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2019 Year In Review

Published on Mon, 30 Dec 2019 11:00:03 +0000

It's been a big one.

Synopsis

In this year-end retrospective episode of Hodinkee Radio, host Stephen Pulvirent gathers with the Hodinkee team to reflect on 2019 in watches through games, conversation, and analysis. The first segment features John Buse, James Stacey, and Cole Pennington playing a question game covering favorite Instagram posts, watches that punched above their weight (with Bulgari earning unanimous praise), trends they'd like to see continue, and personal watch moments from the year. The discussion reveals the team's varied perspectives while highlighting shared enthusiasm for the year's developments in horology.

The second segment features an in-depth conversation with Ben Clymer and Joe Thompson examining the industry's bigger picture. They discuss Swiss watch export numbers (up 2.7% through ten months despite Hong Kong's political turmoil dragging down what could have been a stronger year), the fragmentation of traditional trade shows like Baselworld and SIHH, and the unprecedented demand for steel sports watches from brands like Rolex and Patek Philippe. The conversation covers the softening vintage market, over-saturation of certain models on Instagram, and predictions for 2020 including hopes for more diversified collector tastes and concerns about the industry's mid-tier brands. They conclude by sharing favorite Hodinkee stories from the year, with particular praise for the Vietnam Tudor story and coverage of an eight-year-old's Rolex Sprite GMT design.

Transcript

Speaker
Unknown Until the until the day that you die, how much will a can of soda cost to you? 'Cause I know what it costs to me. Like when I was a kid, when my dad would give me like money to go buy a soda machine. You're talking to to
Unknown a a ancient human here. That's what it costs. Yeah. Ah what do we used to put in a machine to get a a a dime? Okay. To get a soda
Unknown ? Yeah. All right. Not much. Ben, how much is a soda for you? Seventy five cents. Interesting. I think soda's a dollar. There you go. And Grayson's saying two dollars. That's incredible. Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polverin and this is Hodinki Radio. 2019 has been a really big year for us here at Hodinky. Um we published a book, we published two magazines, we've done a few dozen podcasts, and we've written over a thousand articles for the web. Uh and that really just scratches the surface. Uh it's been a really big year for the rest of the watch world too. And I thought it'd be fun to end the year by sitting down with some members of the Hodinky team and getting a sense of what 2019 means for watches. So the first part of this episode is gonna be my conversation with John, James, and Cole. We play a little game that Gray, our producer, set up for us, where we kind of get into asking some big questions about our years and the year and watches. It's a fun way to dig into some of the finer points, and I think you're gonna really enjoy it. After that, there's a chat I had with Ben and Joe looking at kind of the big picture, asking what are we going to remember about 2019 in watches, what is the long-term impact of this year in the watch world, and what we hope and expect to see in the future. Those guys both provide some amazing insights. They come at the industry from totally different angles. And I'll speak for myself. I learned a lot talking to them. On a personal note, I also just want to say a thank you to everybody who's listened this year. It has been so much fun making the show. I've gotten to have some really amazing conversations, both with people on the show and with people about the show. This is really a labor of love for myself and I know for Gray as well, who's sitting across from me right now. And we can't wait to keep producing the show in 2020. We've got some amazing stuff lined up for you guys. And we really couldn't do it without your support. So without further ado, the last episode of Hodinky Radio of this decade. This week's episode is presented by Leica Camera. Stay tuned later in the show to learn about the new SL2. For more, visit LeicaCamera.com. Final recording of twenty nineteen. Boom, here we are. All right, guys. Uh I got James. Yo. I got Cole. Hola. And I got John Buse. What's up? We also have uh Mr. Greg Corhonan, our producer here. Uh off mic. I tried to get him on mic, but he's just gonna yell so you can hear him in the background. Fully work. Wow. Okay, cool. That's not I was expecting a hello. We're gonna make a gray soundboard. It's gonna be great. It'll be an Easter egg for uh for longtime listeners. You're getting punched. Now you're punching. Punch harder. Punch softer. All right. Let's do this thing. So we're gonna do a little uh year-in-review game. Uh Gray put together a nice little game for us to play here on a cold, rainy, dreary New York afternoon. Uh so I have a tin bowl here. You can uh hear there, you can hear the uh the questions swishing around inside the bowl. The rustling of paper. The rustling of paper, the most interesting sound in the world. Um all right, so we got a bunch of questions here. Uh what we're gonna do is we'll pass the bowl around. Each person pulls a question out, asks the question, then the people to your right start the answers, we'll go around in a circle, you answer the question yourself, and then you pass the ball to your right and we keep moving. That sound uh that sound good to everybody? Yeah. Gray knows what these questions are, so if you just pull something out of here and just make up a question off the top of your head, Gray will know. I'm counting on you. Counting on you, Coronen. Um cool. You know what? Uh John, you wanna start? You wanna start us off here? Sure, sure. So I just take a question out and read it. Yeah, you take the question out, read it. Okay
Unknown . Are the rules clear? Abundantly clear. Uh clear enough, I guess. Alright. Best thing you did with a personal watch in 2019. A special moment made with your watch. Ooh
Unknown . Uh do I answer this one? Yeah, man. You're up. Something that was pretty cool that I did with a watch, I took my Omega Seamaster, uh, the Bond Pro, and went uh exploring in two places, swimming in Iceland and the Cenote's in Tulum. I thought that was cool. Very nice. Now, if these instructions are clear, I take this bowl from John. No, no, no. James answers the question. We keep going. We need to do this again. Then after John answers, he passes you
Unknown the bowl. Okay, okay. Quick nap. When everyone else is up to speed until this game works, someone throws something at me. Uh yeah, so for me, I I got a chance to write about uh one of my probably my favorite car in existence for the magazine. And with that I I brought a watch that I'm building memories into and that's my explore too. N
Unknown ice. Uh I'm gonna go with buying a watch actually. So uh for the launch of Hodinki Japan, which I worked on uh most of this year, um, I bought a grand a vintage Grand Seiko in Tokyo. Um I've wanted a Grand Seiko for a long time. Couldn't make up my mind whether I wanted something vintage, something modern, a modern reissue of something vintage. You got you got a lot of good, a lot of good options when it comes to Grand Seiko. Um, and it was my first trip to Tokyo, and I figured this was this was the right way to mark something that was a a personal milestone for me, but also a a professional milestone, you know, launching Hodinki Japan. So uh yeah, I've got my nice uh vintage Grand Seiko now. And every time I look at it, I think fondly of Tokyo. Oh
Unknown , that's great. Um, hmm. For me, it's also going to be buying a watch. I bought a watch that was kind of on, you know, my dream list for a long time this year. Uh it was a GMT Master 2, and I took delivery of it uh uh over uh 4th of July weekend. And then I just like I wore it like taking pictures of it the whole weekend, you know, while I was grilling, while I was Batman Jubilee bracelet. Exactly, Batman Jubilee bracelet. And I yeah, I just kind of like made that weekend all about like enjoying that watch. Sweet. Yeah. All right
Unknown , Cole. What do you do now? Memory serves, I pick a question from the bowl here and I read that question aloud. Nicely done. And then I will answer it. No. Nope, nope, nope, nope. James will answer the question. James will answer the question. Guys, James, James is about to jump out that window here. We gotta, we gotta get our game. Here it is. What's your favorite Instagram post from your own account this year
