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SIHH 2019 Round-Up, Day 3

Published on Thu, 17 Jan 2019 02:59:00 +0000

The team sits down to share final thoughts on this year's fair as our time in Geneva comes to a close.

Synopsis

In this episode of the Hodinkee Radio podcast recorded at Baselworld, hosts James Stacey and Cole Pennington discuss Day Two of the watch show, with founder and CEO Benjamin Clymer making a guest appearance. The episode begins with an extensive defense of the controversial Tudor Black Bay P01, a prototype-inspired watch that generated significant negative feedback from readers. The hosts address accusations that their positive coverage was influenced by Tudor's advertising relationship, firmly denying any connection and emphasizing their editorial independence. They argue that the P01 represents an interesting piece of horological history and encourage critics to see the watch in person before passing judgment.

The conversation moves through their various brand appointments, including Zenith's limited edition A386 chronographs celebrating the El Primero's 50th anniversary, the innovative Defy Inventor with its revolutionary oscillator technology, and TAG Heuer's new Autavia Isograph with carbon hairspring technology. They discuss Nomos Glashütte's new sport models and an impressive bracelet design, as well as Bulgari's ultra-thin Octo Finissimo Chronograph GMT. Cole shares his "walkabout" experience exploring lesser-known international brands at the show. The episode concludes with discussion of Doxa's audacious solid gold SUB 200 T-Graph priced at $70,000 for a limited run of just thirteen pieces, which generates considerable debate about pricing strategy. Special guests from the Worn & Wound podcast join for the final segment, and the hosts reflect on the people and connections that make Baselworld meaningful beyond just the watches.

Transcript

Speaker
Unknown Here we are again. We're back. Good to be here. More pod time. Very good to be here. Alright, it's the end of day two. We're like already kind of exhausted. It's a little curious. What, two more full days of the show? I don't know. Yeah. Alright, fine. Uh yeah, we really got into it today. Yesterday was kind of like a soft like half day, but uh today, show open, busy, which was nice. Yesterday felt kinda weird, show was kinda empty. But uh yeah, today we got into it bright and early and had a full full day of appointments. Uh we'll get into that in a minute, but first I think we have to address kind of the uh you know elephant in the room, which is the tutor Yeah, right. Uh more like shit. Uh the uh Tudor uh Black Bay P01, uh which Cole has written about twice now. Uh I I w wrorotete Oh James wrote one. So you've both written about this one. Yeah, we both yeah we've both come from the metal. Yeah. Yeah we have. And our commenters have now had two opportunities to tell us A that they think the watch is garbage, and two, that they think we're garbage for saying anything nice about this watch. They don't like us either. Yeah, right. They don't like the watch or us. Um yeah, and specifically they don't like us because they think we wrote about the watch because of some business relationship with tutor, which like we have, like Tutor's an advertiser. If you see the site, you can see there are Tutor advertisements sometimes. But uh that has nothing to do with this at all. Uh you know, Ben said on the pod yesterday that he thinks Rolex is having kind of a meh year. Like we'll be honest about this stuff. If we don't like the watch, we'll we'll be perfectly honest, right? Totally. Yeah, and if the if it if it you know I I think that there was a lot of questions as to its general wearability just from the images when we saw them and and I put that in the in introduction. I said that I think this looks kinda cool. I love a twelve hour bezel. Uh I think that I don't think it's a stretch to say that the black bay line in general is one of the more well loved models under ten thousand dollars. So I think that it you can give it some slack until you're holding it, until it's on your wrist. And then we saw it today in in the metal and and to be honest, all the all the my main concerns would be that it would be essentially unwearable. It would be like one of these giant zenith watches that, like, in a photograph, you're kind of like, I get it, like the design is there, and then it takes them five years to size it down to something that a normal person will put on their wrist. This just kind of wears like a big Thule dive watch. Which is what it is, right? Like it's a big Tully dive watch. In my opinion is a stretch 'cause it's a twelve hour bezel. Um you can't use it to time a dive. I'm being a pet ant, but it's also a like I mean that's a dive watch is a dive essentially. Um uh cool what do you think of it? 'Cause like you you've seen it. So you wrote the big story. You you wrote the main story and there's some context there as well
Unknown . Um I think were you focused on wearability and so forth, that is definitely important. But I think the more important thing to think about when you're thinking about this particular watch is the ideology behind it. Wearability, in my opinion, it's not something you wear every day. I mean, you just won't. It's more yeah. If you are the sort of person
