us and make this chat possible and to you for bringing in all these amazing watches. I'm curious, this is a very specific thing we're looking at here. These are Orfina era chronograph ones from Porsche Design. How does one get started and how does it eventually lead to this? Well so so my journey into watches is a little bit |
| Drew Peterson | long and twisted. I I I you know I used to to sell sneakers and ended up working at a sneaker store called Stadium Goods. Okay. And was uh an intern there actually and and funny enough, um all these kind of heavy iter sneaker clients came in wearing crazy watches. I started to get really interested and realized, you know, if you learn you know the nitty-gritty and the knowledge within watches, you know, you can really find it's an inefficient market and like, you know, find stuff that's like no one else knew. And largely the beginning of of that was with these. And you know, where FENA specifically I got really into is as I went along my watch journey, my father actually was given this watch in high school by his father. And you know, as a kid I remember seeing him wear this all the time. So as I started to get more and more into watches and more and more love with that research and idiosyncrasies within them, you know, I naturally gravitated towards these. And you know, their cool factor, I mean, is just amazing. Top gun watch, this is the exact top gun watch, funny enough. Um, you know, I can imagine, you know, any pilot wearing these, like inverted and F-16, like pulling 7Gs. Sure. Um, is pretty damn cool. Um, also, I mean, the a lot of these as we'll as we'll discuss later on, especially the Tigers, you know, have a lot of military history, both you know, in gra engyrav,ed engraved into them literally and figuratively. Um, you know, what I think is so much fun is like who knows what the pilot wearing these flying tigers was doing, or you know, the German uh uh soldier wearing this bund, like I mean God knows what their missions were. And I I think that's so much fun to be able to kind of oh you know, owning these you're kind of uh almost a part of that history and and you gotta get to imagine, you know, what life these watches had before you? A probably a much greater life than maybe a |
| James Stacy | more exciting one than in the butt now they've come home. They're in the with the right, with the right wrist as it were. This is a watch that I really love, especially aesthetically. I love the history and now the renewed connection to Porsche, you know, the in the automotive side. But it's a watch that's kind of clouded by a lot of stories and tales and unknown production from various generations. And I think what you've brought us here today is a collection that paints a very specific picture for a certain time for Porsche design. Yes, absolutely |
| Drew Peterson | . You know, I think the Orfina Porsche design, you know, was produced throughout the 70s and it switched from uh a Valjou-based movement here to to LaMania-based movements as we go down the line. Um, and you know, I think the history is largely unridden, and these watches are largely um underappreciated. I mean, you compare it kind of to the era within the early 2000s of kind of vintage sport models and like people on vintage Rolex forums or people on military watch forums being like, what's an underline dial? Yeah. What's a mill sub? What's a coma? And like people are trying to figure that out. And you know, I think that largely resembles what we are in now of that era of kind of there's a lot of unknowns, you know, collectors are trying to really hunker down and really kind of get academic with these watches, which hasn't been done before. Right |
| James Stacy | . And I'm curious because part of the academic pursuit of this is something that you've taken on in learning about these watches and trying to access some of the secrets of their history and the past and that sort of thing. I'm I'm assuming that's not how your love for these watches started. You don't usually start at a huge amount of depth, you get there later. Uh how did you first kind of get introduced to these watches? How did the chronograph one, you know, hit your radar. Yeah, well, funny enough. So |
| Drew Peterson | this was my this is a Vajou 7750 one mile. And I remember my dad as as a kid wearing this on his wrist every day. I mean this was like his his love and pride and joy, and eventually when when I graduated, you know, he he he passed some of these on to me. And this watch is it it's the I I think it's very binary, these watches. You're either a car person or you're a watch person. You're one of the no one's walking in a store and being like, oh, like let me just grab an Orfina Porsche design off the wall. Like you really have to either love watches. Yeah. Um, so I really got into these through that, and then you know, started to realize that you, know, as we were discussing, the un the unwritten history i is is there and you know it's to be discovered. And I love research, I love diving into little idiosyncrasies of these watches and kind of spiraled from there. Probably a little bit out of control. |