Unknown ? Can be any post, watch related or not. For mine it's also car based like the last one, although I was wearing a great watch, the same watch as the last one. Uh for this trip, it was uh February marked uh kind of the end of my run as editor uh at large for Nouveau magazine in Vancouver. And one of my last jobs was to cover uh sadly, you know, real tough day in in in the life of an automotive journalist, uh, to cover the launch of the McLaren seven twenty S spider in Arizona. You really you really do God's work, James. Yeah. Somebody's gotta do the heavy lifting. Um so yeah, y we're on a essentially resort in Arizona. The resort had incredible chicken wings. I mean like m and if if I say they're incredible, these are 10 out of 10 chicken wings. Okay. They were like cut in a special way, so you didn't really interact with the bone like you would in a normal bone, maybe. I don't know I'm just not my zone. The bone was still on there? Yeah, it was still there, but it was a little bit more like eating a rib. Okay. Yeah. I ate as many as they would prepare for me in any one sitting. And I would also full Ron Swanson. I would like all of your bacon and eggs. Exactly. I'm I'm afraid you might have misheard me, son. But yeah, uh it was, you know, it was just one of those trips where we were essentially set loose in in Arizona in a pair of McLaren's, to be fair. It was a 720S one day. It was the 600 LT Spider the next day. And that was on a track. So let's just say those those cars on that day, incredible weather, some pretty amazing roads. And uh I I like a like I drive a car that's barely fast enough to keep me awake. But but with somebody else's very fast car, I like a car that'll make your hand shake. Like someone that's just like it's it's too much. And I'll never own a car like that, which is probably smart and wise and legally uh responsible. But that that was definitely like uh one of my favorite posts. So it's this it's this really fantastic color, a bluish green 720S. Nice. We'll uh by
Unknown the way, we'll link up to all of these in the in the show notes so people can see these. But uh mine is a post from June 28th. Uh, it's a picture I took out the window of the Louvre in Paris. Um, it has nothing to do with watches. Um, I took a Leica M7 on this trip and decided to kind of dip my toe into shooting film, which I haven't done regularly in probably 10 years, 12 years, something like that. And uh this is one of those pictures where like I got this back from my lab and was like, oh shit, like I'm I'm gonna shoot everything on film now. Um it it was a really rainy day. It's a black and white image. Um just the way you get the sort of like texture of the sky and the trees in this building. Um again, like I saw this and was like, oh, oh, this is a different thing and this is a thing I really want to be doing. Uh it's probably my favorite picture I made this year. It's of a place I love. So yeah, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go with that. Oh
Unknown , cool. Um so I'm just scrolling through my feed and I see uh just a bunch of photos that I posted while on my honeymoon uh with my wife in uh February. And uh we there's just some great photos here of her. We're out you know to eat. We went to uh an elephant sanctuary. Um there's a picture that I just I just perched in a grony on a table by the beach in Kosamoy and just took it in portrait mode. Um nicely done. So there's as we A little plug for our friends at Apple there. And uh yeah, and I'm just uh you know kind of reliving those memories as I scroll through. So uh not one post, I would say just a handful of posts from uh that trip. Nice. So for me
Unknown , uh it's again a series of pictures. It's I uh I again like James, this is about cars. I managed to finally acquire my dream car this year. Uh so I found myself taking pictures of that a lot and posting them because obviously you take what is this car? It's a 85911 Targa. Very nice. But this ain't your average targa. It's got some work done to it. And um yeah, I know that's that sounds I know we're I'm gonna get blasted for this. Ho Dinky, air cooled Porsche, whatever. But it's the truth. I'll own it. Uh yeah, been been been shooting that car and posting pictures. I'm I'm in love with it. So yeah. Very nice. All right, James. To the bowl, you're up
Unknown . Yeah, let's go. I thought you knew the rules. I'm trying to keep you guys up to speed, that's all. All right, I got a good one here. In twenty nineteen, which brand punched above its weight? Ooh. Interesting. That is a good one. I think that would be a wat
Unknown ch brand. Yeah. Right. Uh yeah. PepsiCo. Serebral the c serereial brand? Yeahah, uh ye, dude. Honestly, cat Captain Crunch, baby. Um that's a serial model. Okay, okay. All right. General Mills. Is that what we're going with? Okay, all right. We were Firefest. Orville Reddenbuck. Yeah. Wow. Should we just do a brands pod? Which brand punched above its weight? You know what? I don't w toanna it's it's hard say above its weight because they've been doing good stuff for a while, but I would say I know where you're going. Yeah, they're a brand that to me just absolutely killed it this year is bulgary. Yeah. Uh like they're a brand that has been on my radar for a while and I've I've known how good the Octo Finissimo watches are. And I feel like every year at Basel World I come away being like, huh, Bulgari was one of my favorite appointments, and I did not expect that. This year to me, they they created what is maybe the best watch of the year, which is the the octofinissimo uh chronograph GMT. Um that watch is such a powerhouse, and the fact that they came out with an octo that like instead of being a minute repeater or instead of being a QP or instead of having some like you know crazy turby on, which is what they've been doing in the past, they came out with like the two most consumer friendly complications in one watch and then they totally tricked it out. Like it has a peripheral rotor, it's crazy thin, the thinnest actually. Um to me, this this year was maybe, maybe it wasn't punching above their weight, but this was the year where Bulgari was like if anyone has any doubts that we're like really crushing it right now, it's time to sit down.
Unknown Yeah. Yeah, I would agree with that. I would uh I would agree uh Bulgari definitely would be my pick there. Um but there were others, uh, of course I, would say also it's hard to say that a brand like Vashrone even could punch above its weight because they're so they're so big and so important, but late in the year they dropped something like a dozen unique minute repeaters like it was nothing. Oh yeah. Yeah. So that was uh that was like super impressive and that was something that happened late in the year and maybe a lot of people didn't hear about because it didn't happen at a at a big trade show. Um but yeah I would say I would say bulgary uh from you know, from a brand standpoint, punching above its weight. Um you know, what they've done over the last we'll say handful of years has been like transformative for the company as a watchmaker. So you know hats off to them. Nicely done
Unknown . Uh I'm gonna say Zodiac for me. Uh I think they they they arrived on the scene. People forgot about them. The uh aerospace GMT that they came out with, you know, put them in a league that they hadn't been in a few years prior. Uh I just love that watch. I covered that one at Basel Worlds. Um and yeah, exciting to see what they do going forward. But yeah, for me, definitely Zodiac
Unknown . James. Uh for me it's gonna be Doxa. I mean, this is a year where they showed us a seventy thousand dollar solid gold chronograph, which I think that's like the essence of punching about the I think I think you win. And and and in the same swing that was a watch that like I was hard on but I love like also they announced the thou a sub thousand dollar dive watch that you can go out and buy. Comes on a bracelet, has an ed of movement, 200 meters water resistance, a screwdown crown. It comes in all of their signature colors. So that's that's that's I don't know. That's you pick the weight class and which way they were swinging. They went both ways. They're just there's fist fslying everywhere from Doxa right now. I like that. There's fists
Unknown flying everywhere from Doxa right now. Alright. Nicely done, guys. Uh can I get
Unknown that bowl, James? So now Steven takes the bowl. Now he produces a piece of paper from it.
Unknown Ooh, this is a good one. What's a watch trend from 2019 you'd like to see more of in 2020
Unknown ? That I'd like to see more of. Um well I guess I first first we've gotta kind of identify a couple of trends from from twenty nineteen, right? Yeah. I mean pick one. And it's one that you want to see more of. Hence the structure of the question. Yeah.. You know what? Fuck it I'm gonna I'm just gonna go all in and I'm gonna say there are a lot of salmon dials and I would not mind seeing more salmon dials into twenty twenty. Let's keep those babies coming. Ooh, okay. Okay.
Unknown Cole. Um Um man, I should the problem was John's answer was so quick and he was ready, it didn't give me enough time to think. But what I will say here is On your toes, man. Alright, here it is. Uh trend that I liked seeing in watches is the really interesting trend of watches that are just really really fantastic things. Okay. No, really uh they're steeped in watchiness. I just like the the way social media is affecting the watch world. Not the way where everyone's buying the same thing. Yeah. But the way that it's becoming more inclusive, it's easier for people to discover things. It's easier to interact with people. Uh so I like that. I like this sort of uh No I do, man. It's James. James is in a huge thumb down as our as our resident misanthrope. James is like interacting with people heavily over interactive. Well, like like all right, stories have just have come from readers that just hit me up on Instagram and then they turn out to be great stories. And uh I think that's really cool.
