The Call-In Show, Volume 1¶
Published on Mon, 6 Jul 2020 10:00:05 +0000
You ask, we answer.
Synopsis¶
This episode of Hodinkee Radio marks the show's first-ever call-in format, with host Stephen Pulvirent fielding listener questions alongside two of Hodinkee's most prominent editors. The episode is divided into two distinct segments: the first half features Jack Forster tackling technical and theoretical horological questions, while the second half includes James Stacey discussing modern versus vintage collecting, industry careers, and collector philosophy.
Jack Forster addresses questions about watch maintenance and service intervals, explaining that for modern watches, following manufacturer recommendations is wise rather than waiting for problems to develop. He emphasizes the particular challenges of vintage watch ownership, especially regarding parts availability for obscure movements. The conversation delves into deep horological theory when discussing how historical watchmakers determined accuracy improvements in escapements, with Jack explaining the crucial role of astronomical observations and pendulum clocks as time standards. The segment concludes with a thoughtful discussion about Cartier's position in the collector market, with both Jack and Stephen arguing that Cartier occupies a unique "chic" aesthetic space that differs from the sport watch enthusiasm dominating current collecting trends.
In the second half, James Stacey joins to discuss the relationship between vintage and modern collecting, explaining his own journey starting with accessible modern pieces before developing vintage knowledge. He and Stephen emphasize that handling watches—both vintage and modern—is crucial to developing taste and understanding. When asked about breaking into watch journalism as a career, James provides extensive practical advice about building skills, working on spec, seeking white-label opportunities, and the importance of learning technical skills like Photoshop and video editing. The episode concludes with a philosophical discussion about collection curation, with James suggesting a "box trick" to identify watches worth keeping, while Stephen emphasizes the importance of emotional connections and memories attached to timepieces over mere aesthetic attraction.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| Jack Forster | You know, it it's really kind of fascinating. You can almost think about the entire evolution of mechanical horology and horology of any kind as an attempt to incorporate into a mechanical device the predictability, regularity, and rationality of the so-called |
| Stephen Pulvirent | It's a beautiful thing. I somehow knew you would have the uh the right answer to this question. I did not have the right answer. And that I would go on. Hey everybody, I'm your host Stephen Polverin and this is Hodinky Radio. While a lot of us are off today because of the July 4th holiday here in the US, we've got a super exciting episode for you today. It's one that I've wanted to do for a long time, and one that judging by everybody's DMs, comments on the site, and random emails, you've all wanted for a while too. Uh this is our first ever callin' episode. So a few weeks back we gave you a phone number to call and we told you to leave us voicemails with the questions that you've always wanted to ask your favorite hodinky editors. So today we're gonna answer a few of those. I decided to bring in some reinforcements for help. Uh so for the first half of the show, we've got Jack and we're gonna address some technical questions, some theoretical questions, and a few things about vintage watches for good measure. But the second half of the show, I've got James, and we're gonna talk about the relationship between modern vintage watches, some lessons that we've learned as collectors, how to get into the watch industry as a career, and a whole bunch of other things. We've got two different perspectives and it should be a ton of fun. So if you don't hear your question, don't worry, we may get to it in a future episode. And if you haven't left us a voicemail yet, the number is in the show notes. Please call in and leave your voicemails. I just want to say that this episode has turned into everything I was hoping it would be. It's really fun to be able to talk to all of you, especially while we're in quarantine right now. I'm not getting to see people at meetups and events. It's fun to get to engage with the community even if it's in this sort of weird asynchronous way. So I look forward to more awesome questions and I look forward to being able to answer them in future episodes. So without further ado, let's do this Hey Jack, how's it going? Going very well, thank you. How are you doing? I'm holding up, I'm doing doing alright here. Uh this has turned out to be an unexpectedly busy summer in the watch world, I think 'cause so many other things were delayed this year, but uh I don't know about you. I'm I'm jam-packed. My my schedule is as full as it can be. Yeah, um uh I |
| Jack Forster | think everybody's is and for fairly obvious I mean the the obvious reason is that uh now that uh watch releases are not pegged to show schedules, stuff is just sort of coming out whenever the brands deem it uh appropriate to have it come out, which means that number one, uh we're not on any kind of predictable release schedule. And number two, uh it means that almost anything can appear at any time. So uh we've had some really interesting big drops this week and um honestly no way of knowing what's coming up uh you know, next week or the week after. But it looks like uh yeah, it's gonna be a pretty active a pretty active time, especially as I think quite a few brands probably held back on uh releases over the last uh couple of months. And now that uh things are starting to open up just a little bit in key markets. I think the feeling is that now might be a good time for uh, you know, some introductions to just sort |