| James Stacy | I mean, yeah, you're you've you're definitely you know flirting flirting with the the envelope here, I think, in terms of a fascination with the kind of one specific model. What about these? And maybe if we start over here, what about these have those details that really called to you? Why why why would they be part of a collection of chronograph warrants? Well so uh l larg |
| Drew Peterson | ely the my main interest as we go down the table is the military. You know military history is both like literally and figuratively engraved into these watches and that um is like what were the missions you know people carried out wearing these like I find that fascinating you know these fighter pilots from the 23rd tactical fighter group were deployed to Vietnam like who knows what these watches saw. But going down the line, we have the Vashu 7750. This was the first movement that Orfino Porsche Design used. When Ferdinand Porsche was starting, he ended up partnering with in 1972. He started Orfino Porsche's Porsche Design and ended up partnering with a racer that he knew who actually ended his career racing for Porsche, funny enough, who had bought Orfina and tasked Orfina with making the washes. He designed it, Orfina made them. And they use the Valju movement for their first ones. This was the first watch it was used in. This is the first all-black watch. Most people will think that all of these are PVD. Most of them are, the early, early ones are powder coat. Um but this is the first. And in how you can kind of see from the 7750s um to the 7176s and the Lamania-based movements is at the root at the 12 o'clock you have a 24-hour totalizer and then you have uh a 30-minute kind of counter on the on the value. You also um have a central minute hand, if we press this, you'll see a central minute counter. So this is gonna go around 60 seconds. Which kind of the the the hallmark feature of this movement. The hallmark feature of the laman movement. Very cool. Exactly. Think |
| James Stacy | about a chronograph that has your normal seconds, running seconds, but the minutes are read just like a normal minute hand. |
| Drew Peterson | And you'll see, you know, that is one of the major differences. And then as we go on to the 7176s and 7177s, the Lamani-based movements, we have a black and a silver, 7176. Um, this was PVD at this point, and then you have kind of a bead blasted silver. It's really, really cool finish, actually kind of my favorite. And you have tachyometer scales on these. Um, and then as you move on to the 7177s, which are the military-based movements, you have a couple differences. So that central minute hand ended up turning into a little plane. Such a cool looking one. From a little lollipop, yeah, it's really cool. And you also have a 3H on the dial to signify the usage radium, which as I'm sure many people know, you know, kind of radiation and watches are a mysterious, kind of intertwined, somewhat dangerous history at a certain point. And then you also have a 12-hour um Riot uh or 12 mark Riot uh versus your standard tachyometer scale but you know the the the military then kind of there there's three main I think parts to to signify within a lot of these watches. And that's first the movement, so Valju 7750 versus Lamania 5100. Then you go into PVD and you have kind of five variations. Um, earliest black were powder coat, they weren't PVD, then you have regular black, then you have silver, then you have anthrocyte gray, then you have pewter, and you have olive green, then you go into kind of reference variations within the Lamania-based movements. So you have 7176s and then you have 7177s. And 7177s are all found here on the right side as military, as military-based watches. The Tigers were made for the US Air Force's 23rd tactical fighter group. And they were nicknamed the Flying Tigers. And they are the only group within the U.S. Air Force that's allowed to fly with the shark teeth on the on the nose of their plane. Sure. And they actually were formed 10 days after Pearl Harbor. Ended up flying immensely throughout World War II. We're a really deadly force, were a really, really powerful force. Um and ended up regrouping and and and and flying for about seven or ten months in Vietnam, based out of Thailand. Providing you know support for ground troops in Vietnam. And that was uh they were running A-10s at the time. They were running A10 Mordogs, which is just like I I think like the coolest plane. Like Patriot. Just so damn cool. Really cool plane. So so these were all issued by them. You know, we have a couple idiosyncrasies between them. Uh mainly that to my knowledge, they were all issued in silver, but you do see black ones, you know, a lot of these cases are interchangeable |
| James Stacy | . With a black case and bracelet. Is it weird if you prefer, like you mentioned, you like the silver tone ones, the what I mean, bare steel or whatever? And that's always been my preference, but I'm I can't even necessarily say why, because the anthracite is something quite special. I've seen the olive green, which is unreal in person. What why do you is it is it like a thing in the community, kind of what kind of a choice between one or the other? Or I mean most people will |