Unknown Nice. Uh ceramic. I'd like to see ceramic in less expensive watches. Nice. I hope it trickles down
Unknown . Trickle down, I can have it. Yeah. I'm gonna go kind of the opposite of that, which is people are making gold sport watches and, I'm I am there for that. Uh we've seen a lot more and we've seen the companies that are doing it do more of it. So like Blanc Pond's really pushing uh gold sport watches, uh our friends at Bulgary, the Octofenissimo now comes in gold. I still think of that as a sport watch. Is that weird? I don't know. No, it is that's sandblasted gold is nice. The uh yeah, it's really nice. And like the you know, we want to talk about uh salmon dials, the salmon dial white gold royal oak. Yep. Uh gold Aquanauts, Gold Nautilus, uh Gold Rolex. You know, I I'm there for gold sport watches. All right. Let's do uh let's do one more round. Let's go, John
Unknown . All right. Now how how do I good one the most expensive watch at auction in 2020 will sell for X. Over to Cole. Ooh.
Unknown Well, it was thirty-eight million this year. Thirty one million. I think it'll be less, actually. I think it'll be like way less, obviously. I would agree, way less. I'm just gonna say three million dollars, five million dollars, whatever, you know. I don't know. Who knows? Right? I mean, how is there anything coming out that's gonna be maybe OnlyWatch, maybe someone pulls something off the street? Every other year. So yeah, five million dollars. Who knows? Yeah, I'd say like two and a half. Yeah, I'm gonna go three point two. I think we'll see some complicated paddock. That's about it. I don't see anything else selling for more than that this year
Unknown . Yeah. I mean uh Yeah, I'm gonna I'll I'll say three million, three million even. All right. I just have no idea what could be coming uh. Yeah, like that's a strong result for a watch, but it's not like who again the good the Cole said, like who knows what could come up. Um so yeah. But yeah, I think I think we're all feeling like low low mill, low, low mills. Yeah. All right. Cole. So I think I'm grabb
Unknown ing a little questie here from the bowl. And it is Franken Watch 2019. Make your most gruesome yet awesome watch taking features from a bunch of your favorites from this year. All right, so a little mashup. James, you're up. Doctor What's his name again? The young Frankenstein? Frankenstein. Frankenstein. Yeah yeah. Dr. Frankenstein. Frankenstein. Yeah yeah
Unknown . Walk Walker. Okay, so I'm making it this is a uh do we think more like DreamWatch or are we just trying to see how many things I could pull from I think dream something you'd buy. Oh here's something that I'd like to buy. Uh uh fift y5164 A white dial green camo strap. Ooh. Yeah. I would cop one. I'd have to quit. Like I'd probably just have to like buy it and then like It's over. You're gonna leave the watch to meet, right? I guess, yeah. I'd will it. I'd be buried with it
Unknown . Okay. Uh if we're going if we're going like why let somebody else have it, right? If we're going like single brand, uh, I would go I'm gonna go back to AP. I'm gonna say I want a 15202. I want that, I want that profile. I want the jumbo profile, but I want the combo titanium platinum case, the movement and the styling and the uh complication of the RD2. So I basically want a smaller RD2 and maybe with a salmon dial? Oh heck. Maybe? Oh you're kind of all right. Yeah. That's a ZD piece right there. Maybe we make it like a small, super thin, really funky, perpetual QP.
Unknown Okay. I'm just looking at the the most recent post to go up on the site and it's this steel corn debash. Yeah. And I'm thinking, what would this look like with a salmon dial and like a beautiful like taupe or gray uh leather strap. I I think it would look good. I think that is the answer. Yeah. And I think that'
Unknown s pretty doable too. I mean right? That would be awesome. Yeah. Alright. Cool. Um Um for me I would like the Black Bay 58 with Mercedes hands, not snowflake hands. Um so take that from Rolex or other tutors of the past. And then BB58 with a GMT function and bezel with no date. I know the no date thing sounds weird. I just BB58 Black Bish GMT no date Mercedes. All right, that's hot. I caught potential. There's a Franken watch. That it's a it's actually it's a Franken watch that people probably could make for sure. Maybe. Well, yeah, I mean make a make an aluminum insert for the movie. You need new movement. Yeah, you need a new movement. And probably the case can't be that small for that movement. Yeah. But so you can't make it. You could make it in the 41, that's what the movement's made of. But I don't I like the the fifty-eight size. The fifty-eight would require uh fifty-eight size and as a little pan Amnod white dial. Nice white dial. Yeah, okay, you two we got Johnny Johnny White Dial one and Johnny White Dial two over here. Uh all right, James, penultimate question. JWD one. JWD one. Yeah, there we go. Uh James, you did one more. Second to last last, and then I'll ask the question and then we'll get you guys out
Unknown of here. I have I have naturally selected another selection from the bowl. When we look back from the distant future, what about watches in 2019 will we be nostalgic
Unknown for I think we're gonna be nostalgic for how simple and sort of uniform the market was. I think it'll be somewhat positive nostalgia, somewhat uh I think we'll be a little refreshed in the future, but I think this year was still a market where like everything was kind of led by like steel sport watches on bracelets, mostly with blue or black dials. Like every all the big stuff kind of looked and felt the same. And I think we're about to see a ton of fragmentation. And I think that's gonna be good in some ways and bad in some ways. Uh, and I think we're gonna look back and there's gonna be this like, oh, wasn't that cute? Like everyone was buying the same thing and it was basically one one watch style and it came in a $10,000 price range. Like it was, you know, there there really wasn't that much variation. And it's going to be kind of charming as to the the simplicity of the watch market in uh 2019.
Unknown Yeah, I I would I would agree with that. I would say that people you know there were a lot of anniversaries this year and so we have a lot of like really nice classically designed watches from xenf um there were really some really nice uh monacos that came out this year um and then like there were just like there were nice Rolex sports watches that came out. There was a Date Just 36 that came out. So I think just kind of like, you know, like bread and butter, beautiful, you know, tried and true classic designs, I guess, is something that uh I could see us looking back and being nostalgic about. Yeah. Yeah. Um
Unknown was it the not too distant future or the distant future? The distant future. Well, I think so that is pretty much a dystopian reality. And I'm gonna look back and realize that hey, it was really nice to be able to make a living writing about something like watches because we're gonna be in trouble. But but all right. Cole, bring bringing us down. Perfect. However, on a lighter note or whatever, I think um or whatever. We'll be we'll look back at those like kind of brands that we'll look back and think about how we were still discovering watch brands from like vintage watches. Like you still go on eBay and find stuff that you didn't know or this and that. Um and also find deals and so forth. Maybe in the future there'll be so much scholarship, so much knowledge shared that, you know, there's no no sense of discovery in watches anymore. Nice
Unknown . I was gonna go with a similar vein as Cole, so I'll adapt quickly and just say that some people, um, the simpletons of the future will be nostalgic for d daylight saving time, which I assume at some point someone will wise up and cancel. Yeah, that is y
Unknown es, correct. Why do we still have that? Uh that's a separate pod. The why the hell do we still have daylight savings time pod? That's uh that's another show. I love when it gets dark out early. It's so great. That's the wrong take. I'm kidding. So wrong. That's the worst take. It's pitch black by four o'clock. Um, all right. I'm gonna pull the last one here and then we will wrap up. Uh oh, this is a good one to finish on. So you're starting your collection over from scratch. Which 2019 watch do you pick as your first piece of your new collection
Unknown ? John John. Starting over from scratch as a as myself now or as a whipper snapper. You currently have no watches. You gotta buy one watch to start over. What do you buy? Okay. Which is this the aforementioned Rolex, uh the GMT, or I'm going to go and uh get another GMT that is also a chronograph and buy the Bulgari um uh octofenicimo
Unknown . Nice. Good choice. Good choices, strong choices. Um the SBGK005. Ooh, you love that watch. For time's sake. I do. I love that watch. And uh yeah, we just want A buy it because it's limited edition, so you should buy it now. So you don't have to buy it on the second hand market or whatever. But um yeah, I think it's a good all around. I think you touched on it that it could be an everyday watch too. And you could dress it up. You could dress it up, you could dress it down, you could just do whatever you want with it. It's just a great piece. Do whatever you want with it, man. That's wh
Unknown y it's great. James. James Stacey. I don't think there's a 2019 watch that I would pick. Against the rules. There's a bunch from 2018. BBGMT would be a natural select. I would do the docs at 50th anniversary, which I have, the sub 300. For 2019, like I want it. If if I'm starting over again, I want a GMT. I want it with a local jumping movement. And John picked the one from twenty nineteen, that would be the other one. So I guess maybe I'd get a Pepsi. We could be like GMT bros. Yeah. But I mean I'd probably BB GMT if I like the if if if it you we didn't constraint have of the the 2019. Uh I think that Blackbait GMT is probably my favorite watch of the last couple years.