Unknown . Yeah. I feel like if you if you are gonna daily wear the P01, hit us up. Let us know. Like I wanna talk to somebody who's gonna daily wear the P01. There's some people in the comments that that like either just naturally liked it because of their taste in watches or gave your piece a chance and saw the kind of metric between it and like it's a divisive design, certainly, and it's also not um I don't think it's considered I don't think Tudor considers it a mass market product. This is an esoteric special thing that can kind of sit somewhere off in the corner and and kind of tell a new story, tell a little bit of their brand's history. Like you you want to w wonder why they made something like this. It isn't that difficult to understand that what these brands are trying on isn't actually um what they made today anymore. It's it's what they've been making for however however long. So calling back to a prototype that a bunch of people said didn't exists and a bunch of people said does exist and you know something that was essentially only in the known space because of this patent. I I think is horologically interesting. Like in the world that we exist in this is an interesting watch. And not interesting like the way you say interesting and what you mean is I don't have anything to say about this because it's boring. Oh that's interesting. So you mean a Canadian you suck? That's interesting. Yeah, that's that's that's bless you in Canada's that's interesting. Yeah, for sure. Um bless your heart, yeah. Uh the uh the the the the watch I think is actually interesting because of the story behind it, because of the way they brought it back, and because they remained faithful to what was going to be um uh something that was going to bother people who wanted them to just continue making the the more core models, but they swung so hard at the core last year. Why not do something like this after a year where you follow up uh the BB fifty eight and and the and the BBGMT? Like exactly yeah. There's also still weights for both of those watches. You know, it's kind of the same issue with Rolex, right? Like if you still have huge wait lists for Daytonas and GMTs and Black Bay 58s and Black Bay GMTs, why would you come out with more stuff that's just gonna generate wait lists? Like all you're doing is creating headaches for yourselves, creating headaches for your owners. No, and headaches for customers. People don't like being on wait lists. They like going in and buying a thing that they want, you know? So I think it kind of makes sense. They're gonna continue selling the stuff people want that they can't make enough of, and then they'll make some interesting stuff. Some stuff that kind of is like like you said, it's like it's thought provoking. It's about their history. It's about kind of adding
Unknown context to what they're doing. And and it probably will be forgotten shortly after the show, too. It it'll be just as forgotten as the original, really. Um
Unknown I think it's funny, somebody said something earlier. Uh we were chatting here here around the the apartment before we got the mics rolling, but uh somebody said that if if John Goldberger had shown this prototype in an episode of Talking Watches and then Tudor brought it back, everybody would think it was the coolest fucking watch that had ever been made. That this was just like the absolute coolest thing, oh. Oh they're paying attention to the collector community. They're digging into their past. They're, you know, looking for esoteric interesting things to do. But because this was something the brand did and not something initiated by the like quote unquote community, people are really happy to shit all over it. Yeah, and and don't get me wrong, like that that's what the comment section is for. If you have an opinion on something in my Instagram feed, your Instagram feed, whatever it is, like obviously go nuts. But also try and consider the fact that there's a there's context to to what you're talking about and I'm not saying that you have to that you have any allegiance to a brand or maybe you have so much allegiance to tutor that you don't like that they made something that you're you're don't inch instantly appreciate. I would just say with a watch like this and um and and you know for me it's also kind of like the proplof uh you know it's kind of a weird thing from the past that they remade that's people are saying that this Black Bay is quite expensive. I I don't necessarily agree because there's a price range that black bays exist in and it's in that range. It's about four grand. So it's more than a casual black bay, which there are plenty of and you can get anywhere. And and it's just kind of an oddity, it's not limited. I think that it it will speak to an extreme type of nerdery when you see it in the wild, maybe once every few years, maybe. Yeah. At a Basel World probably. A
Unknown little little Easter egg. I mean for those who know it's it's kind of cool. I to kind of put it in perspective, what if like the sixties were kind of a weird time, right? What if BMW started making what if they made 100 IZs today. Would that be cool? It probably would be. But I mean that's a very simple no, no, no. I'm saying like they just reproduce the IZ. That's a good burn. Somhinget something that that was kind of weird and quirky back from the sixties. Resur
Unknown rected today, produced a limited car. Well, that's funny thing is like I in my mind I was going I was trying to imagine uh if a car company if they could do it and like imagine if um imagine if Ferrari took uh an eight twelve super fast and made a bread van. So the the cam back wagon uh two two door shooting brake sort of style that was called the bread van. Uh that was a race a race car, like most people who would look at that, including a lot of Ferrari fans, would look at it and hate it. And if they made if they made ten of them or if they made a hundred of them and if they were two million dollars, they would all be gone. It would be just like the SP one, the SP two, they would disappear. There's a little bit of this uh P01 that is uh meant to be fun. It's meant to be for an enthusiast. Yeah. And it's meant to be highly uh referential to tutor. Also there's you know, there's other watches if you don't like
Unknown this one. When uh a lot of times when these things come out and they're flaps or they're not received well, just give it ten years. Give it twenty years. People will not forget this watch. Yeah. And it it'll come back and it'll be cool again. Things that were flaps and they're I just wanna be totally clear here. L