| Drew Peterson | say kind of the quintessential black is their favorite, right? It's the first PvD watch. It's their all-be-all top gun cool factor. But for me, you know, I one, the PvD can kind of get annoying, it can get scratched up. I like to wear my watches. You can see all of them are banged up and scratched. But but for me, you know, I the tigers are kind of my love. They originally came in silver. I love those. But also, you know, the finish is really interesting. It's like I don't, you don't see a lot of watches in this like bead blasted. It's weird because it's not a polish. It's like a it's just a very interesting finish that I find really attractive. And I think really paints the dimensions of these watches well. Like you could definitely see these in the cockpit of a plane. 100%. It just makes sense. Yeah, I mean like inverted. I think have you seen the the the top that's you know giving the bird? Oh cool. Yeah, 100% you can see these, you know. Inverted, like looking at the tiger logo and trying to time your 24 hour. These are a real treat for me. And again, their history being largely unwritten, it's been a ton of fun to speak with other collectors in the community to try to figure out, you know, what actually is correct on these, you know, what details them, how they changed over time. You know, these watches were made, you know, mainly or throughout the 70s, you know, mid-mid-70s, 75, 76, the Valju went out of production amidst the quartz crisis. And they transitioned to the Lamani 5100-based movements. And then you started to see kind of these civilian ones emerge first, then the military, and then you have a lot of these special editions. What is |
| James Stacy | the task to get one of these, let alone four? Is this something where like I could start today and have one in a month? Or actually have a year |
| Drew Peterson | two aren't here. So but the the funny thing is is you know these a lot of a lot of these were like eBay fines or weird auction fines out in Europe. And I like I everyone I saw for like five years I bought. Like and was just like it was nuts. I was like, I need it. The corner in the market. Uh and I certainly. And I'm sorry if anybody uh didn't get one because of that. But in in going after these, you know, I I I think the the hardest hunt was, you know, you would see variations in these, and as as we're discussing, is the history of these is largely unwritten. You know, you'll see one here without the US Air Force logo, you'll see one with a U.S. Air Force logo, you'll see some with, or Phoenixign crowns, you'll see some with Porsche Design signed crowns. You know, the the hard part was is kind of creating an internal thesis to buy these and figure out what's right. And kind of what you realize is that, you know, there's a mix of, you know, it can't have an orfino down, it can't have a Porsche Design Crown. You know, I remember there's been a s when I bought my last one for my first one, you could bid on these and like you would have no competition. Last one by the end, you know, people would wait till the end and try to snipe you and you can start seeing these. And now like one of these pops up a year and it's gone in two days. Yeah. Um, or two pop up a year. So certainly become much, much more difficult to find and much, much more uh appreciated, especially these. You know, I think our people are starting to realize either the history of these, the history of Orphan of Porsche design, maybe they just enjoy Top Gun 2. I'm not quite sure. But all good reasons. Um, but yeah, I mean that they were, you know, over the years, they were far and few between, you know, they're far and few between, and um and you know you had to jump on it when you found one and I tried to as much as I can. I mean this one especially I'm really proud of it's a fully new old stock version as case back. I mean it's beautiful and you can see this original I think you asked before is is why do I prefer the silver. I mean it's just this finish is just I love the way the light hits it's just it's so cool. It's like a m it's almost like a PvD but it's not. And you know finding one like this, you know, I I don't know. I mean maybe the guy would ordered it it, was issued to him, was it handed an envelope? Who knows? But it's certainly fun to find and have |
| James Stacy | . I guess we could go and speak on on these or I'm I'm curious, just I definitely want to get to these. I can't stop looking at it because they're just really gorgeous watches and so distinctive. Um, but I am really curious. I think a huge portion of the sort of um watch enthusiasm world for the last 20 years has really benefited on the work that probably 50 people did to build up forums about Rolex and Omega and military watches and even things like WatchySeek. And of course, at there was a time certainly that like Time Zone was probably the home for most watch information online. And certainly the people talking about it. What is the process like in this decade to be trying to go back and link things up and develop I assume you do a lot like in terms of when things were produced and for how long and for how many like that kind of stuff |