Unknown Okay. Um what would I do? I mean, I'm tempted to say the 15202 with the salmon dial, but being a little more realistic than that. Uh Serpenti. Yes. Serpente Stevie. Yeah. All right. I mean phase. Serpente all day. Uh I'm gonna go with the opposite of the serpente. Uh I might go for one of IWC's new pilot watches. Um one of the spitfires. Uh 39 millimeter steel black dial would probably be my move. If I were allowed to pick the Hodinky Mark 18, which technically came out this year, that would be my pick. I own that watch. I love that watch. Uh I wear it. all the time I'm wearing it right now. Um but if that's not if one of our LEs is not is not on the table, probably go thirty nine millimeter steel spitfire if I was starting over. All right, it's been a year, boys. Hey, see you guys next decade. Oh, cool with the heat. Uh guys, James just got up and walked out. So uh I think that's I think that's it. Thanks. Thanks for doing this and uh good things in 2020. Next up, we've got my conversation with Ben and Joe about the long-term impact of 2019 in watches. Hey guys, you're in review round two. What's going on, Joe? Ready for you, Steven. Born ready. Yeah. We got Ben here too. We got Joe, we got Ben. Hey everybody. We got the brain trust and then we got me. So we got Corjonan over there. We got Corjonan too. He's always here. Uh so I just sat down with John and Cole and James, and we played a little like year-in-review game trying to get a sense of like what 2019 looked like in watches and for us. Uh we I have some stuff I want to talk about with the two of you guys kind of bigger picture stuff about 2019. But uh before we do that, one of the questions that got asked I wanted to throw your way to, which was what do you guys think in the distant future, you know, twenty-five, fifty, a hundred years from now, people are going to be nostalgic for in watches from twenty nineteen? What about this year are people going to look back and be nostalgic about? I would say it was the year that Hodinki finally sold out, right? Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I think uh well what happened this year, Joe? You would know better than I. I don't know. Something about
Unknown steel perhaps. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um why did everybody pay so much money for stainless steel watches? Yeah, they probably will not understand. I don't know that they'll be nostalgic about it, but they'll just scratch their head and go, Yeah, but maybe it will be like, you know, the tulip mania. Yeah. You know, in Holland. It's like, huh? This this steel watch, why? Um that would be my guess. There would be something along those lines, these r these ridiculous prices, um, the shortages, what what was going on? Not the brands t to either. I mean it's the brands are part of it, but even what was going on with watch collectors and people that they were willing to go that they're just going out of their minds for these steel watches. I think it's funny
Unknown because like the brands are like barely part of it. You know what I mean? Like they're just doing their thing. They're just making the same amount of watches they were before, but people are reacting in a really different way. Correct. And I think that will be uh yeah, that will that will be astonishing to people. Yeah. I love all the conspiracy theories of like, oh, the brands are all in on it. They're all driving this mania, whatever. It's like they they want to sell products. Like they like everybody else. They do, you know, they sell watches. So if they can't sell watches because people only want one thing, like that's not good for them. Yeah. I think, you know, I think we're already we talked about this, I think, in the last episode. Like we're already starting to see things soften a little bit. Yeah. Um, I mean it's still kind of pandemonium out there, but you know, like prices of Nautilus 5711 softened a little bit. And I think like that that's the benchmark for me is that much. Yeah. We'll talk about that in a little bit because I I want to talk about the secondary market this year, specifically auctions. Yeah. Um but before we do that, Joe, I want to get your take. Can you give us kind of like a ten thousand foot view of where you think the industry is at right now? Like what did 2019 mean for the watch industry at lar
Unknown ge? Well I mean just taking the macro view, Steven, uh would just have to say if you said what is the state of the industry, it was almost um as expected. Uh the backdrop would be they came out uh they came roaring out of twenty eighteen. It was the best year in six years if you use Swiss Wa the value of Swiss watch exports as a barometer, which is the commonly used barometer, um plus six percent, plus six point three percent. And because and because and in the that's because the first half of twenty eighteen, Hong Kong and China were red hot. Then it slowed down a little bit in the second half, and all the political and economic turmoil at the beginning of 2019 made it really, really difficult to forecast. People were very cautious, and they said, well, if you if you if you push me, I would say plus two plus three percent. I'd be satisfied with plus two put plus three percent. Well, through ten months later, they're at plus two point seven percent. And I think that's about where they expected. What they expected trouble, where they got the trouble was from an unexpected place, and that was Hong Kong. And it's a heartbreaking situation. We all acknowledge that. Um but the things that they were worried about, the Brexit, the trade wars, um the slowdown of the Chinese economy. Those things were there, they materialized, they weren't terrible. What became terrible uh was Hong Kong, and that is hurting the market now very badly. It's down the exports to Hong Kong are down for seven consecutive months. So we'll see. And and and that that that actually did bring the the the the global uh uh growth down to two point seven percent. So it would have been a better year. It was uh that was sort of better than expected. Expected as expected, a little bit better than expected, but e except for the Hong Kong drain. So that uh in an overview, obviously the the monster brands are having monster years. Um all boats are not lifted even by a three percent rise, but in general, there's that for 2019, let's say
Unknown . This week's episode is presented by Leica Camera and the new SL2. The SL2 is the latest mirrorless camera from Leica. It builds on the success of the company's original SL, which was first released back in 2015 as a foundation for a new all-purpose camera platform. Since then, the SL system has become a mainstay for professionals and enthusiasts alike. The SL2 brings a number of important new technologies to the table. Most notably, there's a new 47 megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor that offers a totally new level of image quality. It has 14-bit color depth and massive dynamic range, meaning you can capture vivid, rich images in any lighting conditionss. There' also the introduction of a special sensor shift stabilization system, which ensures you get sharp results out of the incredible TLL lenses built specifically for the SL system. The system also enables you to get ultra high resolution images up to 187 megapixels when the camera is mounted on a tripod. Finally, there are a number of other small changes that make the SL2 an even better camera than its predecessor. These include improved ergonomics, increased weather sealing, a streamlined menu system, and a bright new electronic viewfinder, making the camera easier and more enjoyable to use than ever. The SL2 is the modern alternative to familiar DSLR systems and compromised laden mirrorless systems, offering incredible performance, outstanding user experience, and the best lenses in the world. For more on the SL2 and Leica's other cameras and lenses, visit LeicaCamera.com. Alright, let's get back to the show. Yeah, I wonder, Ben, like, do you do you think that that just like cause obviously the numbers speak for themselves, but like does that feel right to you? Does it feel like this year's like up kind of as expected, could have been better, could have been worse, like you know, whatever. I I think first and foremost, I mean like we we live in this tiny little bubble, th this bubble where like watches are a thing, but like if you talk to like my friends from Rochester, New York, they'd be like, Wait a minute, watches are up? Period. You know, it's like, yeah, they're up. Yeah. And you know,
Unknown we're we're coming off the strongest year in how many years? Six years? Last year