| Stephen Pulvirent | of remind folks who these guys are. Yeah. Yeah. It makes a lot of sense. Um but I actually brought you on today to talk about something that's not new watches. Uh a couple couple weeks ago we put out a call for people to call in and leave us questions via voicemail and that we'd we would tackle them. It'd be a mix of Hodinky editors, so I figured to kick this whole thing off, uh I thought it'd be good to sit down and you and I can answer some uh some listener questions. That worked for you? Yeah. Let let's do it. All right. Uh first up we have a question from Taylor from Clevel |
| Callers/Listeners | and My question regards care of watches owned. What are your best practices for caring for your watches? Should I always send them for service when recommended or only when they need it? When I purchase a vintage watch that is running well, is it necessary to send it out for service? I know that was three questions, but thank you for your consideration. Please keep up all the good work and I look forward to hearing your answers |
| Jack Forster | . Because there are actually different answers, I think, to different uh parts of the question. Uh so what are best practices for carrying for watches? I think in general, um I mean mine for uh new pieces uh is basically to just follow the recommended service schedule. I'm not a huge fan of waiting until there's something noticeably wrong with a wash before sending it in for service. It's sort of like waiting for your car to start breaking down before changing the oil. It's just uh you know, it's not good for the engine and it's not I don't treat um precision mechanisms in general. Uh so partly you know, partly for practical reasons, just having to do with uh movement longevity uh and preserving functionality and partly because it just bothers me on a uh you know on sort of a gut instinctive aesthetic level to let a machine grind its gears uh to dust before uh taking care of it. Uh I really I you know I I don't I think the longest I've ever waited to have a modern watch serviced is probably uh you know seven years or so and I felt like that was pushing |
| Stephen Pulvirent | it. Yeah, I mean I'm I'm kind of in the same boat. Like, you know, with vintage watches it's a little more like e I do kind of wait not until something's wrong wrong, but until I start to feel like maybe something's going to go wrong. Right. I wait for that like sense of dread to overcome me. Um or something with vintage watches like, sometimes stuff does just flat out break and then it's like, oh shit, like I I have to send this in for service, like I don't really have a choice. Um yeah, but with modern watches, um I actually am trying to think I only think I've ever had to send a modern watch in for service once. Uh I've been pretty lucky, but I guess that means I probably have a lot of watches coming up for service soon, which is not so good. But uh in terms of day-to-day care, I mean Jack, I'm curious what you do. I I mostly just like I store everything in a nice, you know, dark, dry place where like nothing's gonna happen to them. They're stored in a watchbox. Um, you know, I'm not trying to shill here but like one of the watch boxes we carry in the shop that has a zipper and you know, it's padded and suede on the inside like nothing's gonna get sc scratched or damaged and uh yeah, I just try to like care for them like they're nice things that are to some extent fragile and you know, not worry about it too too much. How about you? Yeah, I mean in terms of storage, everything pretty much is in a uh uh |
| Jack Forster | closed case, so you know, I don't keep stuff exposed to direct light. Uh obvious stuff like avoiding extremes of humidity and extreme You know the interesting thing about vintage watches is that um I have always thought over the last thirty or so years, you know, you kind of have to expect to add the cost of a service to the purchase of a vintage watch. And one of the reasons that I've always been pretty conservative in that respect is because the problem with a lot of vintage watches is uh parts availability. So, you know, should you have a watch with a if it's a value sevent,y two that's one thing, you know, those movements were made um, you know, in the thousands and thousands and parts availability is not a tremendous, tremendous issue. But um for um micro rotor, you know, uh universal Genève pole router movements, you know, like the the twenty eight joule ones, just as an example, um what I hear is that main springs are getting very hard for those to find and nobody's making them. So if you wait until one of those watches uh actually experiences a um a part failure before having it service, you may very well find that the part that you need to get the watch working again is no longer available. Now that doesn't mean the watch is dead forever, but it does mean that if you want to get it working again, somebody's actually going to have to remake the part from scratch. Uh, and sometimes that's a little more complicated than others. Um, mainsprings, for instance, I think are probably it's probably harder to make an appropriate size, length, and strength main spring from scratch for a watch than a lot of us would think. So you know, my tendency again is to uh if I don't know when the last time a watch was serviced and it's a vintage watch, I just assume that I'm gonna have it serviced sometime in the next five or six months, you know, whenever it's convenient, just in order to ensure that uh you know everything's in good nick and uh I don't have to worry about finding parts for you know a potentially um |