Unknown ike you don't have to like this watch. Absolutely not. And like honestly, it's not for me. Like I'm I mean I'll be more clear. I probably don't care what you like. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Like I probably don't care. People like what they like. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I like what I like. And so it works. That's totally fine. Nobody, nobody has to like this watch. You're totally free to not like it. It's just a watch. But like it's just a watch. And you know, there's a lot of stuff I don't like that other people like, and that's fine, you know. I can acknowledge that it is it is not an objectively bad thing. It's not a bad watch. It's a weird watch. It's a strange watch. Totally. It's not as good an everyday watch as a black bay. No. All of that is that's all true. But I think it is kind of cool. Yeah. And if you put it on your wrist, if you take the time and you're listening to us and you're like, I hate this guy, I hate this guy, I definitely hate the guy who's talking right now, and I hate this watch, that's fine. Fair opinion. Ish. Um I would say just go to your it's not limited, so it will be at your AD. Tutor cells watches all over. Go to the AD, put it on your wrist. If you still hate it, then you were right. Good work. But like it's it's it's one of those things where I saw the images and I thought like I don't know what this is, I don't really get it. And then you see it in the metal and it and it's a little bit better. And that's how it's always been for me with pro profs. And and when you see the right the right pro prof or the right um like the big royal oak offshore diver chrona, which is a big burly thing that I can't do on my wrist that well. When you see that in the wild in some sort of an actual context, whether it's like that's next to the pool in Vegas, or something like that, or or you see the Ploprof on Agnelli's wrist over the cuff, which would be a fire way to wear the PO1. Yeah, the best way. It's it there there is something kind of I think like oddly uh charming about its weirdness. Yeah, 100% would agree. All right, cool. We're done with Tudor. Talked a lot about Tutor, talked a lot about Relics, talked a lot about Paddock. You can find tons of stories about all three brands on the site. Let's
Unknown I think we we might have a special guest who might want to be able to special guest? Uh if you really want. No, I'm not sure I do. Yeah.. I'd like you All right. We got we
Unknown have our our uh our founder, CEO, and fearless leader, Mr. Benjamin Klymer, is here. Uh what are your uh what are your thoughts on the PO1 before we leave Tutor for the Didn't a little bit, whatever. I mean it's b
Unknown ig. It's not as big as I would have thought, right? Like we saw it today. It's it's tall though. It's a it's a tall watch. It's a really long watch. But it's not a big watch. No. Uh it's it's not nearly as kind of um I don't even know what the word would be. Yeah, ridiculous. You know, it's not nearly as ridiculous. It's not a sun at all. Like if you see in the in the metal it it looks like a watch. It doesn't look like something else, you know, which I think the press photos kinda made it made it appear as if it were something else. But I think Cole did a stellar job today explaining you know why this is a thing. Thank you, Ben. And again, it's like this is neat. Like Rolex doesn't take chances. They took a fucking chance. Like this is a this is a cool thing. It should be a cool th.ing Yeah. Don't don't punish people for taking chances. Everything will end up looking the same. Yeah. That I mean that's like that's the the greatest recourse. Like just don't buy it. You know. Use your dollar to vote. There it is. Cool. Anything else you need for me? No, we're good. What are you guys drinking? Uh having a beer. Having a beer. Just a little hot fin hoop. And only drinks whiskey for the record. Yeah. I drink a beer occasionally. You drink one of your alcohol free beers. That's really funny, Greg. That's really really funny. Uh this
Unknown appears this This appears to be alcohol full. Okay. Okay, cool. It's like some steel steel reserve. Yeah, exactly. Enjoy your beer. Alright, have fun. Thanks, Ben. Cool. That's the last word. Done. Tutor, Rolex, Paddock, in the books. Uh let's move on to other brands that we saw today. Zenith. Zenith. You guys started today at Zenith, right? Started at Zenith. Uh what did you guys see? So yeah, I mean we saw the new A386 special edition. That's right. It's like a limited edition. Comes in three metals. Yeah. It's I mean it's gorgeous. It's razor sharp. It looks a lot like a vintage piece. Yeah. I mean that's exactly the point, essentially. Really nice bright white dial. Fiftieth anniversary of the El Primero, right? Correct, yeah. And they're a really nice size. They're super limited. We're waiting to find out what the actual production number is. It's something like roughly 50. We're gonna call roughly fifty, but that's what is fifty. Yeah, and there's they said that number is subject to change. They're still what people might not understand is believe it or not, a lot of these brands are figuring stuff out the day before they turn the lights on at Basel and start letting people in. And you'd think that this is all locked and gone, but there's so much work involved in setting up the product cycle for something like this, and especially when you get into all the designs and and I mean uh stuff The bigger thing is like on the on the sales side of things, right, what a lot of people don't understand is like the watch brand the reason the watches are shown now and don't hit retailers for a couple of months is because this is when the retailers get to place their orders too. So like they're deciding what they're going to sell. So if Zenit says, okay, we're gonna make 50 of each, that's 150 pieces, and they see their retailers, they've got to have globally a couple hundred doors, if not a little more than that, right? And every retailer says we think we can move I'd like five. Yeah, right. Like they're precious metal, we don't know a price. Uh they're just under twenty thousand. They're like nineteen in chains. That's right. Uh okay, I mean but what did I guess earlier? Twenty eight. Yeah, yeah. They're super wearable. Obviously, if your preference is for a steel one, I would have two recommendations. Either buy the white gold or wait. It's it's highly likely by vintage or a by vintage one sure um but I would say it's highly likely that when the dust settles on these selling out as quickly as they like if they make 150 they're gone um and then and then we may find a a steel one down the road when they they take that. I mean it it's there in aesthetic, it's there. Yeah, yeah, totally.
