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Baselworld 2019 Round-Up, Day 1

Published on Wed, 20 Mar 2019 22:00:00 +0000

The team sits down to share their thoughts on this year's new releases from Rolex, Tudor, Patek Philippe, and more.

Synopsis

This is a podcast episode recorded at Baselworld 2019, featuring a discussion about watch industry highlights on day three of the trade show. The hosts discuss various watch brands and releases, with particular emphasis on independent watchmakers and mid-tier brands that made strong showings at the event.

The conversation covers several key brands and watches. Oris receives significant praise for their environmental initiatives, including eliminating single-use plastics from packaging and booth operations, as well as their new GMT watch and bronze-accented models. The hosts discuss LVMH brands stepping up with notable releases, including an unexpected Hublot Ferrari collaboration that garnered enthusiasm despite the brand's typically polarizing reputation. They also cover independent watchmakers like Kari Vuotilainen, the Grönefeld brothers, Stepan Sarpaneva (who developed an extraordinarily accurate moonphase complication), and Rexhep Rexhepi's Akrivia Chronomètre Contemporain. The episode concludes with a wrist check where the hosts share what they're wearing: a Breitling Aerospace, a vintage 1969 Doxa T-Graph celebrating the model's 50th anniversary, and a Rolex Explorer 1016 on an expandable bracelet.

Transcript

Speaker
Unknown Sup dudes, day three. Yeah howdy, good morning. Yay, only one more day. Three days. Yeah. So we got uh James Stacy. Hey. We got Jason Heaton. We got the Grey Nado in the house. I'm guest on the Grey NATO. Okay, cool. It's your your show now. No, no. Um we can do that. Yeah, so let's let's just get right into it. Uh a brand that we talked about a little bit yesterday when we had the the the Warner Wow guys on the show, but we didn't really get too into, uh that I know both of you guys are into. Yeah. Is uh Oris. Oris has a good year this year. Yeah, and I'm fresh off them. I saw them late in the day today and uh you know, I every year they're one of the the brands that I really enjoy seeing the most. Yeah. A, they're nice people, but B, they I don't know, they always just bring such cool pieces. Yeah, we're gonna play with color and a little bit of bronze accents here and then new version of the you know diver sixty five or something and and this year didn't disappoint it was great. Yeah they're fun to see the Oris booth is kind of like Buck Wild. It is yeah a little chaotic you know it's like three levels. You're never really sure what floor you're on. Right. You have to go to the top for our meeting. And uh I you know like I the brand is great because they're independent. Right. Yeah. So they do their own and like you you can sit in a meeting with Rolf and VJ, the co co CEOs of the brand, and they will do whatever they want. So like if they decide as a brand that they don't like that there's too much paper and plastic in their products, they don't take like years to phase it out. Yeah. In one year, last year they talked about limiting the amount of paper and plastic that was in their packaging, and now it's done. Your watch comes in like a leather, a really nice leather roll. It comes with like very limited anything that's single use. And I I absolutely love it. I think that a lot of that stuff ends up being like like I have a cabinet at home. I just moved recently, so I know how much of it there is that's just boxes. Yeah. Yeah. For these things. Well, even in the booth, um, they said that the all the water comes from the tap. It's in glass bottles, glasses, no plastic. The food that they serve in the booth is prepared food that they prepare in the booth. So it's they're not like bringing in plastic wrapped stuff. This is little stuff. This is little stuff that people don't hear about with a brand like this often. And and it's all that peripheral stuff about entertaining guests in their booth, but it's significant, you know? I mean, it's a legitimate problem for a brand that sells a lot of dive watches and does a lot of sort of environmental themed pieces. I mean it's it it's it's it really shows that they really are kind of walking the talk. I think it's greating the talk. And and then you have on the other side and it reflective directly in the product, all of these uh products that are are directly sponsoring or supporting in various levels of conservation. Yeah. And and I think that like as a as a brand ethos or pretty interesting brand because they offer something that almost anyone can buy. Right. Like if you're in the watch buying market, they're within your consideration. Yeah. And they're enthusiast-driven. The people behind the brand are really deep into watches. They don't take any of it casually. There's no casual spirit at Aurus, period. Like look at their more hardcore products, look at their in-house products, look at their