Unknown ? Uh in last year was plus yeah, in six years. Best performance in six years in two thousand years. And it's like Swiss exports have doubled over the past, I think, ten years, something like that. Right. More or less. So it's like, you know, first of all, like the fact that we're up at all in luxury mechanical watches would shock most people. And like I've actually shocked quite a few people with that stat very recently. Uh so you know, that that we kind of know this is going on, but people at scale don't. Uh in terms of like plus two percent, it feels a little strange because here in the US there is just such like rampant demand for Rolex, Patek, AP, Omega, you know, certain batterons, et cetera, like the steel watches are in such demand that I would ex like just by gut it would feel like the they would be up higher. But again, you know, I'm not living in Hong Kong, which is d you know, dragging the entire market down right now. And Hong Kong is you know, what number in terms of uh the most important market in the world? One. It is number one. There you go. That'll that'll do it. That'll hurt you. Yeah. For sure. So would you would you say that Hong K the the political unrest in Hong Kong is probably the most significant factor impacting worldwide watch sales this year? Uh yes. Yeah. For sure. Okay. And yet we're still up. Yeah. And yet we're still up. You know, moving moving away from the numbers to something that's a little a little more maybe inside baseball even. Um this was the year that the the traditional trade show structure began to shift. So, you know, I've I've only been in the industry, I guess what, like seven, eight years. Um and as long as I've been in it, you know, Basel and SIHH are these two kind of like monumental like tentpole moments. They're they're the two moments that the whole world, watch World, revolves around. That started to change this year. So Swatch Group left. So we had SIHH, we had Basel World. Swatch Group did an event. Some brands started doing these like world tours where they're showing their new pieces. It started to break down. And then we've already gotten announcements that it's going to be even more fragmented in 2020. Seiko and Grand Seiko are doing their own thing. Some more independents are leaving the shows. Um SIHH has been rebranded, Watches and Wonders Geneva, and there's gonna be stuff outside the shows. So I I wonder kind of what you guys think about how important this is. Like, does this really matter? Is it all kind of like hand hand waving and semantics. Like what what is the impact of this going forward? You want me to go first? Joe Joe's nodding, yes. Uh so for me, and like when I say for me, like I I I speak of myself as this the person that that you know leads this company, but also as like a very pragmatic person. Nobody gives a shit. And like the the average person does not care about Basel World or the SIHH. They care about the new GMT if they can get it or not. That's it. You know, and then by the way, they don't even care if it's authorized or not. You know? Right. And so like if people don't even know what an authorized dealer is, they certainly don't give a shit whether Basel and SIH happened the same week or not, in the same location or not, whatever. So for me, like I understand its importance to to the industry, but like it is a real inside baseball thing and it doesn't matter at all to people? Not really, you know, and I think that that is something to to remember for for those of us in the industry. Uh, I mean, I think pragmatically, like in terms of logistics, it will impact us because you know now all the new stuff will come out later. Uh, watch brands will then get feedback from not only us, but other retailers and journalists, collectors, et cetera, much later in the year. It'll give them far less time to actually make those changes and and produce the watches. Um, so you know, I expect next year to be an off-year for many brands. Uh, because you know, the the trade shows and you know, if you're talking about the Richmond brands, we're talking what, three, four months later, we're talking a quarter later than b than than previously so that means like you know most of these most of these brands start delivering their their year you know beginning year novelties in the fall if they're lucky yeah a lot of times delivery happens around now, which is holiday. Uh, I think a lot of those would-be deliveries will be, you know, if there's any production delay, we're talking the following year. So, you know, like brands' results are driven by new releases, if no matter who you are. Uh, and so I think it could really have a negative impact on like sales results. What that really matters does that matter at all to consumers, not really, but like to the Joe Thompsons of the world, I I think it it probably matters. Yeah, so you you think there's a risk that the the only sort of like consumer facing risk for all of this is that like if the brands can't get the pieces in stores by November, December, it's going to be a problem. Correct. I mean I think like, you know, I think brands are Rolex in particular, I've noticed Omega as well, are starting to pay attention to having their product, you know, because they're they're good at what they do. They know how to forecast. Like Rolex is not gonna change the new submariner because Stevie P says he likes this and not that, you know? No offense. Yeah. There are other brands that will really take feedback from even Stevie P uh and make changes on it, you know? So I think like it'll just mean that like, you know, if Rolex normally delivers, say, their, you know, their new steel sports watch deliveries begin in June after Basel World happens in March, we're now thinking, okay, Basel is when? April, May, something like that. Yeah, it's end of April. First week of May. Early May. So I mean, so we're talking like August, but we know there's Watchmaker's holiday, right? So the first delivery of the new Rolex is usually happened before the Watchmaker's Holiday. Now it will not. So then you have to add on probably two to three weeks for that. So you're talking like September now. And that just changes the entire calendar. You know, so I think that that sales might suffer uh for brands simply because of that fac
Unknown t. Interesting. What do you think, Joe? Yeah, my take as the uh Hudinge's business reporter and sort of industry reporter is that it does matter. I mean we it it one of the the points I have been thinking about and and have remarked privately is that in um in evaluating the impact of all this, there are still many brands at Basel. These are the smaller brands that do rely on that show. We we we are so sort of focused on the brands, the bigger brands who don't really need the show, therefore Mr. Brightling can pull out and Mr. Sago can pull out and Mr. Swatchgroup can pull out of the show. They can still command um their their their clients to come to thus and so uh and have the press come. But for the brands that are still there, the mid-sized brands, and just it's make it brand X that's in the back of Hall One in the watch hall at Basel World or up on the second floor. They do still rely on the old-fashioned. This is where I see my customers. My customers will come here to see other brands, but I get a chance. This is my opportunity to to to occasionally pick up a let's say a new customer gives me a chance to get the feedback that I need to know what to do in terms of my production. When this if this show does not survive, or if it shrinks even further than it has already shrunk and it has lost one thousand exhibitors in the past three years, it's down to five hundred and twenty exhibitors totally uh last year. When that goes away, some of these brands will have a much harder time because they they you know the the answer was well you go digital. We'll have to see how well that works out. So there is an impact um on the industry for that. So we'll have to see and and the brands, there's no doubt that the shows really need to reinvent themselves. They're in the process of doing that now. It's impossible for us to evaluate how successful they will be. This is both Basel World and the new uh the new SIHH, which is Watches and Wonders Geneva. But uh it's a transitional time, obviously uh e-commerce, uh digital, all of these factors are are are wreaking havoc on uh on these trade sho
Unknown ws but i do think it matters okay and and you know you talked about the the small to medium sized brands and i wonder if we look back at what happened, you know, this is a much more dramatic situation, but if we look back at the the quartz crisis, a whole bunch of brands went out of business or had to be, you know, folded together and kind of like cobbled into a different brand. Do you think that with the explosion of new brands or revived brands over the last you know 10 years, let's say, do you think that maybe these new industry dynamics are going to force another sort of like culling of the herd? Like that
Unknown Well it it's a funny thing. That was supposed to happen in the Great Recession of 2008-2009. I mean th there were there were there were people who predicted and who welcomed and who cheered on the fact that Switzerland's five to six hundred brands uh would go down to about two hundred. I mean that's that's always the question. Do we really need five hundred Swiss watch brands. It didn't happen. It didn't happen because of the revival uh uh the emergence of China and uh the luxury watch consumer in China. The traveling, the tourist literally saved the Swiss watch industry in 2010. We had a recession, had a V-shaped recession, down 22% in 2009, up 22% in 2010, and there was no fallout. It may be that uh that this does begin the culling of the herd. Um we'll have to we'll have to see. I kind of hope there is a culling of the watch
Unknown brands. I've said this many times in the past. There there's just too many. Yeah. There's so few brands that that really matter, that really resonate with people at scale. Um so I would be completely okay if we lost a few. Like we, you know, as as Joe's just mentioning, like do we really need five hundred Swiss watch brands? Like I just I don't think we do, and I'm like the greatest champion of watchmaking there there could be, you know. Yeah, no no. Um so I just I I would be complete okay if we lost a few. Um and I think also like, you know, just in considering how like homogeneous tastes are becoming these days, it's gonna happen. You know, it's like now if you're basically not a top five brand, it's pretty tough out there, you know, at least in this market in the US. People want the same five brands. Uh, and that's only gonna get stronger. Um, you know, unless things change. I mean, I think there's a little, you know, we we just talked about there's a little bit of softening of the steel stuff. Uh, I think people are getting a little bit fed up with the same old stuff. So maybe we'll get back to you know individualized taste, but maybe not. Yeah. I w I wonder what do you guys think the most kind of like underreported or under talked about storyline is in watches from 2019? Like what is something you're both so keyed into the industry and in relatively different ways? I'm just personally curious, like, what do you think is the big 2019 watch story that like no one's talking about? It's just like not out there