| Stephen Pulvirent | difficult to source movement. Yeah, no I think that that's all solid advice. You know, with that in mind, we we actually have a question too that is about the aging of vintage watches uh versus modern watches. And I I think we should jump into that one next. Hi there. My name's Mart |
| Callers/Listeners | y. I live in Rochester, New York. Uh my question might sound to some like heresy, but I absolutely love that faded dial and bezel patina that you see on a lot of vintage dive watches, like Doxas and Samarinus. Um and and I I know it's the result of a lot of UV exposure, probably a terrible consequence of living a tropical lifestyle. And seeing as upstate New York is not not the tropical paradise that one might assume. I was curious if you have heard of any good and safe methods to artificially trigger that same effect in your watches, say on a black bay with a blue bezel, uh chemicals, UV light. Just curious. Anyways, big thank you to you and your team for all |
| Stephen Pulvirent | that you do. Stay healthy. Yeah, I mean Rochester, New York probably isn't where most tropical watches uh lived live the bulk of their lives. I don't think uh as you say it's a tropical paradise up there. But uh yeah, it it is interesting to think about kind of what you know the name tropical im implies, you know, an actual tropical environment. But uh it's really what we're talking about, right, Jack, is is a mix of UV exposure, probably moisture, potential like chemical contaminants from gaskets and seals not being so great. Um I mean that's what causes this aging that we call tropical, right? Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, and I |
| Jack Forster | think that um I mean you raise a great point, Stephen, which is that there is no s since there's no single um sort of unifying cause for what we collectively refer to as tropical dials, you know, I mean there are a lot of things that influence uh the chemical changes that happen in the dial finishing materials that create the so-called tropical effect, and they're not consistent from watch to watch. They're not consistent in construction from one watch to another. I mean just to pick gaskets. For gaskets, for example uh, I mean I've never read an in-depth uh chemical analysis of changes in uh watch gasket formulas over the last fifty years, but I bet that the gaskets that we're using today are are uh chemically different than the gaskets they were using forty years ago. And that might you know change the effects that you get as well. Um pre-aging, attempting to pre-age a dial in order to produce um a tropical or a vintage effect, you know, uh I'm not really doctrinaire about much of anything these days when it comes to watches, but I think that it is worth remembering that what you're what you're doing is uh basically destructive. So what you're if you're exposing um a watch style to ultraviolet radiation, you're deliberately attempting to accelerate um chemical changes, the result of which is not just uh aesthetic. It's a it's a loss of longevity in terms of the quality of the finish. And it may have you know other sort of um you know unintended consequences. So this is again one of those things that I I would personally um want to avoid simply because I think that it doesn't do it it obviously doesn't do anything for the watch functionally and it may have negative effects on longevity and serviceability. You know that said, I'm sure that uh you know somebody out there is going to try it, probably some several people out there have already tried it. And you know, I I just haven't heard it because I don't live in the part of, you know, the watch world where the |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah, I've got I've got three basic thoughts. One is is something you just hinted at, uh, which is if you do anything, you're destroying the watch and your warranty's gone. Like so there's so you better be pr yeah, like you better be if you're gonna start messing with your watch, like you better be pretty sure you're A gonna be happy with the outcome and B, um, that you're gonna have no other problems with the watch or you're okay footing the bill, because like the moment, let's say with a tutor, for example, like like you asked in the question, like if you start messing with it, your warranty's done. Like tutor and Rolex are not gonna touch that watch. I mean, they're not even gonna let you send it in, let alone cover any problems. Um, and if they do want to cover it, they're gonna want to replace the dial, replace the bezel, replace the case, whatever, and charge you for it. So that's one. Uh two, it's it's worth remembering that the the changes we see, you know, vary from generations of watches and different brands of watches. Not all tropical watches age in the same way or uh to the same extent or to the same colors or with the same textures. And I've had some really interesting conversations about this with somebody who who some listeners may know, uh Narayan Kandakar, who um heads up conservation at the Harvard Art Museums uh and wrote wrote a story about tropical dials for us for a previous issue of the Hodinki magazine. Um and he has all kinds of really incredible theories about the various pigments and chemicals that were used for galvanic dial treatments versus printed dial treatments and sort of why all of these