straps, look at the way that they decide to do things like buckles versus everyone else. Like they could make all of this a lot easier. Yeah. But they don't. Right. They showed a new buckle for me that works with a ventile cotton strap. Okay. So ventile cottons I'm gonna get this v vaguely wrong. So Rolf, I'm sorry, but ventile cotton is either British or it was invented in Britain for the uh RAF, World War II, used on the fifty three Everest expedition. There you go. And now it's actually Swiss Swiss only. Okay, so I was trying I couldn't remember and which was now. Yeah. That's the cotton that's like silent, right? Like it doesn't make any noise when it's super watery. It's really tightly woven and then it's treated with a DWR coating, so it's highly water resistant. Okay. Yeah. Cool. So they were talking about the history of this cotton as being used for pilots that had to ditch their planes in the English Channel in the North Sea, and this company was able to increase or I guess more accurately decrease the mortality rate from eighty percent by eighty percent. Hm because they went from the pilots would have from two to three minutes to be picked out of the sea to about twenty minutes. Yeah. So a boat could find them. Yeah. Whoa. So pretty cool stuff. Really interesting fabric. It's super soft. It's really pliable. I would say it actually feels a little bit like really high quality denim, but without the heaviness, if that makes sense. Yeah. Definitely. It's uh but and the buckle is what's what I think is remarkable. And uh we're going well into uh you know more of a T GN space here, but that's cool, man. We would not have had both of you guys on if we were not up for that. It's a fold. I knew what I was getting into here. It's like a fold over I think it I think it like highlights the way that they think about their watches. So it's a foldover clasp but that it it secures into the tail of the strap, the long end of the strap, without using any holes, without bending the strap in any way, and it's infinitely adjustable. So it uses a little tab that pinches the strap lightly. And then when it clicks down, it clicks down with their kind of like seatbelt release like on a plane. Yeah. So it has this lift tab on it. And it's gonna be on their either Pro Pilot Chronograph or Pro Pilot GMT, which is like a forty four millimeter watch. I I think it's something they should try and get like across the board as an option. They do straps better than any other brand. Yeah. I or I think maybe better any any other brand in the world. Like they'd make a really nice bracelet, which isn't that easy to do. The rubber's really nice. Like I've spent a lot of time in rough conditions with their rubber, like their divers on rough on uh on a rubber strap. And they they just do a uh a really good job and they nail a lot of details. And uh and and certainly I I saw what what what did you see that you liked? So the two that really stood out for me, um the first one they showed me was the Aquas uh GMT. Yeah, that's my favorite. I was like the Aquas. I've always on the fence, kind of neutral about great, very capable dive watch, but the styling never quite did it for me. But today they showed me this GMT, and I was like, it it's as if they had it for years. I mean it just made perfect sense. It just looked it completed the watch for me, I felt. Um and and then what they do is they put the the so it actually it's a three time zone watch because it has the as Oris does very elegantly, they have this the second time zone in that inner ring on the dial. Oh, yeah. And then you've got the th the rotating bezel with the second twenty-four hour scale on it. Then of course you have the local time hands. So despite the fact that they're using a Selita base that only gives you um twenty-four hour independent GMT, which isn't like true traveling GMT. Yeah. But if you leave the hand on GMT on UTC zero, then just use the offset of the bezel, then you would always know home, yeah, uh UTC and another time zone, which gives you largely the same functionality as a GMT master. Yeah. Great watch. And then the other one I really liked and I don't know, this seemed for some reason today was kind of a a day that I was kind of dipping into like more dressy watches, which is not in my wheelhouse, but that uh 40 millimeter uh steel and bronze uh big crown uh pointer date. Just a cool watch with the uh uh it had this uh you know sort of beautiful blue dial. I mean it was just like just a stunning watch, you know. Um I love that configuration anyway. They they just do it so well, but um on the wrist and I posted a picture on Instagram and you know everybody's just they just love it. I mean it's it's one of those really lovable watches. Well it's also one of those things where like if you keep the bronze clean, then it's like a two-tone watch. If you let it patina, it becomes a whole different thing. That won't that will not look like any two-tone watch in the world because they went