Unknown . Well the one uh that I've raised occasionally, I'm not I'm not sure of the impact. One is the the tremendous erosion in quartz watch production in Switzerland over the past five years. It's fallen from about 20 million a year down to below 16 million. And the the question here is uh look eighty percent eighty percent of the output of the Swiss watch industry is quartz. It's still quartz. So it's jobs. Um it's it's uh it's it's production of the a of uh uh the appearance parts, things like that. So from an industry standpoint, that's a risk. Another one I might point to uh would be sort of what's going on sort of in the luxury pre-owned market, the organization of of this market with uh Reishman's acquisition of Watchfinder and uh with Watchbox, the emergence and growth of Watchbox, just to see how a more organized uh pre-owned market affects of just affects the the industry in general
Unknown . Great. Yeah, I think, you know, from a totally different perspective, which is you know more kind of collector focused, I think it's the softening of vintage watches. Like I think that that that market has changed dramatically over the last twelve months and nobody's really talked about it. Uh like just pricing of the these once kind of just like dominant, you know, like upward trajectory watches is is just dramatic. Like Daytona, 6263, 6239. So watches that everybody assumed would just continue to rise forever have fallen. And I think that, you know, it's difficult because like, you know, if you show me a new old stock example box papers, whatever, it would still fetch a crazy price, probably higher than the year before. But the average watch has has sunken. Uh and I think not too many people are talking about it. Um and I you know, I I think it's good. I think it's it's healthy. Things were way too frothy for for a little little bit of time there. Um, but yeah, I think vintage watches have have had a moment, and I have several friends, just anecdotally, that are, you know, in media in New York, like not hardcore watch guys, but have one or two really nice things, and they're just like, hey, I'm I'm kinda over this. Like I'm gonna liquidate my vintage buy one great whatever new watch and keep it for the rest of my life and and kind of m move on. Yeah. Do you what what do you think is causing that? Because it's definitely something I've I've noticed and I've talked to people about kind of anecdotally, like whether it's collectors or dealers or whatever. But I wonder what you think like what is the root cause? I th I think there are a few. I think first and foremost, like, you know, things got so crazy after the Paul Newman sale. Yeah. That caught that drew so much attention to this category for like just like your average wealthy guy in New York or LA or Geneva, Paris, whatever. And it's, you know how it is. It's like the, you know, the last one in, first one out. It's like these guys put 120 grand into a big red because somebody told them that it'll be worth 170 or whatever. And then you know, once they saw it dip to like one ten, they're like, All right, fuck it, I'm out. And they sold it, and now that watch is worth 85 or whatever. And that's basically the numbers that I'm seeing these days. So I think it just became like a product of mega hype after the Paul Newman sale and warranted because that was an amazing thing. Um now just coming back down to reality. And to be clear, eighty-five thousand for a six two six three is still dramatically higher than what it was like five years ago, but it's also dramatically lower than what it was one year ago. I guess as we as we head into twenty twenty, let's look forward a little bit. Um I mean it's also a new decade, but the the 20 teens have I would say overall been relatively good for watches and watch lovers and watch collectors. Um I wonder like what do each of you want to see heading into the next decade? Like what do you hope happens and what would you would you like to see go on? I just want to see more of Joe Thompson. All the time. Dude, me too. Me too. I want him to to share an offer. I want him to cohabitate with me in uh in my office. There's room for two of you in there. Right? Joe? Whatever you say, boss. And I don't know. I mean I think for for for me, you know, and look, I'm as guilty as anybody, I love a good steel sports watch. We gotta get over this. Like we just have to get back to like individualized decisions here. Like make a call based on what you actually like, not on what you see on Instagram. I think something that that is not, you know, I we have no data on it, of course, but again, anecdotally, like Instagram in the watch world feels like there's a bit of a pushback now. Like a lot of my collector friends are like, this is shitty. Like I don't like being attacked on here. I don't like being attacked for my watch on here. I don't like being asked if everything is for sale. Uh it feels like there's a little bit of pushback on Instagram as a medium to talk about watches, uh, which I think is is warranted. Uh so I think I'm excited to see that uh in 2020. And but yeah, I think, you know, just just moving away from this like like hey these five watches matter and and nothing else does uh mindset. Uh I'm pretty pumped to see that James. Yeah, I gotta I gotta say that's the thing I'm most looking forward to is is like you said the diversification of taste again. It's like it's boring, you know. And maybe maybe it's because we do this all day, every day, but it's like I'm so sick of looking at the same 10 watches and talking about the same 10 watches. Like I just want something new and interesting. It doesn't even have to be a thing I like. 100%. I just want to see something new. Yeah. I mean, like, I think like, you know, dining at like these like nicer restaurants in downtown New York and living down here, et cetera. It's like, and then once people find out who I am, the the common question I get from these like finance bros or entrepreneurs or whatever is like, hey, dude, like can you get me an aquana? Can you get me a Daytona? It's just like, first of all, no. And even if I could, I wouldn't give it to you. I'd give it to like the 25 other people that actually know, like Grayson, that wants one, you know? And it's just like, it's just it gets so tiring that like the it's basically like if you don't have like at least in New York which is obviously a very very small kind of subset of humanity like if you don't have a Nautilus or an aquanaut like people don't even want Rolex anymore they only want Aquanaut and uh an Nautilus like you're not you're not killing it, you know? Yeah. And so it's just like, oh my God, like this just has to stop here. Yeah, it really does. Feels like it's that way in LA too, kind of in London. For sure. Like it's definitely like that other places. Big major cities, and it's it's rough. Yes, it is rough. It's real rough. I realized it had like reached a head when the other day somebody showed me a Tiffany signed aquanut and I was just like, Yeah, fine. Yeah. That's I was just like I was like not even excited and I was like, huh. Like a year ago I would have been pumped. It's funny, I like so I have I have one aquanaut and one Nautilus as you as you guys know. And uh the Nautilus for some reason like I give it a pass because it is his icon and it's like you know, it's it's I view it in a different thing. The question that I get the most from like kind of my idiot friends, and I love you all, idiot friends, is can you get me a 5164? The travel time aqua that has become the like rich guy or like rich young guy, like watch of choice. And I don't know if it's because Mayor loves it or whatever, but so many guys like that's my watch. Like that's like it just fits my lifestyle. You know, like you know, that like that is what everybody's a rich guy who gets on airplanes. Exactly. I mean, that watch is just like I I'm not even kidding. This is not an exaggeration. I've been asked by people that I'm like pretty good friends with for that watch no less than 10 times in the past month. Sweet. 10 times. Sweet. King Ben Climber sounds awesome. Yeah, right. And it's just like, ugh, you know, whatever, dude. It's just it's it's so intense that like all these guys that are you know that are are friends of mine just like that's what they want. They want that one watch. Fl
Unknown ame. Joe? Asking me, I the the thing I hope happens is more is that this prediction uh that I hear more and more from people, which is that smartwatches are actually causing the millennials and Gen Z and whatever's coming to re-to discoverover, not redisc, but to discover the joys of wearing a watch actually bears out. Because I mean the forecasts for smart watches are ridiculous. I mean, 132 million by 2023, et cetera. That's one respected forecaster. So they're going to be around. Um and the threat that they originally had seemed to pose, um the speculation about the Swiss, I think it was always sort of far-fetched. But even in the mid-range, um it if if it turns out that as people are saying, well, is is one quote that we had from Reg, this is a gateway drug for peop for for young people to wear the uh an any other kind of uh uh wristwatch, quartz, mechanical, whatever, if that if that happens, then that will be a good development
Unknown . All right, so that's what we want to see. Joe, what do you think we're going to see in the near future? What do you have any predictions or any analysis for 2020? What are we going to be sitting here talking about a year from now? Tell us Tell us about the future, Joe