Unknown The yeah, the three colors on the dials with gold. I mean you usually see a pretty pretty austere dialogue. The rose is incredible.. Yeah Yeah. But here you got a little pop of color with gold. Yeah. Super, super cool. And did I
Unknown see the crazy Defy, the Defy inventor? We did see the implementation of the um the new one that's vibrating the entire back of the it's it's wild. I couldn't figure out what I was looking at. It kinda makes me feel like my eyes are shaking a bit. Yeah, same here. If that's a if that makes any sense. Um but I looked at it for a while and I thought it was a gimmick. Like there was a disc or something spinning in there, like the parallel divers, those things that had like a roulette wheel under another and it would look like a turbine. But then I realized no, that's like uh some sort of special sort of like not unli theke the constant force thing from Yeah it's a it's essentially a giant flexible it's a disc with a bunch of blades on it and it is the escapement. Like that's how the watch functions. Uh it's a high speed escapement. It's it's really crazy watchmaking. Like very serious twenty first century watch making. Very inventive. There you go. Okay. All right. All right. That's an edit point as well. Yeah. Can you please re great remove that joke. I don't know anymore. Um with that one I d I do think like the aesthetic of the DeFi is so modern now, so hypermodern and architectural, like I think they're gonna they're they are in that space like Ublow and and and such and and I think while that may not apply to everyone the technology that's in that watch can be applied to other watches and it's like highly amagnetic and and much more uh protected in terms of uh rate and and quality of of the actual output from the escapement. Yeah. Right. And uh so timekeeping, all of that kind of thing. So what what we might be seeing right now is is like engine technology going into an F1 car when you hold this watch in your hand. And it might be interesting to see where they take that. Uh Ulysses Nardin has a very similar uh concept. And um and and it might be interested to see where with some of that technology settles down. You know, like at there was a time when if you wanted airbags, you bought a Mercedes SL. Now now they come in everything. Right? And and it it's it's kind of the same eventually you would hope the same path with this next generation watchmaking that doesn't
Unknown use metals. To kind of piggyback off that, something I saw today which is worth sharing, which is super cool and I know you saw this too. The new tag Hairspring, the isograph. Yeah, they're actually he's he said if you unwind it and you look at it, the tag hoyer logo is on the hairspring. Yeah, so they'
Unknown re if they know that the hairspring is legit, they're making it or they have a partner that's making it. I don't remember which it was. I think they they make it. Yeah make it. And uh and the hairspring is essentially yeah labeled so that you don't Yeah. It's like a a a way of guaranteeing legitimacy of the watch and and and this rather important And these are the new the carbon hairsprings. Correct, exactly. Really, really neat thing. And then I guess that kind of brings us to the next meeting, which we had, which was uh tag. And um and so we saw the new Ottavia isograph, which is um I would define it as I mean it's funny because the Ottavia is in itself a watch that attempted to take two disciplines and push them together. Yeah. But this one feels more confused a little bit. It's nice on wrist. It's good in person. It feels like Brightling five years ago. Okay. Um, so it's really sturdy, it's well priced, has a great bezel, a mint a really good loom. Um, but it doesn't feel like an Octavia to me at all. Okay. Um and and that's fine. I mean you're gonna expand the line. We've been using car uh analogies. Now maybe this is the a three series becoming a four series and then having a four series Grand Coupe, which is actually a four door four series, which should have been a three series, that sort of thing. You know what I mean? And totally. No. Gray says no. You can cut that. It wasn't a joke. And uh I hope you guys like that jokes by the way, 'cause I'm full of it. Yeah, we can do we can do that all day long. Um so I I think that it it's pretty good in on rest, it's about forty two millimeters. The pricing is really good. The pricing starts at uh it was uh thirty-two, thirty forty-five. The bronze one's really cool, you know, gradient dial. Yeah. My guess is that watch, the bronze one, if you give it six months, will be legit cool. I agree. Yeah. Um the other thing they showed us is the bracelet model has a quick release on the bracelet, so you don't use a tool, and then all the brac
Unknown elet ones also come with a NATO, and the NATO's pretty nice. Yeah, but it it is your standard uh spring bar system too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't use some fancy spring
Unknown bar either. It's the endlink actually grasps the spring bar. Oh, the thing wraps around. Yeah. Yeah. That's super. So if you if you're the type that likes to do your bracelet on your sport watch, I'm I'm typically not. But if that if that's kind of your your plan, then you can uh you know very easily go bracelet to NATO or take the bracelet. This is what I what I think is kind of more compelling because I don't know a lot of people who love bracelets and love NATO's. That's kind of two divergent camps in many ways. Especially when it comes to the same watch. I think it would be interesting for someone who just likes to change their strap occasionally because now you Or using two two spring bars spring bars in the the the uh the uh sushi fashion. Yeah, and then scratching everything. Scratching all of it. It's all scratching. The whole watch is screen. But now now you could do the part that typically scratches the watch at the worst, which is the bracelet end link install slash removal. You remove that, then you could pop the spring bar out, put a strap on it, throw it back in and not scratch anything. So you're not you're not pulling out scotch tape to do it to protect logs or anything that I I I kinda like that. I really like quick release straps in general. It's great idea. Because I'll I'll change my straps daily, especially at a place like Basel. I Like I'll bring a little like I bring a grip of uh of straps and and and and kind of go through them as as as the day goes. And um yeah I thought the Otavia was cool. Yeah, not bad. I think I think it is a compelling sports watch. I think it'll be interesting to see what they decide to do with the Monaco later in the year. I pushed we we pushed a little bit hard to see if they had it in the place and they just didn't