things age the way they do, coming at this as both a watch nerd and an art conservator, um, a real expert on pigment specifically. Um, so hopefully we can get get to the bottom of that sometime soon. But um the last thing I wanted to bring up is if you're curious about whether or not this is possible and what this might look like, uh I recommend you check out another previous Hodinky uh or I guess friend of friend of Hodinky we'll say uh Phil Toledano, who is uh his Instagram handle is at Mr. Enthusiast. We'll we'll link to it in the show notes. Um he is currently doing this with a tutor P01. Uh he's calling it the uh tutor bastardo, um which is part of his his shtick, let's say. Sorry, Phil. Um, but uh he's essentially been like cooking the dial in the oven and like, you know, taking a rotary sander to the case and like he's doing what you're suggesting. Um the results are interesting. Um, but yeah, he's the only person I've seen like really do this and document it on a modern watch. So, you know, Jack and I are maybe not the most helpful in terms of suggestions, maybe maybe Phil can give you some uh some pointers. Yeah, you know my |
| Jack Forster | gut reaction is honestly this is a terrible idea. Uh putting a watch in an oven can't for you know can't can't be good for the lubricants, can't be good for the tolerances. Um you know, and modern gre modern Greases and oils are certainly a lot more stable than they were forty or fifty years ago, but at the same time, you know, you put a watch in a thermal environment that's way out of spec for the lubricants that are in it. Uh I I just don't see any good coming out of it. You know, and I I guess my final word on this is, you know, your if if this is something that anyone wants to try, obviously your watch is your watch, um, and you know, no judgment from me on it. But I think it's worth bearing in mind that these are destructive, irreversible changes, and um, you know, if you don't like the result uh and it's a watch that came from a modern brand that uh is not interested in working on a watch that has been deliberately um and destructively modified by someone uh you're you're you you might run |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah. Alright, Jack, while while I've got you here, uh I feel like I would be I would be remiss. I would be failing our listeners if I didn't ask you one impossibly nerdy historical question. You uh you okay with that? Sure. Alright, cool. |
| Callers/Listeners | So I've been reading George Daniel's watchmaking and he's talking about the statements and how they've improved over the centuries and how people started using stuff in the seventeenth century and uh and they decided that it's not accurate, so they moved on to you know another type of escapement or whatever. But how do they tell how accurate something is when your measurement instrument is limited by by the same technology? |
| Stephen Pulvirent | That doesn't make any sense to me. So that's my question. Alright, so I'll admit it took me a second to kinda wrap my head around this question, but I think what's being asked is, you know, w when we talk about innovating on escapements, right, like identifying that one escapement is not as accurate as we want it to be, so we'll create a new kind. If the limit of technology is a particular you know level of accuracy, how do you then determine the next level without having already invented it? Essentially how do we achieve technologically, how do we achieve a new level of accuracy or a new level of precision if the tools we're using to measure that are kind of like hampered by the thing we're trying to overcome? Sure. Sure. So uh this is |
| Jack Forster | actually a wonderful question. Um and it's something that uh a lot of folks don't necessarily think about. But basically what the what the question is is uh what time standard do you use for determining which of, you know, say you've got two escapements, you've got a verge escapement, you've got a lever escapement, you want to decide which one is giving better res Well how do you know? What what standard do you use? So there are two answers to that question. Historically, the first pendulum clock was invented in the late sixteen hundreds, and once the pendulum clock came along and the deadbeat escapement was developed. At that point uh we started to have extremely high precision albeit stationary time standards. So these were things these are instruments that are already capable by the seventeen hundreds of keeping time to within seconds of uh seconds a day, uh fractions of a second a day. And uh so if you wanted to tell whether or not a watch or whether or not a smaller clock using a different technology uh was more precise, you could do so by checking it against an uh a pendulum clock that provided a known time standard. Now the first the thing that will occur to the alert listener is that this is merely moving the goalpost because you know the real question is then how do you know whether or not the pendulum clock is accurate? And the answer is pendulum clocks actually exist inside one of the most accurate uh timekeeping structures, uh inside the most accurate timekeeping structure you can imagine, which is they exist inside the universe. So' if youre sitting on Earth and it's nighttime and you're looking up at the sky, you can see the stars passing overhead. And uh the way that you told whether or not a pendulum clock was accurate was by actually checking its precision against astronomical transits uh which have an accuracy to within milliseconds. And for most of the history of horology, uh you would check the precision of a portable timepiece