| Drew Peterson | . I mean a lot of it is trial and error and there's no guidebook on these which makes it fun but also a little scary. A lot of it's going back and like reading forum articles from 2008 and 2007, 2006 and these kind of early, like trying to find the pictures through Wayback Time Machine on these forums trying to figure it out. You know, it's it's a lot of it's speaking with other collectors. You know, this uh uh Royal Navy over here is uh you know an interesting case color I haven't seen otherwise you know maybe it's a new PVD maybe it's not you know I was speaking with the collector last week about it and we're kind of trying to figure is was it age differently? Is it a one-off? Is it a prototype? I don't really know. It's damn cool though. It is. And it looks sick. So |
| James Stacy | you know. And for the NATO nerds, an absolutely pristine phoenix. I just love it. Yeah. So nice to see. Yeah. These are so cool, man. Yeah. Yeah. So of these ones, what would kind of stand out as like the lesson learned or the the reason you might try and hunt one of these down? |
| Drew Peterson | Well, I mean l,esson learned. Uh this is these are really cool. So this one's a bund-issued variant. So this was issued, you know, all of these are, especially the militaries, people say sometimes quasi-issued, meaning, were they ordered by, you know, the defense. You weren't handed one in an envelope and told to get to work. Yeah. It wasn't the MOD and these mill subs, you know, but these supposedly were just like that. You handed one and say, go get to work. Yeah. And you look on the back, you know, you have your NSN number, your issue number, and these were issued to uh the German military or their defense, their military defense force. Um, and they came on these original straps, which I just think is so, so amazing. Finding these with the correct case backs and like who knows what you know who was issued this and where was you know just it's a ton of fun. And then you move on, you know, you have the NATO issued variant, um, which all came in in these anthrocyte PVD cases, you know, these interesting kind of, it's almost a greenish gray. You know, I've never seen another PVD in that color. Um, and those are are super, super cool. And then you have a kind of a brand new black on this kind of this is supposedly the original shape. Um, like the thin oh, I see rather than more contoured, versus the these came maybe later. Okay, we're still not sure, but that's the guess. And this one especially is vi, you know, really vibrant orange. You know, some of these, this is also this is a new old stock tiger that I found. It still is the case pack sticker. And like you see, you know, some of these, you just have this really vibrant orange. You know, maybe they weren't worn, maybe they were produced differently, I don't know, but but I mean it's just a real attractive, bright you could very easily see |
| James Stacy | this the middle of the night at a cockpit. Oh I would think so, yeah. I I think the other thing that stands out, especially if you're lucky enough to sit in front of this sort of collection, is the the kind of myriad ways that they've made small changes to the dial layout and where the fonts are, where the text might be. You've got this one has this absolutely incredible NATO signature, Royal Navy here, obviously the the Tiger logo. The the watches really they they stick to a few things that are super common, of course, across it. The the bright orange accents for the second hand. The coloring of the loom is all very static across all of these, which I think is is pretty remarkable. Yeah. Um and then on top of that you have, like you said, these ones that have the three H for the use of tritium. And I I think they they really do lead themselves to a certain type of collectibility where it's everything's kind of very close to each other, but there's little kind of fun fun elements in the U. I |
| Drew Peterson | mean you'll see, you know, some of them have uh Porsche design bracelets, some will have And |
| James Stacy | so is this a powder coat? Is that why it's a much more like sort of matte? |
| Drew Peterson | So these are all PVDs. The powder coat will look like uh it's a little almost bubbly. Okay. And it'll chip more. So these are all PVD, but the PVD changed over time. Kind of with sweat and grime. You kind of have, I guess, what people refer to as like sleeve polish. Yep. You know, wearing it so you can see. When you' |
| James Stacy | ve got some nice like edge details on this, which is what I'm used to seeing from PvD of that age group or even now with P V D on a more inexpensive watch, we'll you know you'll wear way not |
| Drew Peterson | the DLC or these new coding of the reistry. And then you also see kind of idiosyncrasies of let's see if I can this is an Orfina versus a Porsche design. At some point, Porsche design stopped giving the licensing to Orfina for the Orfina bracelet, so they switched to these. Some people say these were the original bracelets they came on. You also then have some that came on what's a a stretch bracelet. Oh, cool. Which is really fun, right? Versus a standard pin. Um I had |
| James Stacy | a bracelet very similar to that on uh uh Brightling Aerospace. Yeah. Uh which had the bullet style bracelet with the extension on it. It's great. It's really fun. Except you're just worried the spring's gonna snap when Terri |