stonewall. No, like I said I said like oh w he asked if uh Cole asked if if the guy had a Monaco and what they were doing and they didn't he didn't there's a translation issue. He didn't fully understand that what Cole was asking was like, Can you bring me the Monaco? Okay. And then I said, Hey, can I have the mon the new Monaco? And they're like, Oh, that doesn't exist. yet. Yeah So we're still working on it. And I was like, No I was like, but what if I just don't take pictures or like I don't publish anything. Like I'll take the pictures now and we'll have them for later. No, I know you're lying to me. You just give me I won't take pictures just a few I do my thing where I ask three times and then I apologize for the final ask. That's journalistic integrity. You have to find the final thing. But they're they said they said you know I said the the guy the dude was there and I said like uh So with this Monaco that's gonna come out like could we see it now, shoot it now t and publish it later, but that way it's our cameras and this the lighting was they had like a nice little boot setup so the lighting is solid and uh and they're like no no it doesn't like we don't have it. I'm like yeah yeah no I know but like if if I if I was able to shoot it today then we could have it for a story whenever you're ready. And they're like, no like you don't get it. We're still looking at designs. I was like that's probably true. And then you asked one more if you've got it, I'll have we shoot it. So now everybody everybody listening knows what the people who work with us go through dealing with us all day. Yeah, I mean that's our job, right? Like we our job is to go into the show and deliver as much information as possible to everyone who's not at the show. Sometimes you have to be you have to be a little pushy. Well some a lot of these prices pushy if you're talking to someone in PR and you can make their job a little bit easier where they know the photos will be good even if it's six or seven months from now. It's not it's never that tough of a conversation to say, like, if you have it, I'll shoot it now, you just let me know when I can use the photos. And that's usually pretty fair. Then they don't have to ship one to the office when they only have two for makes everything like that. So it's always worth asking. But apparently uh allegedly there's no new Monaco yet, but there will be. There's gotta be. Um and then beyond that we saw this uh golf watch. Yeah for the golfers watch, right? It's an app on the connected watch. Okay. The tag hoyer connected watch. And uh I I actually could just sat there and like played around with the screen. It'
Unknown s But you can just download the app, period. Okay. And that has been thirty thousand golf. No interest
Unknown . Okay. Zero. Maybe we should have climber uh review it? Yeah, I mean you should definitely put one of those on his wrist and just start like we should all we should all get them and go to the driving range. Okay. Done. I'm horrible at golf. That's fine. The worst. Yeah. Let's do it. All right. So that's how I got this scar. Story for another time. I guess so. Alright. Uh so I started the morning somewhere very different. I started at Gnomos. Okay. Uh this fun. I I only know one of what they launched, so yeah. So Gnomos did the usual gnomos thing, which is they took the thing they're known for and that everybody loves them for, these like classic, you know, cool minimal Bauhaus designs. And they iterated on them and they uh follow the old adage, don't fuck it up, which is kind of the challenge with something like that. Like there's so little to work with because the designs are so restrained that any little thing you do could totally ruin them, right? Uh so they gave us two new sport quote unquote like sports models. Um, they're bigger, they're thicker, they have hundred-foot water res uh thous tandhousand foot yeah thousand foot water resistance um one version of the club and then two versions of the tangenta like that uh so the tangentas that's that's the one that that I I read the pre press release. That's kind of an a interestinging th because it's it's so close to an ahoy, but it's bigger, burlier bracelet. It's much bigger, first of all. These watches are are thick. They're they're serious watches. Yeah. And same with the club. Yeah, they still use a thin movement. Uh but they're Oh and the movement has some sort of a protection around it. It does. So that's gonna add that's gonna add some bulk. Exactly. So uh there's that and then it's the heftier version of their new bracelet. So Gnomos has two new bracelets. Bracelet's kind of incredible. Dude, so the bracelet that's on the sport models is cool. It's good. It's nice. It's these kind of thick, um, symmetrical, sort of like rectangular links. Uh and the nice thing is they use tiny screws, like eyeglass screws almost. Uh and you can just get a screwdriver and change your links out, which is really nice. Um but there's a finer version of the bracelet that you can buy on a couple of the smaller uh campus club models and they're not selling it individually yet. But they will. Yeah, the campus clubs. If I was gonna buy an almost today that one the the white white is dial with the Cali. Not at all. That's a great watch. It's like one of their cheapest watches. It's one of the few that still uses like an alpha. Yeah. It's a great watch. It's not expensive. I think it's like anyone could wear it. Just change the strap, the whole watch changes. Yeah. I agree. I like that watch a lot. I agree. I literally digress. Please. It's all good. The uh the bracelet's mic. Yeah. I'm already begging them to let me buy one for my ten Genta. Okay. That's what you got on. That's what I'm wearing now, yeah. But uh they're telling me they're not selling them separately right now. It's a whole like supply thing and they want to use them to make certain models special, but eventually, eventually it'll happen. And when it does, everybody who wants a nomos should buy one. They're amazing. They're that good. Uh they're really, really good. Super fun. Yeah, they're great. Um and then they also did these models, the duos. They took four of the standard models, the uh Tangenta, the Ludwig, the Orion, and the Tetra, the kind of like four core models. They did them in 33 or 32.8 millimeters uh with two hands. Hand wound, a new version of the Alpha Caliber um that's been kind of paired back. Uh they're awesome. If they were a little bigger than thirty three millimeters if they made those in thirty eight. Dude, if they were 35, I would have given I would have given them a credit card if you're the SJP. Yeah, dude. It's amazing. That's your how do you take a super austere three hand watch and make it better? Take