against a stationary timepiece and ultimately you would check the uh accuracy of a stationary timepiece against astronomical transits essentially. And because astronomical the time at which a star transits its zenith, for instance, at night, does not change at all for all practical purposes. That was really what the ultimate time standard was until the development of time standards that are more accurate than the rotation of the Earth itself. And that didn't happen until the twentieth century and the development of atomic clocks |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Which is in turn, ironically, how we then measure the the changing size of our universe, right? Like we can now, now that we have something more accurate than the passage in the transit of stars, we can compare the transit of the stars against the atomic clock and know how fast our universe is growing, right? Aaron Powell Yeah, I |
| Jack Forster | mean um the uh the degree of precision that is provided by the latest generation of atomic clocks is uh absurdly absurdly high and I think it exceeds the rate stability of any natural phenomenon. Even things like uh you know pulsars and the rotation of neutron stars. So uh we're doing pretty good in terms of uh time precision. And you know, I mean that's driven a lot of modern technological developments as well with uh GPS for example, if you don't take into account uh the minute, minute effects of uh general relativity on clocks in orbit versus clocks on the ground, you immediately start generating kilometer sized errors in position. Um so yeah |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. Pretty pretty cool. Pretty cool stuff. I somehow knew you would have the uh the right answer to this question. And that I did not have the right answer. |
| Jack Forster | And that I would go on. No, but it's an interesting thing. You know, I mean uh uh it it's something you don't I mean I certainly didn't think about it for years when I first started getting interested in watches, and and precision horology is kind of you know what got me interested in watches on any level in the first place. Uh so yeah, so uh you know kind of tracing backwards the steps that you take from okay, you know, portable because we st we started out uh in terms of timekeeping by relying solely on the movement of celestial objects, the sun and the stars. And then we take that uh and you know we use it to um to measure the accuracy, to measure the precision of uh uh portable of uh uh non-portable timepieces and those then become the standard for portable timepieces. And it's just uh you know it it's really kind of fascinating. You can almost think about the entire evolution of mechanical horology and horology of any kind as an attempt to It's a beautiful thing. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | I love that. It is a beautiful thing, my friend. Alright, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with the most tenuous segues I possibly can here. Speaking of beautiful things, Jack, um we have a question here about a brand that I know you and I both love, uh, and we could probably do a whole show on this, but uh let's answer this question first. Hi, my name is Lewis T-L-U-I-S-N-N-T |
| Callers/Listeners | . Uh so my question is a question I've asked a lot of uh Why is uh the brand not something that you see a lot of collectors buy. Uh you see Goldberger buy older pieces from the fifties, sixties and and the like, but you don't really see a celebrity or a major collector uh you know bust out of Cartier. Why is that? Why is Cartier kind of not embraced by folks |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ? Thanks. So it it's a really good question, but I actually kinda want to dispute the premise of the question. Um if if you'll bear with me here. Um I do think Cartier is a thing. I think Cartier is is very well embraced. Uh I just think it's embraced in a way that's that's maybe different than something like Rolex or Omega or something else. Um I mean Lewis references the fact that, you know, folks like John Goldberger are collecting uh vintage Cartier. Um, but you know, vintage and modern Cartier, and and Jack, we can get into this a little bit, um, although we should answer, I guess, the the main question at some point. But vintage and modern Cartier are very different if if for for two main reasons, I would say. One, in the vintage era, the cardi Cartier was only available in New York, London, and Paris, and the three firms were basically run independently for many, many decades. Uh, and two, they made very few wristwatches. They were primarily a jewelry company. And so in any given year, you know, in some years in the in the forties and fifties, you know, estimates say that of any given style of tank, there were fewer than a dozen made. So in the vintage world, it just comes from the fact that they're exceptionally rare. Um I mean, uh do do you see any other factors maybe playing into the vintage side and then we can talk about the modern side? I mean I think that I think that you're absolutely right, Stephen. |