| Drew Peterson | fied, of course yeah. Um and then you've got this is an entirely different brace of the right. This is so so Rufino was sold in the in the nineties to um a new owner who kind of bought the name and trademark. And since then he's kind of produced some different variants of bracelets and of some cases and XYZ. This was one of them. You know, it's kind of this beads of rice, interesting bracelet, but I think it's really fun. You know, this watch originally came on this and I kept it. Um and you know you rarely see them on this and when you do I just think it's kind of a cool you know factor. You have a slide inside too. I mean it's it's fun. You know who who designed these and put them on, I don't know. I mean it's someone at Orfina, but it's it's definitely really, really cool and really fun. You also have different crown signatures over the years. You have Orfina versus Porsche design. Again, you know, through service or if these were issued earlier versus later, you know, you'll have those idiosyncrasies between them. But yeah |
| James Stacy | . And when you when what would it take today if you're cruising around on the forums, maybe in a very busy WhatsApp thread or something like that? What would get you excited? What would be it is there like a white whale of information? I don't know. Would it be like a book from somebody's desk in Stuttgart |
| Drew Peterson | ? Well, I don't know. So so I probably shouldn't be saying this on Hudinky, but uh if one of you guys takes it, I'm gonna be real angry. Uh the there's a Swiss shield uh or Fina Porsche design that was made for the Swiss military. I've seen one come up over the years. Um this other collector in Greece has like four. And I don't know where he got them. I've been trying to get one. I haven't gotten one. But it's a Swiss shield, it was made for the Swiss uh military. Um and it's literally like a Swiss shield flag looking. It means really damn cool. In the same sort of position. In the same sort of position. It is cool. So that's the one I don't have. That's the one I would like to get. Eventually, hopefully I will get one. I think I'm done with Tigers a little bit for now. That was originally my first love. Yeah, at this point you might as well also get yourself a warthog. I I would love to. I |
| James Stacy | f the US Air Force wants to send me one, I'm happy to trade. You gotta drink it off Pepsi, I guess. Yeah. The other side, we spoke on the phone before this. The other side, we were talking about this sort of the the progressive development of the understanding of these and the history and filling in the blanks and that sort of thing. Are there any like, you know, you've got a some sort of an audience here. Are there any like great mysteries out there that just are you know a chunk of time, a watch that nobody can explain or anything like that? Well, I think one of the interesting |
| Drew Peterson | uh questions is is is how are these originally issued? So we know for a fact because the buns have an NSN number, they were fully issued. There's a question of, you know, were these who were these Tigers ordered by? Who were these NATOs ordered by? Who are these Royal Navies ordered by? Some say this was a test watch for the MOD. Um, in this watch was ordered by them. ord Theeryed a batch of of you know twenty five. That's a reasonable theory to that kind of thing. But we don't know. So that's a big question. If someone could have service records or pull that out, that would be amazing. You know, a couple collectors and I, what we're gonna do is we're gonna get together and and we're working on starting kind of a 5513 mat dial kind of site which are reference points for these watches to try to give kind of a firm history and a firm understanding to be able to kind of esta uh establish a lineage for these watches and establish kind of a firm backdrop for them. You know, other big mysteries are, you know, again, this might be a new PVD coating. It's different than a lot of the ones we've saw. You know, there's also pewter and olive green coatings. You know, there's a question of how do those vary. We've also speaking with the collector last night, like this bracelet's a different finish than this bracelet. And there's a question of like, you know, you can see it's much more matte and then this one's much more gloss and there's a question of like what changed over time. You know, these watches were made in uh you know an eight to ten year span and there's a question of you know Narfina kept on making these parts afterward um there's a question of, you know, there was PvD production changed. People's, you know, the movements changed, obviously from Valju to LaMania, the processes changed. So, you know, there's there's there was a lot of switching. It wasn't like you know, a lot of all of this was outsourced. You know, these watches weren't made in-house like the new reissue was by Porsche. You know, these were made by a brand, then were sent out to get coded. And you know, over a span, as as as people stopped being able to produce or stopping able to coat these watches, you know, you start to have production change. And that's a real, real question mark |
| James Stacy | . I'm also curious, like with the popularity of watches in general, there must have been uh an increase in the profile of chronograph ones in the last decade, of course. Absolutely. Is it to the extent where you're you're scared of Franken watches, fakes, like the stuff that plagues a lot |