one of the hands off. Yeah. Which one? It's up to you. I mean, yeah, sure. Take the hour hand off. It'd be kind of Just no hands. Okay. It's just a normal style. Yeah. Should we do that? Limited edition? SJPZ? Mm-hmm. All right, cool. Uh yeah, I see every everybody in the room. We could level like twelve. One of those. My mom would buy one. Well, I need an hour hand. So yeah. So that was no mos. It was again like iterations on familiar themes, all good stuff. Uh the bracelet though was the real highlight. The bracelet's killer. Um what else did you guys see today? I uh Oh, you know what? Actually, I'm cutting you off here, Cole. You know what I saw after Nomos? Bulgery. Anyone else here? Did you guys get to go buy the Bulgari booth today? No. Negative. Dudes. The Bulgari stuff is incredible. So the two things that are most exciting for me are they released an octofenissimo chronograph GMT. It is the thinnest mechanical chronograph ever made. It's automatic peripheral rotor. Uh it's the titanium, the like sandblasted titanium with the matching bracelet. Uh there's a pusher that jumps the hour hand uh for your local time. Watch is in the in one direction. Uh in one direction. Okay. So there's the two chronograph pushers on. Bring the dates with it. Uh there is no date. Okay. Okay. So the watch is it's a uh totalizer for the chronograph, a running seconds and then a twenty four hour register for your home time. Then you have the two chronograph pushers on the right side of the case on either side of the crown, and on the left side of the case you have a central pusher and that jumps the hour hand forward in one hour increments. Uh it's under eighteen just under eighteen thousand dollars. Uh I don't think so. I don't think so. Um 'cause you're uh I guess you're only tracking local. You're only tracking local and then the other register is a twenty four hour. Which gives you AMP. The Windows or the AM AMPM anyway. But it's uh if you're tired PM if if you you''rere awake it's probably AM. Probably. Um We're all AM PM indicators in some way. That's true. We are Ain't that the truth? Uh but yeah, it's incredible. It's like seventeen thousand something. It's like just under $18,000. Uh, and when you think about the fact that there are a lot of, you know, steel chronographs, you know, not made to the same level without the GMT function that sell for more than that, it's it's incredible. It's awesome. And if you like, I mean you have to like the whole octofenisimo thing. I don't know where you guys stand on that. I I think it's great. I don't think I can pull it off. Yeah, I'm probably the same way. It doesn't like stack up with the general this. This. I'm pretty this happening. Okay. I'd like I think they're awesome. They wear really well. They're obviously super thin. Yeah. Bulgree does a if you haven't had a chance to like play around with one um the straps are always incredible. Yeah. Because they take like a great care in making sure the strap matches the the way that the watch needs to sit on your wrist. So their bracelets are remarkable. The straps are remarkable. Like it's really nice stuff and that's what you'd expect. You're paying and that's what you'd expect. You know, the the to your point you're saying that this is a a good value wash, but you're still paying a great deal of money for it. Absolutely. Yeah. By no means is this and and I don't and I don't think that they're just trading on the fact that they're a luxury name. Their watch business interest is dialed in. Yeah. They make some incredible things even if I don't think like I could like I don't think I could pull them off. Yeah, that's fair. Um the other thing they had is they now make a basic time only they also do it in a skeleton, but whatever. Uh the time only octafinissimo. Black ceramic. Matte black ceramic. It's mean. It's so cool looking. Um yeah. So those are kinda those are actually probably for me two of the coolest watches I've seen at the show all together. Okay. What else did you see like? Uh you went off into the wild. I did,
Unknown I did. I ventured off into the wild. You went on your walkabout. Yeah, I went on a little walkabout. So I guess it's it's obviously my first puzzle. And uh the whole thing's a walkabout. Yeah, exactly. The whole thing is a walkabout. But it's very clear who runs the show, you know. It's totally clear who runs the show. So I decided Is it me? Well, I guess we all know. Steven? Well, yeah. You guys both run the show.
Unknown Everyone does. It's Gray. Yeah. Oh, it's Dave. It's Dave. I don't know who he is. Yeah, shout out to Wavy Dave. Run the show. It's it's very clear. It's very clear. But it that it's like you mean like it's Rolex, it's paddock, it's yeah, yeah. Yeah, who who's really running the show? I know you know politically differ
Unknown ent. Is it is it me? Huh? Hmm. Um so basically yeah, so I tried to go off and see what else was out there. Um yeah, like I said it's my first one, so I'm just gonna take a walk around and see what's up. And yeah, the the cool thing to me was uh I guess the presence of international brands that you just don't hear of, period. I mean sure I operate in the American market of course, but there are people there who just don't sell anything in the American market. So it was kind of neat to see those. Um I'll probably come up with a little roundup for y'all. Yeah you will. Um so I won't I won't get too much into it, but there was a French brand that impressed me particularly, Leap, which I know they kind of have a cult following already.
Unknown Um however a lot of people listening probably would recognize Leap for the it's a black case chronograph which has like a red, a yellow and a blue pusher. Yeah, almost like a ball. Yeah, almost looks like a like a po
Unknown ol balls on the side of the watch. They're very cool. They're very cool. But they also make some really cool funky sixties, seventy I think that might be true. Yeah, I I mean I think that I think I've heard that before. Whether or not it's true is a different thing, but I think I've heard that before. So yeah, they do some super compressor stuff. Anyway, I'll get into that in an article, but took that little walk and and tried to kind of see what else was out there. I really liked um yeah, some of the stuff in Europe and in addition I found this little quirky Japanese brand that couldn't even sell a watch yet. They were just there. They use Seiko movements. They were called Mirko or something like that, and they were totally wild and weird. And yeah, just kinda took a walk around the show in between the big meetings and uh yeah, I really enjoyed that. You you realize that actually the watch world is pretty pretty damn big. It's huge. Yeah, for sure