with all bronze. There's it's not bronze with a gold cap or a plate. It it's not a gold bezel. Like it's actually everything that looks like gold is bronze and the rest is steel and it will all get this crazy patina and it's a relief engraved in bezel. Yep. It's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it was great. I mean those were those were the two that that stood out. There was a there were a couple of embargoed pieces that uh we can't talk about, but um, you know, it's a it's a strong year. I mean, you know, it's one of the brands that like I said, it al'sways a highlight and and in a year that I felt was kind of light on fireworks, uh horse it was it was kind of real high point for me. Plus that burgundy dial. Yeah, yeah, burgundy dials on amazing. Pointer dating right. Pointer date in both sizes in a burgundy dial. Oh, nice really cool. That watch on the bracelet with the burgundy dial is and the the strap is deer skin. Oh which is what much more sustainable for them to And they're sort they're tanning their leathers with vegetable tanning and sort of chemical tanning. No chemicals or sort of environmental sort of uh ethical sort of uh uh mindset for them. So it's great good stuff. Cool. Yeah. What were James, what were some uh highlights for you? I mean for me that like I finally have a uh watch that I really like from the show, and it's from the most unlikely brand, which is Hublow. Wait a second, wait a second, wait a second. The watch you want most at Basel World 2019. Yeah, if I could have walked out with one, there's no question. I mean, we could probably arrange that. I'd have to get another meeting, somebody you would have to like create a diversion. I would need I'm up for it. Well I mean fine. Can you put all of this where we're planning to steal a thirty thousand dollar watch. Yeah, please do not run this. This it gets Hublo, we're definitely gonna be able to Hublow, we love your watches. We're definitely not gonna try to steal one. Definitely not gonna steal one. I'm interviewing for new co-host for the Green A, exactly. This is not my co-host. Have you seen this watch? No, I didn't. No. So this is a watch designed um this is this my this sentence gets crazier the longer I talk. But the watch that I've put on my wrist the most where I was like, okay, this is something I didn't expect. I really like it. It feels incredibly well made. It's really fun. It's not too big. And it's not something I would normally it's not an aesthetic I would uh traditionally describe or prescrib toed Hublot is this uh the new Ferrari watch. So that's an even more insane. Like within within Hublot, the Ferrari watches are divisive thing because they're like referential obviously to a a very elitist vehicle. And uh I I happen to have driven a few Ferraris. I'm never going to own a Ferraris. I just happen to have driven a few Ferraris. I've never gonna own a Ferrari, maybe. Uh but this watch, I I won't all a I wouldsk all I would ask is give it a chance. Look at the pictures. Don't even do any more than that. But it is the uh it's uh And we'll have a story on this live soon. Yes over the weekend. It's Ferrari designed version of Which is probably their more their most toned down one style wise. It looks nothing like any of those. Imagine if you took a Hublau from the dial standpoint and put it in a it's either titanium or their um what's their fancy gold? King King Gold. King Gold. So it's eitanium or king gold or carbon. Uh carbon fiber. Very Ferrari. The titanium one is like mid-20s. It's not very big, and it has this like curvy, bubbly sort of icapod-like case. Okay. The crone the chronograph action is incredible. I mean, no pressure to start. Almost no pressure to reset. It's really, really nicely done. And I would say like the only thing that like kinda tweaks me about it is 'cause I'm 'cause I d have no intention of ever even dreaming of owning a Ferrari is the idea that it has that little prancing horse on the dial. At twelve o'clock, right. Yeah. Pretty prominently. Yeah. It took me a little while to see it because it's hidden by the red chronograph hand. Okay. And there's a lot going on in the dial. Okay. If you're not into Hublos skeletonized dials, and I'm not sure that I am, this is about the case for me. Okay. Because it like sits really flat. It feels really special. It looks great. And I I I yeah, that's the one that like it it's crazy, but this is I guess I'm ha I'm you know last year I got the the standards. I got the BB58, I got the B BB GMT, we got a Jubilee on a GMT master, like core steel sport watch stuff. But like all these other brands, without Swatch being here, it kind of seems like Rolex is taking a slow year, you know. Yeah. Uh Tudors got some interesting stuff, but nothing that like broke the mold or swung really hard for the core of their enthusiasts. Yeah. And now you have these other brands, the L these LVMH brands that are like we're we're stepping in. Yeah. You're turning the volume down, we're