| Drew Peterson | I mean funny enough, I just ordered a couple bracelets on eBay and like I got them and they weren't real. So people have started to make fakes. I mean, you'll see um uh the original fakes had like instead of for the NSA uh like manufacturing, it's easier to see on a silver, for the NSA manufacturing bracelets, you'll see kind of in the like the S will be a five. Okay. And then like, you know, words will be misspelled. And in the originals were misspelled, so they were easy to spot. Now the spelling mistakes are fixed. And now it's a finishing. So yeah, they are fakes. I mean you'll see you'll see fake crowns, you'll see fake pushers, you'll see fake hands. I mean, you know, largely who whose service he still is, there's a little service center called Superior Watch in Brooklyn, and a guy named Jack Friedman runs it. Uh and he's been the authorized service center since these were new in the US. I mean it's a pretty amazing story. And you go in and you know, you're in the back of his shop and he's pulling parts off the wall. I mean, it's really like a like a New York kind of, like like this old watchmaker who has just this this treasure trove of parts and he knows a lot of these. But you know, even you know, even for him, you know, some of these parts are getting really, really hard to discover. So yes, they they they have. Um and you know, people definitely have to be weary. You know, when I first started buying these, six or or seven years ago, um uh uh there was no fakes. I mean, there was just like stuff would be switched. Like you might see a silver with a black crown and you're like, what is that? Or like a dial that probably didn't leave in that case, but like all within the family. All within the family. Now that's not really the case. So yeah, I mean that's why it's important to kind of start a reference base because you know if we don't, you know, I think as these get more valuable and as these watches start to get uh you know start to appreciate, you know, as I don't I'm not saying to the same degree, but but as kind of the vintage sport models did in the early 2000s to today, you know, you know, there's gonna be people trying to I think take advantage of the community and and and um these watches l |
| James Stacy | argely. Yeah, yeah, I don't disagree. I I I'm always fascinated by when a watch a specific watch or brand be hits a profile where suddenly there's the opportunity to form some more nefarious uh ways of moving through the market. But |
| Drew Peterson | and that's why I'm happy I mean Porsche did this reissue, it's in titanium, it's a beautiful, beautiful, I mean in-house movement. You know, you have you have an English and a German date wheel. In the case of yours, you have a Japanese and an uh an English date wheel. I mean it's pretty damn cool. You know, they did a fantastic job. So I'm happy to see, you know, while I love the love, the vintage ones, and these are my true love. You know, it's great to see that that that Porsche now is is really caring about these and and you know was willing to put in the work to really design a full kind of remake from the ground up. And they |
| James Stacy | did a terrific job. I yeah, I have to agree. And I think that's a another point that I wanted to touch on was every time I meet somebody who is into Porsche design and especially the chronograph one, there isn't this like it has to be vintage or it has to be new. And I think that you know obviously this watch looks nearly identical to other watches on this table. So I'm it's probably an easier space to kind of get into. Like if you look at a uh an early 50-60 sports watch and then maybe the modern version, it's gonna be bigger and shinier. And certainly the price has gone up, but I would also say the the level of quality, the manufacturing in Solathurn, uh the strong connection, kind of philosophically and all the way through the company to the rest of Porsche has led to a very strong product. And uh I think they've done some some really, really fascinating stuff in the last few years. Since they sort of uh fully relaunched the chronograph one a few years ago, do you have any specific favorites from that run? |
| Drew Peterson | I so this is the first one. This was they made 500 of. This is kind of in the in the mid-serial range. And you know, I this was my favorite, you know, that they that they released. You know, I I am there there's a there's a too many versions to count now. That's been a little quite a bit. That's a lot. But the the first one they came out with is is kind of my favorite. And you know, I think they the what what I'm happy about is is like you mentioned, they've really stayed true to the character. I think a lot of brands, you know, if they did a reissue, they might change the dial variation. It's a little bigger, a little smaller, or two. I mean, you know, you take an original, I mean, this is it's a this is kilometers, but I mean it's almost, I mean, they did a fantastic job in my ey |
| James Stacy | es. Um I do think the new one, you could have tricked somebody who owned a one in 72, like just swapped it out on their nightstand and they would probably just put this aside from it being titanium. Yeah, I mean the bracelet's a little bit bigger. I mean if |