Unknown . Right, right. I don't actually remember what the official number is, but yeah, one. I once got lost in uh I was trying to get to a supplier hall. We were looking or something. We were looking. This is old school Hodinky days. Uh this was when this might be pre-Will. This might be when it was just Ben and me at the show. And uh we were looking to find better quality spring bar tools for the Hodinki shop. And Ben was like, dude, do you have an hour? Can you just like run down to the supplier hall? It's all like three dot one or whatever and go find like Switzerland. Right. Yeah. It's across the border. Yeah. And so it's on a skull shaped island. Um yeah, you like I was trying to go find Spring Bar tools. He was like, walk around, check out samples. If you see anything good, get a business card, we'll figure it out. And uh I was wandering through this hall and ended up in like on like the second floor of some building. I still don't actually know where this building was because I had gone through so many hallways and up so many escalators. But like it had a drop ceiling and they had erected these like plywood essentially uh like structure within a structure so there were these stalls but they had roofs and and full walls and like door like swinging doors and people were selling like uh like plastic bracelet links for watches by the bucket. They literally had like oil drums full of plastic bracelet links and like a scoop and you bought them by the pound. I would trust their engineering. Like for like cheap plastic watches. For like you know, like ten dollar watches you'd buy at Walmart. You could literally go in and buy like hands by like the scoop. I just like to buy gummies bulk. Nothing else. Yeah. It was like bulk watch components and I got lost and couldn't find my way out. Uh to be honest, also nobody in this hall spoke English at all. I had no idea where I was going. Uh it was bad. That's kinda cool. It was cool
Unknown . It's it's you take away the watches and you just have a mess of international folks the pieces. The pie
Unknown ces that kind of create the world that somehow supports this last rung that we that we play around in for the few days. And you get to see that, right? Yeah, for sure. We should someday we should sit down and do a uh an episode of the show where we sit and talk to somebody who's in charge of sourcing that stuff, somebody who like runs a micro brand and is here not to sell their watches, but to buy the stuff they need to make their watches. Yeah, for sure. Uh be be an interesting, interesting show. We do need to move on to Gold Doxa. Yeah, we got two more things to cover. We got Gold Doxa and then we have our last appointment of the day, which we all did to
Unknown get Explain what the gold doxa is. Okay
Unknown . It's a completely absurd. Like the fact that this thing exists is insane to me. Do you want me to give a background on the two hundred and then you can give a background on the movement and all that in this new one? Yeah, sure. Yeah. All right. So sub two hundred is uh fifty years old now, and uh this is this Doxis T graph sub two hundred, and this uh this is a watch that uh Jason Heaton has written a couple of times on site about. So originally they made uh two hundred dials of all three of Dox's dials. So if you're a docs person, that's the pro, the sub. Or um, if you're the docs a person, that's a sub, a shark hunter, and a uh sea rambler. Thank you. And that's the only one I own and the one I can't remember. Sea Rambler is silver, the shark hunter is black, and the pro is orange. Um so these were uh kind of big uh Valju powered uh chronograph dive chronographs. They're awesome, they're super rare now. Heaton has uh a pro and Heaton has a shark hunter and a sea rambler, both of which are incredible. They're really, really fun. They're like super chunky 70s divers, 69, but they're 70s divers. They're really, really cool, and uh Dox is re-releasing an incredibly limited run version that uses dead old stock movements, which uh Cole was listening wh
Unknown ile I was shooting. I asked him what's inside, and he said, Well, it's a very special movement. And he said, Well it's very old. We had to refurbish it. I'm like, Okay, well that's odd, you have to refurbish the movement that you're putting in a new watch. What's the story? Well, they are actually the original movements. Well, okay they,' theyre're about thirty years old. Yeah. They're dead stock movements that Doxa had that they they said they were waiting for something special to do with you'
Unknown re you're doing big scare quotes while you why you do that. Because you know like the the there was always well, Dox's plans were definitely to make a re edition of this watch for its fiftieth birthday. But there was you you have to believe and I may have seen one, but you have to believe that they intended to remake the three just like they did with the fiftieth anniversary uh divers, of which I have the Sea Rambler. You have to intent you have to believe that they intended to make two hundred of each of them to make six hundred watches because it's a retail endeavor. Instead, they're making thirteen. Thirteen thirteen. That sounds like a good way to make money. That gives you an idea. Well, well, we'll get there. Gross margin not to be ignored. Ignored. The watch is a solid gold version of this case bracelet. It's the first time they've done solid gold, and for those of you who know Doxa, it's not the first time that they did gold. There is a prototype thin case 300 that's plated. There's one of them. It's awesome. Um, this is the first time they're done solid gold. Solid gold with the orange dial. Professional dial. It's uh it's kind of bonkers. It's super fun. It's heavy like you would expect. It's a ton of gold. It's super heavy. It's a ton of gold. It's a huge watch. Big chunky case. Absolutely. Oh man. It's good timing too. Yeah. Alright, so impromptu special guest. This is one of the treats of Basel. Is people are just in the I've been looking for it. If you find a cell phone, it's my cell phone if you find my cell phone it's mine. Yeah. How's it going? This is Zach. By the way. Hello. Uh hodinky radio listeners. That's alright. It's fine, I'm not nervous doing this on our own podcast, but I suddenly got really nervous. This is fun. We're literally sitting around drinking beers talking about solid gold doxes. How nervous can you be about doing that? No, we haven't seen it yet. We've seen some renders of it.. Okay. Yeah Alright, we kind of buried the lead here though. Before we get into because I want your takes on this. How expensive is this thing? First of all, oh yeah, we should probably do that. So yeah, this is Zach Weiss from Warnerwound. Uh Ilya Riven from Warnerwound. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blake Mallon from Warnerwound. Warner Wow. Hi fellas. There we go. How nice. Yeah. Seventy thousand dollars. Oh, really? $70,000 solid gold Doxa. How much is a solid gold uh Daytona on a bracelet? $37,000. $37,000. How much is a solid gold speedmaster? Thirty thousand Swiss francs. It's not limited to thirteen units. They're gonna make how expensive what what is the price on a solid gold Nautilus chronograph? Sixty-eight thousand dollars. And how much is this this Doxa chronograph again? Seventy, Stephen. W