turning it up. Yeah, right. I mean that's true actually. It's kind of like uh we'll we'll get sidetracked here, you know, a bit, but like the L VMH brands put up huge this year. Like Tag has these new Ottavias, which, you know, some people are gonna love, some people are gonna hate, but like it's a big deal. Tag's Black Bay. Tot totally. Plus the same price. Plus they have the carbon hairsprings. Yeah, right. So from a technical standpoint, tag's coming out big. It's nicely advanced movement. For that money, it's it's strongly advanced. Zenith has the fiftieth anniversary of El Primeros, uh both precious metal and some other things. They're fiesta. Thin chronographs. Yeah. They have the chronograph GMT Octofinissimo. Plus they have the all black ceramic octofinesimo, which is my personal pick uh from those watches. And then Hublo now has this watch. I mean so it's like all four of those brands have have big exciting things. The smart smart move if if that was their strategy to say there's a gap here, let's fill it. There's no distraction at the end of the aisle with Omega with some anniversary something or other. It's like yeah, good good call. And it's funny 'cause they've always been there for for people who haven't been to Basel World, like you walk in the front door of the halls and you have to go through these turnstiles. Yeah. And the moment you get inside the turnstiles, it's Bulgari on your left. Yeah, right. So it's like it's it's Bulgury on your left, tag on your right, and then you go past that and it's Hublow on your left and zenith on your right. Yeah. And then you get into, you know, there's a little break, there's some escalators, whatever, and then you get into Rolex Paddock Tutor, whatever. And run the gauntlet of the C. Yeah. You kind of have to run the gauntlet of LVMH, but that's also where like all the foot traffic is and it's kind of miserable and you kind of want to kind of like skip right through it. Yeah. And I think this year you're right. Like without Omega like visible down at the other end of the hall, yeah, like people are kind of lingering and enjoying it, and it really opened up a chance for them to kind of like dominate Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think it's from all corners too, because the the tag one we all can remember like the they'll they'll have something for the Monaco at some point. So the Octavia isograph is a is a new thing. Uh that was underwhelming to me that watch. Yeah. I mean the movement I get, but I think for the price, the people that are maybe buying it aren't gonna care. Like I just think it's a little bit confused. Yeah. It just it seemed a little bland to me, but I mean some look look nice. I haven't seen it in the metal yet. It's really nice on wrist. Yeah. Like it feels like a solid sport watch, like I was saying like I was saying on yesterday's episode, it kinda feels like a a brightling from five years ago. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it feels like this kind of solid, chunky but not too chunky, like low like, kind of wear it all the time sort of option. Right. And and it has some option like the bracelet's got quick release on it. Yeah. That uses normal spring bars. It's not like built in. Yeah. Yeah. Great loom. Okay. Uh but yeah, for me the the Hublow. It's it's such a weird choice. And I actually I'm gonna go out on a limb and say like it might be the first Hublow I've genuinely liked. Interest okay. You heard it here first. James Casey w I'm not I'm Ferrari Hublow guy. I'm not Yeah, exactly. Ferrari Hublow go. I'm gonna buy the I want you to get it in King Gold. You can tick all the boxes at once. It can be a solid gold Ferrari branded Hublow skeletonized. I'm gonna get the hat, I'm gonna get the polo. I'm gonna get the thing that goes on my keychain. Alright I'm gonna blow up my own spot super hard here and say that I had a Ferrari polo when I was in high school. And I also didn't have a driver's license until like eight months ago. Steven. It was bad. It was bad. I've had a Ferrari. I went through yeah, I went through like a Euro Trash phase. It was not good. Luckily, there are like this is before cell phones. We're gonna need photos. We're gonna need photos. Euro trash Steven is maybe my second favorite Steven. What's your favorite Steven? Current day Steven. Oh, I love that. This uh this guy. Uh great. All I would say is like if you're if you're listening to me talk about a Hubllo, the a Ferrari Hublow that's twenty-some odd thousand dollars. Um Sorry, but also not sorry. Canadian sorry? Sorry, but also not sorry. Give it a chance. I genuinely think it's a compelling thing. It's a big right turn because they used a designer from a car brand. Yeah. So yeah, Flavio uh Manzoni. Exactly. Who was in the Hodinki magazine, the last volume of the Hodinki magazine, uh 'cause he's a big watch guy. Yeah. So I I think it's really cool. It's expensive. I can't afford it. I won't buy it. But I do think it's really cool. I could