Unknown . Yeah, well this is this is exactly right. And I say this all the time. It is it is hard enough for me to figure out what's already happened. The idea that I know anything about what's gonna happen is ridiculous. Nevertheless, I can always. Joe is still modest, man. He's modest. He's modest, man. Yeah, he's much to be modest about, as Churchill said of Clemently. But yeah, things I'm looking to see and the things that that that I would be watching, I mean, will this this this uh Chinese consumer that has carried the luxury Swiss watch industry for 10 years now, since the great crash. It represents, I mean, some people say about or at or more than half of the Swiss luxury watts sales uh come from the Chinese consumer. Will that continue? Um, there's no sign that really it is slowing down. The Hong Kong that we're talking about, you're talking about 2020, of course, there's still would still be trouble in Hong Kong. But they've moved elsewhere. That they've moved to to to Japan. Japan's uh up twenty-five percent uh in Swiss luxury ex Swiss swatch exports for this year. So we'll see if that holds up. Um uh uh other things will yeah, what what what will be the uh the havoc to the mid-market that's SWAT uh that's uh smartwatches are causing we we know that that's pretty much driven Seiko to focus more now on Grand Seiko. We know the results of that. What the results fossil has lost um uh a billion dollars since the launch of where's the share price right now? Oh it it was in the teensens, fourte, something like that. Um and but in in four years since uh you know uh two thousand fifteen when the Apple Watch showed up, I mean nearly a billion off the top That's tough to that's tough to surv
Unknown ive. Share price closed today at seven fifty-three.
Unknown Oh, back down again. That's rough. Yeah. Okay. So yeah, I mean that that's uh yeah we were that was a three three point something billion dollar company. Um uh and what what will happen yeah in in that whole in that whole range that the the the Saco Boulevard Citizen how will those those historic brands uh that uh were monster brands in there, how will they deal with uh with this growing uh smartwatch trend? So that's something also for 2020. Obviously, the Hong Kong situation. Um, what do you want to see from Steven in 2020, Joe? Oh boy. Just more of the same, Stephen. Joe, you are welcome. You are welcome on this show
Unknown anytime. Just becomes Joe and me talking about all my work, how good my work is. That's uh that's what we make Hodinky Radio. Uh man. That's the good stuff right there. Uh Ben, I wonder We talk about this idea of like diversification of taste. Do you think that's coming in twenty twenty realistically or you think Tony probably not. No. I mean I I think think it's it's gotta get worse before it gets better. Oh, you think it's getting worse before it gets better? I th I think so. I I think you know, I think next year people are like gonna like so many of your idiot friends, and I use that term like pretty loosely here., Like you you know,'re my idiot friend, you know. Yeah, of course. So many of all my friends are idiot friends. Exactly. All of your collective idiot friends are gonna want the same watches and you're just gonna be like, This sucks. I'm going the total opposite direction and wearing like I don't know, fucking Frederick Constant or something like that. Yeah, you know? Okay. Yeah, Slimline Frederick Constant or something, you know, of that nature. Uh, I think it's gonna be one of those things where like it becomes so uncool to wear a steel watch for people that are like in the know that like it it's gonna change it's gonna flip the script will be flipped okay uh so for like the watch guys that like it was a cool thing to get the new Batman or the new Pepsi or Daytona or whatever uh it was cool to have that stuff before anybody else now so many other people are gonna have it you,'re gonna want to go the other way. Yeah. Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I mean, we've we've already seen where like I've talked to guys who said, like, oh yeah, my AD offered me a fifty-seven eleven and I didn't buy it because like no one would assume I bought it at retail. Everybody's gonna assume I paid 2X and then I like hustled for it and then I look like an asshole. I'm that guy who paid fifty thousand dollars for a time only Nautilus, or like I'm that guy who paid twenty five thousand dollars for the new Rolex GMT. And like if that's starting to happen to like not the people in this office, I think I think what you're talking about is is pretty spot on. Yeah. I think so. And I mean I can just like anecdotally, like, you know, we did this pop-up uh recently in New York. Yeah. And I was there for you know a few days working from like, you know, whatever it was, 11 o'clock till seven o'clock so figure eight or nine hours. I probably saw twenty Pepsi GMTs new on Jubilee each day I was there. 20. You know, like I didn't see two, I saw 20. And this is just the people that happened to come into our store that day. And so it's like these things are out there. And I think once people realize how many of them are actually out there, the the sentiments' gonna change a lot. Yeah. It's funny, the idea of like knowing how many are out there, is that is that something you think is affecting the vintage market too? I mean these watches that like even I mean I wrote about this the other day, but like even if we look at like Paul Newmans, right? Like you and I collectively could make phone calls for 10 minutes and find a dozen Paul Newmans for sale. Yeah. You know, like it's not they're not as rare as people once thought they were. Yeah. Uh and do you think that kind of like the increase in in scholarship and awareness of the actual rarity of these things is affecting the vintage market? I do. I I think Instagram is at once pushing vintage and also killing it. You know, 'cause like like Paul Newman's to find like a really good one one, like that like I would like encourage you or a friend to buy, would take some digging for sure. Right. But we could certainly find 10 Paul Newmans for sale. But if you go on Instagram, everybody has a 5711 or a Mark One Oyster Bowl Newman, which is impossible to find if you actually want to buy one. It's also six hundred thousand dollars. Uh, you know, I think Instagram has overexposed these hyper rare things, um, whether it's a great car or watch or, you know, home or or anything. Like it's just, you know, the FOMO is so real on Instagram that like it just it doesn't make anything feel good anymore. You know, it it makes you be like, okay, like every it every rich idiot I know has a X, Y, and Z, has a Paul Newman Day toner or something like that. And so it just The specialness of it. And like it's taking the fun away from it for a lot of people. All right. So I'm gonna ask you to do some tastemaking uh real real quick. Classic Ben Climber. Uh so if you're somebody who's looking for a new watch and you don't want to be wearing one of these like steel bracelet sport watches, like what what's another place to look? Like what are a couple watches people should at least take a look at that might be a refreshing answer? Yeah. So I mean I I think, you know, w we wrote this story or I wrote the story in two thousand thirteen that was like I forget how many number of watches, but like these watches should be worth more than they are. Yeah. And I'm actually I just started to to rework that story to to come out in early two thousand twenty. So you'll you'll you'll hear more of this, but I'll give you a little preview. Like any yellow gold vintage paddock complication, like a 1463 sells for the same price as a Tiffany Science steel 5711. Like that makes no sense. It just makes no like you're talking protectfully versus petecfly complication versus not, vintage versus modern like it make it makes no sense. So, you know, vintage yellow gold complicated paddocks, I think, are are really compelling. Um I think really anything on a strap is is compelling. You know, and I think like, you know, we've talked about this with Mayer, I think, in Talking Watches. Like there's this like this this idea that like cool things don't come on straps, right? I mean, if you look at like like Ellen, who has an amazing watch collection, show me one time she's worn a watch on a strap. Like people just don't do it in Hollywood. Drake has gotten into it a little bit recently. I think he's got a 5971 or 5271. But like most of these rappers and celebrities and et cetera are only wearing bracelet watches. So I think anything on a strap. You know, some special longas. I just want to see like these beautifully made things get the appreciation that that they deserve. And again, I'm not talking about micro brands here. L likeike, you know, uh Acrivia, of course, Dufour, of course, Jorne, of course. But like we're talking like Pitech Philippe here, you know, like we're talking about Langa, like these are mainstream brands, like they just like refocus on where you're where you're looking within those brands that you're already looking at, I would say. Yeah. I love uh Davey on our our video team uh has a white dial oyster perpetual. He does. And he was wearing it on the bracelet for a while and then he was like I just I I don't want I don't want to be wearing it on the bracelet. So he put it on a double wrap Hermes strap. He did. Uh that's awesome. That's a move. You have to be cool like Dave, but it's awesome. I'm not that cool for sure. I'm not that cool either. No. Joe? Joe's that cool. Joe's that cool. I am not that cool. Dave is also wearing a kimono today. That's also true. Dave is also, full disclosure, Dave is also wearing it. And like, but successfully. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dave looks great. Yeah. Sitting right there.