| Jack Forster | Uh there just aren't that many of them. Um you know, Cartier was uh was and is uh a luxury jewelry company. Um they also have made many, many, many important contributions to modern watch design and uh to clock manufacturing. You know, you think about watches like um uh you know from the from from the night from the late teens and the nineteen twenties and we have uh we have some designs from that era that are still in production today and which have gone on to influence watch design um all over the world and have been uh so universally copied that you know sometimes you don't even realize that you're looking at a copy of a tank anymore because you just think to yourself, oh this is a common wristwatch shape. You don't realize that like no somebody designed this. Um and uh and for and as and as you mentioned, for decades, uh these were not easy watches to get. You know, I mean you look at production numbers for tanks, there were years when they made, you know, uh less than ten. Um and you had to you you know you had to be and you had to be a known client at one of the three boutiques and that was it. That was the only way you could get them. So they certainly were not producing at the scale of a company like uh well, I mean Rolex is not a great example because almost nobody produces at the scale Rolex did. But I think your point is a really, really good one. You know th there And you know, if you want to collect vintage Rolex or vintage Omega, you have your choice among hundreds of thousands of watches made in dozens and dozens of models over decades and decades and decades. And if you want to collect uh you know vintage Cartier, the search immediately becomes much more difficult. You know, the stuff preceding the nineteen sixties is uh avidly sought by the relatively smaller number of collectors who are interested, so prices are high. And um yeah, I mean they're wonderful watches to collect, but the pr the barrier to entry uh the cost is fairly high. And uh the small numbers mean that you really have to have the patience uh for a long and sometimes difficult hunt if you want a good example |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. And the the scholarship that goes along with that, right? I mean the knowledge base, because there are so few watches and the collecting community is relatively concentrated, like you can Google Rolex Samariner 1970s and probably find pretty quickly. I mean, even if you ignore our reference point story, like you can find a good guide to help you determine, you know, okay, does this dial look like a real dial? How's the case look? Whatever. Like, if you if somebody tries to sell you a white gold tank from the 40s and and you are not an expert, do not buy that watch. Like you, you are almost certainly going to make a mistake, uh because there are just so many little bits of minutiae uh and you really have to be kind of like connected to to have access to the knowledge. Um Yeah, it's uh yeah. I mean the |
| Jack Forster | people I know who are really sort of uh you know experts on collecting vintage Cartier, these are folks who have been, you know, actively learning about accumulating knowledge about and collecting vintage Cartier for, you know, decades. Um and uh it's it's uh I I I will give Cartier uh I have to give them some credit though. They've prov they themselves have actually provided a lot of really fantastic um archival level information about their own timepieces. That's true. Um but again that's uh you you you would always hope for that to be supplemented by you know Yeah. It's a relatively exclusive product made by a company that was doing lots and lots of other things as well. So there's just not that many out there and they cost a lot when you find a good one |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. And and as far as modern Cartier goes, I mean I I would say again it boils down to a couple simple things. One of which is, you know, I would dispute the idea that like the tank is not tremendously popular. I mean, I see more sort of like public-facing people wearing tank. Like, if they're wearing a dress watch, it's it's probably a tank or one of any number of like random things, but tanks are are a concentration, I would say. Um and the other thing is just that you know, over the last number of years, the last let's say five to ten years, the watches that have dominated the market have been oversized sport watches on bracelets. Right. That's just not what Cartier does. Like that's that's not their bread and butter. That's not their expertise. So like if you want a beautiful shaped dress watch, Cartier is probably the best game in town. Um you know the Santos, the new Santos is from a couple years ago, I think did a really great job of kind of bridging that. Like they still felt like the Santos, but it comes on a bracelet, it's a little bit larger, like maybe the sort of client who thought they wanted a royal oak or a Nautilus or even a submariner, maybe sees this and says, Oh, like this is this is a viable alternative that's maybe like a little bit more old school, a little bit more elegant. Yeah, I don' |
| Jack Forster | t know. Yeah, you know, I think that uh I'm I'm going to use a word now which Cartier will probably in the US not thank me for using because I suspect it might cost them sales. But you know, Cartier watches are chic. Uh yeah and chic is a very you know, it's a very interesting thing to be because it's not something that gets a tremendous amount of traction in American watch sales. You know, it's just not what most people are looking for when they go into a jeweler's they you know, people don't go and say to themselves, you know what I need? I need a chic understated watch that is redolent of European aristocracy. It's just not what goes through most people's heads. And you know, from a design standpoint. You and me excluded, of course. Yeah, you and me excluded. uh you know the modern uh Cartier wristwatches and uh you know there's there's a ton of beautiful designs, there's a ton of really wonderful executions. Um they're very elegant, uh they're very uh cleverly designed mechanically. One of the things that I love about Cartier