not stop taking pictures of it or trying on the various ones for wrist shots and things like that. And that's usually a good sign. And sure, we didn't maybe we didn't find a couple of real bangers when it comes to steal sport watches under five thousand dollars. I'm not saying that there's nothing. Oris has a handful that are great. I love that GMT. Yeah. Uh but that Hublos something I'm genuinely excited about because suddenly I had a reason to be like, oh Hublow. I saw it on this giant screen in the front of their booth and I was like, Yeah. What is that weirdness? I think it's funny that you know you brought up this idea of like you sort of expect to walk into Basel and get like sub five and sub ten thousand dollar steel sports watches every year. Like those are gonna be it's what most people buy a lot of money and Rolex literally won't make more of them. Especially in the US. Like if you talk to retailers, it's like they want 42 to 44 millimeter steel sports watches that are like $35 to $6,500 that all have the date, which is why like the purists get upset, but like that's what sells. So unless you're gonna buy hundreds ofs of thousand watches from some manufacturer, like you kind of have to shut up and deal with them making watches with dates. But the funny thing is we expect that at Basel, but this year we got those at SIHH. Like we got those watches from IWC, we got those watches from Mont Blanc, and then we show up to Basel and it's like it's all high end stuff. Yeah, yeah. It's very interesting. It's a it's kind of a big reversal of what we're doing. for the five thousand dollar price point as IWC has. I think they're still I agree. They still pushed as hard as they could for that price point with the new Spitfire stuff. Yeah. And I mean the continued success of just their general pilot lineup. But yeah. I wanna I wanna pivot the other direction real quick because I got to do what is probably my favorite thing at Basel World, uh, which is I got to go see the independence this morning. Um I was able to kind of carve out some time and book a bunch of appointments back to back uh and go this year uh they're across they're still in what's called hall one but they're they're across from the main hall across the little plaza area and you go in the booths are much smaller, it's a much different scale, it's much quieter. Um, and in general, the person you're meeting with is the person whose name is on the front of the booth, or at the very least, they're like the CEO of the brand, usually the owner of the brand, sometimes the watchmaker, like you're really getting close to the people who make the products, which I I love. I mean that's what got me into doing this. Um and so I was able to go and you know I saw Kari Vutilin in, um, you know, I saw the Gronfelds, I saw Stepan Sarpaneva, I saw Reg Jepper Jeppy, Edder Crivia. Um This was all today? This was all today. Uh went and saw Urban Jurgensen, like a whole bunch of brands. Um and honestly they're all doing really good stuff which like we kind of expect have you ever been let down by like by a a watch release from Kari no not a watch release it carefully I phrased it. Yeah. Phrased it carefully. Let's not bring that up. Kari and I are finally over the cell phone debacle, but uh which we'll link that up, I guess, in the show notes, why not? Uh we'll start that fight again. But like every single time I see one of his watches, even if it's something like crazy engraved with like a hunter case back that has like some wild thing on it. Yeah, it's still like nobody like it's crazy. The stuff we saw today, like forget the movements. Like we saw he has a uh you know a uh Von Nui with uh a black enamel dial with white brigade numerals and white hands and it's like it looks like a drawing of a watch. It's so high contrast and that black enamel just like gobbles up light. It's just it's incredible. Yeah, kind of actually. Yeah. Uh do you get pictures of that? Yeah, I have some photos. Uh he had one where it was an engrav it was a white dial that had that sort of like grain engraving on it. So it it had like like almost a sandpaper texture, but then it had green and transparent enamel applied to the top of it. So the enamel itself was solid and smooth, but the stuff that you could see the stuff you could see through the enamel had texture to it. Uh that was wild. And then they had something else you're gonna see on the site soon. Uh, which was a Vol Nuit that had the movement was reversed, and then it had no dial. It had like a transparent dial. Oh, okay. So the movement is on the front of the watch. Uh, which was bananas. Cool. Uh it's not my favorite Kari, honestly. I I think like I like his dial designs and I like the kind of more restrained ideas. It's funny when it's a little more traditional. Yeah. Yeah. But uh it was cool. So after Kari, I went over to the Gromfelds who had their tenth anniversary this past year, coincided with us. Should have done like a gotten like a cake or