Unknown Um I mean one thing I'll be I am curious about is to see if Apple, which is now claims to be the number one watch in the world. You say claims to be, you have doubts about that? Oh I need data. Oh I need to do that. They issue no data. So that's their claim. Um but uh we know what the progression generally is with regard to Apple products, that they they will now sort of uh go up market a bit, bit by bit, add value to it. Now will that uh and some people predict this and look for this, will they make a bid to go out of what is the traditional mid-range of the the US wa uh watch market, let's say up to eight hundred dollars, and then start to move into the the the luxury segment. That original their original push was unsuccessful, it was premature. But let's see what happens with that. Do you think they'll do that? I th it it it's conceivable. We'll have to see as the audience uh you know, as they they they've got they've got the audience if they can add value to this and make that watch uh, you know, uh up above a thousand dollars, right? It could then start to impact that one to three range for the Swiss. It's funny, I my my gut says that they
Unknown that they won't successfully do that. They might try it, but I guess having said that, I recently saw that you can now spec a Mac Pro up to what like $52,000? Yeah, you can spec it crazy high. So I wonder if you could do that with the Apple Watch. Interesting. More concretely, I wonder if I can do that with the Apple Watch. Right. I was gonna say, really, what Ben wants to know is how much money will you take from me to give me a single Apple Watch unit? That's really the question. Is uh yeah, as as with most things in this world. Um to look we'll we'll finish by looking back, but uh I wanted to know what is your favorite story that's appeared on Hudinky this year. I am so glad you asked. Ah, perfect. I really am.. I I k knewnew Joe Joe.
Unknown I absolutely urge everybody who was listening that if you did not see our story entitled An Eight Year Old Dreams of a Rolex Sprite GMT. Yeah. I just want you to go to the site, click on the search button, and just put in Rolex Sprite GMT. It's a three-agparraph story handled brilliantly by James Stacy, and it's the story of what happened when the son uh of Moa Lee, who is our director of product and strategy, visited the office one day, was inspired by what he saw our designers doing, went home and did his own design, and then inspired our own designers to do theirs and to see what happened with uh with with that story. It is in a year that was uh full of uh you know some some some rougher moments for the industry, etc. Uh I just I just found that story to be so delightful. And the way James Handel James Handel he says in there, we do love his vision of a world where all great sodas. Not you, R. C. Cola. Channeling his own eight-year-old. But it's cool it does. It's brilliantly done. It's not an easy story to write. It looks easy. He makes it look easy, but it's it's it's so well done and it's a great
Unknown story. That's my favorite. Amazing. Until the until the day that you die, how much will a can of soda cost to you. Because I know what it cost to me. Like when I was a kid, when my dad would give me like money to go buy a soda machine. You're talking to to
Unknown a uh an ancient human here. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, jeez, but see the memory goes. That's the trouble. So um I would what did we used to put in a machine to get a a a dime? Okay. To get a soda?
Unknown Yeah. All right. Not much. Ben, how much is the soda for you? $75 cents. Interesting. I think soda's a dollar. There you go. And Grayson's saying two dollars. Yeah. Wait, two dollars? This is the oldest, oldest thing I've ever said. I can't imagine paying two dollars for a can of imagine bringing a dime. Yeah. A dime would be amazing. That's incredible. All right, Ben, what was your favorite story from the year? There were some good ones this year. You know, I I thankfully and thankfully for all of you did not do much writing this year. Uh so I think we're changing that in twenty twenty, baby. Oh shit, are we? Maybe. Joe's is true. What's the plan? I think my you know, the uh Cole Pennington's The Washington from the Cold from the Magazine was great. I love that for many reasons. I love the d the design layout of it in print. Yeah. I also love the way that our team handled it digitally and I loved his little, you know, dramatic reading of it uh on the pod. Um but I think even on top of that was the story of the the tutor from Vietnam. Uh that to me was a wonderful combination of like just like it basically just defined why people could love a watch or like why watches matter very succinctly. Uh our team, James again, did a great job narrating that one. Will and the whole gang on the video department did a great job as well. Uh Davey, of course Kimona wearing Dave. Um you know, I mean just just a wonderful feature. I mean it was it was like a mini doc. It wasn't like a standard like web feature. Uh I thought that was great and something that we were all definitely proud of for sure. Yeah, that was uh that was actually gonna be my answer. Um sorry. No, that's all right. I I think it's uh anything we can do that makes watches feel a little bigger than they are, a little more important. I mean, you know, spending a lot of time around around people who are passionate about watches, it's easy to forget that like for most people a watch is not something they ever think about in their lives, you know? Yet for a a lot of us and our friends and the people we we interact with through Hodinky, they're tremendously meaningful and they carry all this kind of like baggage and emotion. And I really enjoyed seeing that in a way where like neither of these guys are watch enthusiasts, but at the same time, like this watch is a tremendously important thing to them. Um, and the storytelling was beautiful. It was really ambitious. It didn't pull any punches. Um I also want to shout out uh the package we did in partnership with IWC, uh with, these three pilots. Um, yes, it was it was partnership content. We created it with IWC, um, but the level of like extremely ambitious visual storytelling and narrative storytelling uh was awesome. And I actually think despite the fact that it it was partially a commercial product, uh is is some of the coolest, uh most exciting storytelling we've done. Uh so I am I am on board for that and and I think, you know, hopefully despite the fact that it again was was an IWC partnership, I I think, you know, I've watched each of the videos probably half a dozen times and and I enjoy them and I think they're they're great journalism uh at the end of the day. So that that was exciting for me. Here's to you, Mr. Gray. Yeah, Mr. Corhonan shooting out of airplanes. Shoot out of airplane. Are we gonna be doing more of that in uh twenty twenty more airplanes, baby. The 2020 is the year of the prop plane uh here here at Hodinky. All right. Nicely done, guys. Thank you very much. Can't think of a better way to uh wrap up twenty nineteen than sitting here and talking shit with the two of you. Thank you, Stephen. It's always a pleasure. Indeed. Thank you guys. Awesome. See you next year, guys. This week's episode was recorded at Hodinki HQ in New York City and was produced and edited by Grayson Korhonen. Please remember to subscribe and rate the show. It really does make a difference for us. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you in twenty twenty.