Unknown hat? I'll take the gold Doxa for seventy thousand, please. Jesus. I I'm very impressed by your ability to recall all those prices. I don't think any
Unknown one on Warren Wound could have done that. So we may or may not have had this conversation every four hours. To be very clear, the numbers were coming from Ben who's in the background. He knows the prices of um I mean a great many things. It's a it is it is impressive. Yeah. Did they explain why they did that? I don't think they could source they didn't say this specifically. This is the subtext. I don't believe they could source enough movements to do the 600 run that would have matched what they made in 69. So what they're doing is making 600 watches worth of profit on thirteen watches. Yep. James is looking me dead in the eyes, just nodding. Yeah, okay. I mean like I this is a brand that like I want I want dox it to continue. I want them to be successful. I really love their watches. I adore their history. I think they're one of the most underappreciated watch brands, like dive watch brands, in terms of history. And uh and this is a weird move. Uh but I don't weird flex for sure. Weird flex. I'm not I don't dislike it. I don't doubt that they can find the limited number of clients they need to sell that watch. Um and then it will instantly become a w like an absolute white whale. All right. Cool. Interesting. So we haven't seen it. I mean I've se
Unknown en a render also curious orange dial gold c
Unknown ase work? A little gold on the registers too
Unknown . Okay. It's fine. It's fine. Okay. It it looked a little too a little too warm. I
Unknown mean I'm not buying it. It's too warm to be I like orange with gold. Too warm? I mean it's warm blingy. Yeah, I don't know I like a little contrast. Warm. Warm. All right, so we're gonna have to wrap things up here. Uh but what's something that made each of you guys smile? Day two of Basel, we're getting like really into it now. Could be kind of a slog. What's something what was what was the ray of light in your uh your day today? Let's start right here. Jeez. Um what's my ray of light?
Unknown I think the like the all snowflake model we saw at Grand Seco with the really interesting case, the like um sort of pattern case was pretty amazing. That was pretty remarkable. Yeah. Um I actually really liked Monta's new Atlas GMT. Uh I saw some like shots of it beforehand, but seeing it in the metal is really unique and especially the opaline dial was really nice, kind of a surprise, but great finishing on that watch, great sort of aesthetic and not a lot of money for the for the for a great pack
Unknown age. Um I'd have to go with the Oris uh big crown pointer uh burgundy dial. Yeah. Really? Such a good color. Such a good color. Yeah, yeah. I'm apparently I'm a burgundy guy. I mean why not? Who knew? Yeah, who knew? Personally yes. Flick Flick has this. What do you think? I do. I do. It's it's a surprisingly wearable watch. Maybe not a killer watch, but when I got it I I didn't think I'd wear it as much as I do. Uh but I really fell in love with that burgundy when I saw it. That is an amazing color. Pretty good. Yeah. Deer skin strap as well. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, and everything they're doing with uh like sustainability, the new packaging they're working on, like really huge applause to them. I mean, they're making the right decisions there. So way less packaging, way less paper, way less cardboard, way less plastic, all that stuff. They have like a new your watch basically comes in a wallet. Yeah. It's this really nice wallet that you could probably repurpose for other stuff. Way more practical. Yeah, it's a travel case all of a sudden and and and that kind of thing. And and yeah, it's I mean Oris is great. Yeah totally it's easy. Yeah. Oh it's my turn. Solid gold doxa baby solidoxa? Yeah. Don't at me
Unknown . Um yeah plenty of watches made me smile, but I think and this may sound cheesy, but honestly meeting all the people behind the watches definitely gave me warm fuzzies. Yeah. I I really uh boo this is my first time. No, no, I'm serious. I just like that people are happy. Yeah. No, I'm just saying, like I haven't gotten the opportunity yet to meet a lot of these people. So for me it was the first time. And uh and meeting them you see that I I've seen some of these guys around New York City. I've met them for sure. Um yeah, and it's a it's an honor to have him here too. Thanks for having us. This is a a surprise and a
Unknown really awesome one. So You thought you were coming over for a beer and we were like actually you're gonna make content that we're gonna sell ads against. Could you work for us briefly? You have to work for your pitch in pitch, pitch. Oh man, something happened off mic. I don't know. I told him now it's time to get a pitch. Oh, sweet, yeah. Uh cool. Well thank you guys for coming. This was awesome. Oh yeah, I gotta I gotta do my highlight. Uh what did I like? Honestly, watching uh our amazing producer here, Dave, uh, rock a diamond set serpentee. Uh was pretty awesome. I think you need that I think you need that watch, Dave. Wavy mode five. Is that is that a video guy watch? Yeah, I'll put it in order. Alright, sweet. Sweet, sweet, sweet. Uh yeah. So that's my highlight. But uh yeah, this is a fun fun way to end the day. Um I think we've all got some like evening stuff we have to get to, some events tonight. But uh yeah, thank you guys for stopping by and we'll be back again. We'll be back again tomorrow. Can you guys plug plug your show? Absolutely. Let's make let's get a little plug in here. Sure. The one of my podcasts. You can find it everywhere. Uh literally everywhere. As featured with the Hodenky podcast in the New York Times yesterday. Um yeah. So yeah, the Warner Wild Podcast. Awesome. Thank you guys for coming. And uh yeah, we'll be back here tomorrow, same time, same place, same podcast feed, uh with another episode. And I think we have another guest coming by tomorrow. I think we'll leave that as surprise, but we do have another guest coming by tomorrow. So yeah, see everybody tomorrow, and uh we'll have a ton more posts on uh hodinky.com. So stay tuned.