something. I don't But they did a turbion um that's sort of like halfway between the remontoir and the Principia. Uh it's automatic, but it has like super crazy finishing. Uh Turbion Visible on the dial at 6 o'clock. It's not my favorite Gronfeld. You know, I like something again, a little more understated, but it's like a crazy high end independently made turbul that you could in theory wear every day. Like it's very wearable. It's pretty chill. The turbine's small, it's not huge. Um Stepan Sarpaneva, who who I really like just as a person. Like his watches are not my thing. Uh they're cool. I'm I'm into them. Uh he's a nice dude though. He's a great dude. He's the crazy kind of moon phase. sort of thing you're into, uh he does it better than anybody else. Uh and he's really creative and also just like a fun dude. Like I always love to see him at the show and hang out. Like he's one of those people I always run late to whatever meeting I have after I'm meeting with Step on because we end up just like hanging He and Kari are both Finnish. Am I right in that? Yeah, he and Carrie are both Finnish. Yeah. So he's based in Helsinki in an old industrial plant, like on like the twentieth floor or like it's this very weird, crazy setup. So it's a finished watch scene. That's pretty cool. It's a finished watch scene, yeah. Um but yeah, he uh he has this movement he's been working on for years that he designed around a complication. So he actually designed the complication what you would call maybe like a module first and then design to caliber around it. So it's a fully integrated movement, but it complication came first. Uh it's a moon phase, big surprise. Uh it can be set down to the second. Uh because you can set the watch you can set the moon phase to a specific hour and then set the watch to that hour and like start the balance because it hacks. Oh, you can start the balance. So you can in theory set the moon phase to the second Yeah. Wow. Essentially. Uh and then what happens is uh the complication is accurate to one day in every fourteen thousand years. Uh that'll work. I mean that's it's pretty wild.. That's probably enough Yeah. Huh? Yeah. That's probably enough. Yeah. That'll get you by. You think you can do more? I can do more? No, he can do more. Can you do more? He can probably do more. Yeah, you can probably do more. I could do I could do less. You could do more time. I don't know what the moon phase was last night. Which is a bad sign for predicting tonight. That's true. Um but yeah, and it uses this weird like fiberglass uh moon like his moon with the face on it. Yep. Um there's that at the bottom, it's kinda large. It's six six o'clock. And then the moon disks sweep behind it and are superluminova. So then the fiberglass basically projects the loom up to the front and kind of like amplifies the loom effect. So it looks like this like moon is just glowing down at six o'clock. It's super cool. Again, it's like it's very Sarpaneva. We saw a prototype of that. We did. We saw a prototype last year. Yeah, sh we put a cell phone light. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's neat. Uh this one I would say is a little more refined. It's very similar. It was super early when we saw it. Yeah. It's last year it was kind of like industrial and rough and like it didn't really work very well and he wasn't sure how you were gonna set it. He like knew the complication would work, but there was no mechanism for setting it. Uh now he's got this like scale engraved on the case back, and the moon discs actually have these arrows projecting off of them that uh you can't see them from the front of the watch, but on the back they allow you to like line it up with the scales. It's it's cool. It's very cool thing. That's that's the cool thing about these small brands, right? Is that you've seen now you've seen the evolution of early phase without him quite having it fully figured out to yeah. And it's also that it's a totally idiosyncratic crazy product that like no large multinational company would green light. It's like a thirty something thousand dollar hyper accurate highly stylized moon phase watch that took like half a decade to develop. Uh like no LVMH brands' gonna make that. That's just like not gonna get past the board. But Stepan can sit in his workshop in Finland and and figure it out. So absolutely. Um yeah, what else did I see? The the new Urban Jurgensen is cool. The Urban Jurgensen one. Uh it's like their competitor to the the Nautilus or the uh Royal Oak. Um it's kind of funky, it's a little weird, it's kind of weird from them. Uh, but at the same time, like it's got a killer movement in it. Uh it's one of their in-house movements. Um I got a full walkthrough from Zorn. The uh man, we have another finished connection. He used to work at Nokia. Wow. Um Yeah, but uh the CEO and and owner Zorn gave me a walkthrough of the kind of design process that led to this. I won't go fully into it here, but it had to do with kind of