| Drew Peterson | someone's as nuts as me, maybe not, but but I think I would know. But I would I wouldn't I wouldn't be sad to have this on. Um yeah, no, I think they did a did a terrific job. And you know, it's kind of it's been fun to see that that mannequai version, which is I think in in s light of the Tigers. Um and you know, I'm excited to see what comes with them. You know, I'm I'm I'm I'm definitely rooting |
| James Stacy | for them. Yeah, uh to that point, what would you love to see as a future sort of L E, as somebody who collects a very specific band of these watches and has experience with the modern stuff, what would you love to see? What's com what do you think is they haven't done yet? |
| Drew Peterson | Well I think there's two things. One, I would love to see colored PVDs. I mean, if they did a green or if they did an anthrocite gray or if they did something funky and fun, maybe even a blue, I mean that would be damn cool and I think they could totally do it. Um two, I mean it I would love to see if if if you know they're become issued variants again. I don't think that's gonna happen at the new price point. Um but that would certainly be cool to see and certainly enjoyable to see. Um but definitely I mean I I would love to see some more colored P V D variants and see them kind of get funky and fun and and kind of tap into to the history of these watches largely. |
| James Stacy | For sure. I would love to see them do a bare metal with the bracelet in in matching bracelet. Yeah. Because they've done some of the bare metals, but with uh to be fair, the buns and the click-in straps are all really nice, but I think these are watches that really sing on a brac |
| Drew Peterson | elet. I mean that's the funny thing is is actually I was speaking to somebody the other day is like I was switching uh you know one of these onto a bund to wear for a day or or a NATO and it's like you're like trying to get the bracelet out, and I' likem, I don't want to scratch the case, especially in the black DVD. And you're like, damn it, and then you're like, screw it, all right, do it. And then you scratch the, and you're like, whatever. Um, but with the quick snap, you know, it's it's really uh it makes your life really, really easy. And that's certainly nice to have. |
| James Stacy | So I think this has been great, and there's probably about a thousand other avenues that we could follow, you know, diving down this specific rabbit hole. But I'm curious, you know, in sort of a closing manner, for you and your experience in this, what has the kind of progressive scholarship, the understanding of these models, the work to unearth the secrets and that sort of thing, what does that kind of meant to you and to the rest of the people that you connect with in that community? Well first uh I |
| Drew Peterson | think gre aat question, you know, these are largely underappreciated, I think, in in that, you know, i it it reminisces kind of the early 2000s era of vintage Rolex and MILSUBs and Comex and underlying guilt dials. And you go through old forum articles and you hear these like legendary dealers collectors, Mike Wood, Jed McCormick, Jeff Hess, another Pudinky radar. Of course, yeah. And you know, you see them trying to figure out these quizzes and these puzzles within these watches, and I think these largely resemble a lot of that, and that those watches, you know, millisilms were five grand. Now they're unaffordable. And you know, that kind of question mark, that history was filled over time, but it took a lot of people who were passionate to get together and say, hey, this serial number is right. Hey, this variation's right. Hey, this 60-minute graduated bezel is right if it has X, Y, and Z. And I think that's what we're starting to do here. You know, I just discovered the other day, you know, one of these hash marks that has a crooked seven, it's one of the first 500 militaries. Okay. Like weird things like that. Or you look at uh the the shape of the the PD logo changing or tiger variations. Some tigers have US Air Force, some don't. Like you're you're starting to notice these little idiosyncrasies and and what it takes is a lot of watches from a lot of people who are passionate and been doing this a long time to get together. And I'm working with a couple collectors to kind of create this basis and kind of a similar of a 5513 Mat dial, a couple other sites, to provide that basis to the community. And hopefully, you know, as these watches become more and more appreciated, you know, there's uh a site and uh a place for people to go to have a confident kind of basis for their knowledge. |
| James Stacy | Sure. And if somebody is listening at home and they have a photo of a family member wearing a watch and they know the date, or maybe they've got one of the watches in a drawer but it doesn't run. How could they be part of that conversation? What would be the best way to go |
| Drew Peterson | ? Go to or Orfina Porchdesign.com and you can press the contact button and shoot me, shoot me an email, or go to BF Morotclub on Instagram and shoot me a message there. Fantastic. Drew, thank |
| James Stacy | you so much for bringing in your watches. It was an absolute treat. And uh yeah, good luck in the hunt. I can't wait to read the coffee book. Yeah yeah. That's coming eventually. Uh |