like figuring out, starting from the idea that like this watch was going to be a round watch. So let's figure let's use like the circle as the basis for the whole design and all the lines are this series of like overlapping circles of various proportions that like kind of intersect and the points of intersection are used as the you know departure points for the design. It's crazy, like the bracelet links have this sort of like cat's eye appearance from the front, but they're actually rectangular on the back because they have to be for the pins. So if you take one by itself, it has this like completely insane geometry that makes no sense, and I have no idea why you would ever design something that way. Uh it's like they made it as hard as they possibly could on themselves. But uh that's watch making yeah, but I I like the watches way more than I thought I would. Um they're they're cool and if you're somebody who's into high-end independent watchmaking and you're into the idea of like a Nautilus or a Royal Oak or an overseas, but you don't love the idea of something from a big brand or you can't get one, let's say um, this is a an interesting alternative. Um it's not I would say a one-to-one analog, but it's it's similar. Yeah. Uh and then the last thing I want to talk about is I saw a watch that's not new, but I got to go see Acrivia and chat with Reg Jepper Jeppi, who's like the coolest young watchmaker around. Uh he's he's the man. Uh and he was wearing a prototype of his chronomet contemporaine. Uh it's the only one in steel. Uh it still has the old dial. He's done some revisions to the dial and to the movement finishing, but like go check it out. I I did a watch spotting story on the site. Uh we'll link that up. Go go check it out. Uh it's I think the most interesting and like coolest high end watch, modern watch that's been released in in years. Uh I think it's like it's Philippe Dufour simplicity level stuff. Wow. It's high price produced. That's your watch. It's it's unreal. Okay. Right. The level of finish, the level of watchmaking, the level of creativity, uh like balancing the idea of doing something kind of traditional and conservative with also doing something contemporary and and interesting that's going to kind of make waves is is a tough that's a tough line to tow. Yeah. And I think he he nails it. You know, he absolutely, absolutely nails it. I happen to know there's a many years wait list for them to the point where, you know, he said he was only gonna make it's either twenty five or fifty of each, I think. Uh and they're like way oversubscribed. Like if you if unless people Like be retirement age probably fulfills all the orders. Uh yeah, probably, yeah. Um so yeah, so like you probably can't get one even if you want one, but uh man do I want one. They're uh they're really really cool. Um you know what we should do? Let's before we wrap, let's uh let's do a wrist check. What's uh let's go with James first. We'll start further for me. What are you wearing today? I have on my uh beloved Brightling Aerospace. Not to be confused with the new Zodiac Aerospace. Certainly not. For legal reasons or otherwise. I have an interesting story about that, but I it's probably off the record. It's probably off the record. Never mind. You heard it here first. We absolutely can't talk about it. That's a cut. That's a cut, grey. It's an earlier generation uh post-Nava timer aerospace, but just when the aerospace became its own thing. I have it on a uh gray NATO, as I am want to do. Uh it also has uh wet, huh? Yeah. Whatever. You gotta move how you move. Yeah. It's got shilling on our show now. This point included, I've been up for a long time. And I will look I will look at something like a g like my uh my explorer too, which I also brought with me, and I will have to like look at the twenty-four hour time and be like six a.m back home. Okay. Or like and you try and like you got people back home. You want to call them, you want to be in touch and that sort of thing. You want to know when they're going up, getting up, when they're going to bed. That's and this just puts it in a digital a digital screen. It's super easy. It's light. It's um I also like it because when y when you do this job, um you're putting other people's watches on all day. So I wear this watch on my right w right wit. Um Mouth sounds. I wear this watch on my right wrist, which is much more comfortable for me, and and then you're not constantly taking it off. And a NATO is kind of cumbersome to take on and off a lot because of the tail. Uh so this way I can w go the whole day with the watch on my uh right side uh without any issue. And it's just kind of a perfect little sport watch. Yeah. And you you got the alarm if you want to go r running, you can time your runs. Absolutely. Great travel watch. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. How about you, Mr. Heat? What are you feeling? Uh so fiftieth anniversary of the Doxy T graph. Yeah. And uh so I have a Doxy T graph on from nineteen sixty-nine. Uh it's one I bought from the original owner who bought it in Chicago in a dive shop. And uh I think I've talked about it before on some Hodinky Radio or something. But yeah, I brought it. I wore it today. I had a um uh an appointment with Doxa, so I thought I should represent full bun too. You know what I noticed though, which is weird? Yeah. This one's made of steel. That's so weird. Yeah, right. Yeah. Well, you know, I uh I'm I'm just a poor, you know, writer here. I can't afford the uh the seventy thousand dollar gold one. Seventy thousand dollars. Seventy thousand dollars. Sure. Yeah. Sure. Sure. James is in. Sure. Sure. So I brought this up at my meeting. I said I said, you realize this is a very expensive watch. You said, what the hell were you thinking? Is that what you said? Yeah. In in in very Minnesotan. Yeah, polite midweather. Yeah, we have a Minnesotan and a Canadian. Yes, right. And and with a straight face. With a straight face, you know, they said, well, you know, that's a lot of gold, we didn't make many, and I'm like, you should shouldn't you kind of work backwards from what you think you can charge from this, you know? Like not more than a Nautilus chronograph? Yeah. I mean yeah, yeah. But no, I mean hats off, if they if they managed to sell thirteen of them, you know, then they did something right. It was uh uh really out of left field, fairly tone deaf for Doxa. I mean I think like I the the product all on its own. Yeah. And and and their other watches. Yeah. I like the watch. I like the idea of of if they made thirteen, but they also made the six hundred other ones in steel. Right, right. You know, to replicate this. Yeah. But just the thirteen of that one is such a profoundly weird flex. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And uh you know, I don't care for it on the bracelet, the rubber strap I thought looked rather cheap on it. Not good at all. Um I think on a brown leather it would have I like the bracelet. Look good well yeah. I didn't like the bracelet. James all gold everything. Solid James. Yeah. Solid gold James. But um I you know me, I'm I'm a diehard doxa guy and so my my bar is set very high for them. Um but uh you know, whatever. We'll see we'll see who ends up uh showing up at some event or something with one of these on one day. Yeah. Alright. How about you? Yeah, I'm uh that's old familiar, I I reckon. Yeah, I'm wearing my um my Rolex 1016 My Explorer. Uh it's on a stretch bracelet, which is part of why I bought this watch. Perfect. Um I love like when Rolex does weird things. Yeah when they did weird things. Um the company now is so kind of like monolithic that anytime you can see in their past when they like took a chance and did something kind of wacky, like stretchy oyster bracelets. Yeah I love it. And it also has the convenience of being extremely comfortable and when I fly, I like my bracelets kind of tight and you know, when you fly and you swell up or when it's hot out or you're I don't know on your feet all day at a trade show. Yeah. Uh stretches instead of cutting off circulation your hand, which is very nice. Right. I probably shouldn't do this, but I like snap this off and I just like throw it on my inside jacket pocket in my in my sport coat so I don't lose it at the show, which would be an absolute nightmare. Um so yeah. So this is I tend to just, you know, I brought a couple watches to Basel World, but when I travel, honestly 95% of the time I just take this. And it's one of the remaining one of the I think you two both own the two remaining Rolex sports models that have never been made in gold, right? Now that the sea dwellers in two tone, they've never made a gold explorer or a gold explorer too. Nope. That's true. So they've not. Also, fun fact Man, a gold 1016 would be so fire. Oh my god. That would be too old. No comments. No comments. I would sell everything to buy that. Fun fact. That watch has the expanding bracelet. This watch has an expand Spring fed. Spring fed. Right. Spring fed. Yeah. All right. Spring fed boys. Spring fed. We got 'em all. 'Cause that this the the original bracelet for this has Yeah, it has ratcheting clasp and then two spring springs. Oh, it's ratcheting with the two spring loaded sections for taking up swelling or dive suits or whatever. The original titanium in this has like a really rudimentary two springs on two bars that like literally like you can flex and hear it go. Yeah. Yeah. When the spring breaks. It's cool. Yeah. For sure. Cool. Well thanks for joining us, Jason. This is a good Uh yeah. You know, so we're going to final notes and a quote. Sure. You want some quote? Yeah. No? All right. I think it's uh drink a beer, write some stories time. Yeah. Yeah, because people I guess want content. More watches tomorrow. Yeah, more watches tomorrow. We'll be back here, same time, same place for the last Basel 2019 episode. All right. Over and out. Awesome. Thanks, guys. Bye-bye. Yeah.