personally is that, you know, when they do innovate mechanically, it's uh generally within the historical spirit of Cartier, which is about using mechanics not as an end in itself, but as a way of creating particular aesthetic effects, which I think is fantastic. So you see lots and lots of beautifully integrated designs in that respect. I think the skeleton crash from a few years back is a wonderful example. Oh God, that watch is incredible. Yeah, yeah. And you know these are these are not watches that were necessarily um intended to be just dress watches. They were intended to be you know, chic does not restrict itself to formal situations or semi semi formal situations. Uh you know, chic can easily be, you know, a linen shirt on the beach uh, you know, and uh a gold tank on a crocodile strap. You know, I mean that's uh that's just as pure an expression of the kind of um easy elegance that I think the tank represents as wearing it with a you know, with a three piece suit. But that's not the way a lot of people who buy watches nowadays, you know, kind of roll. I mean, um you know, I think people are looking for it I mean well, you've said it. It's uh the the market for the last you know, ten or fifteen years has been strongly skewed towards stainless steel sports watches on bracelets, that's just the way it is. Um and Cardia does lots that they to do you know, today as in the past, they do lots of things other than watch making. But I think that their watches what their watches re |
| Stephen Pulvirent | present nobody else does as well as they do. Completely agree. And I say that as a as an owner of Cartier watches and you know, someone who has bought Cartier jewelry for my long suffering wife. Um, but uh yeah, it's uh, you know, Cartier does Cartier and it's unlike anything else. So maybe they don't get the same sort of like, you know, rabid large scale enthusiasm in the watch world, you know, the watch nerd world that, you know, something like Rolex or Omega might, you know, but uh I think there are people out there, in fact I know there are many people out there who love Cartier and Cartier is contributing something that that nobody else is contributing. They're they're doing their own thing and you know, I I for one am a big fan. Ye |
| Jack Forster | ah, I mean the modern the the asymmetrique that they just released this year, I I mean I I I know it's a bit expensive, but uh I died. I just died when I saw that one. S |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ame. All right. Jack, we're gonna do we're gonna do one more here and we're gonna finish off with something a little bit more philosophical. Hi, it's Richard Zee. I've been thinking a lot |
| Callers/Listeners | about Buddhism and watch collecting and how they're connected. Specifically, the concept of suffering as a collector and an enthusiast, um suffering occurs to me because I feel like I've never achieved uh watch nirvana. There's always another grail, uh there's always another upgrade. There's always um something else to collect and uh to become infatuated with. So my question is um, when do you actually achieve watch satisfaction? When is it okay just to sit with your collection and feel that you've arri This is supposed to be fun, it's supposed to be something that you enjoy and this feeling of constantly chasing uh the next great piece um feels like a mixed blessing to me. So I'd be curio |
| Stephen Pulvirent | us on your response. Thank you. Okay, this is this is a thing I personally struggle with a lot and I have a ton of thoughts on. But Jack, I want to get I want to get your take on this first. Where where are you at on this |
| Jack Forster | ? Well um I think this is I think this is an extremely interesting question, and I think that the answer probably varies with who you are. You know, the concept of suffering in um is j just to turn aside into the question of the concept of suffering in Buddhism for a second, so uh my understanding um as an occasional uh practitioner is that uh the the word suffering is actually not a great translation of the original um term in the Buddhist uh uh texts uh which is a little bit closer in sense to uh dissatisfaction uh which I think probably cuts a little bit closer to the whole question of what it is uh to be a collector because to be a collector is to actually exist I think in a in a certain kind And the the the cycle of uh desire, acquisition, satisfaction, and then the arising of additional desire from a Buddhist perspective, from a b Buddhist psychology perspective. This is merely uh something happening within a particular context that is in fact happening all the time anyway in absolutely every context we live with. This is sort of the nature of human psychology. And you know, from a Buddhist perspective you would relate this back uh to the concept of the four noble truths, which are the truth of suffering, uh the truth of the cause of suffering, the truth of the end of suffering, and the truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering. And unfortunately for the collector, the path, the truth that leads to the end of suffering, the path to the end of suffering, involves recognizing that everything takes place uh that all of these m manifestations of both of both aversion and desire uh take place with reference to the concept of the self. And when you stop playing that game entirely, then you no longer give rise to this activity no longer takes place. You just drop out of the whole game entirely. But the answer from a collector's standpoint, I think, is uh when am I going to stop wanting to add to my collection. Uh I enjoy collecting, I enjoy owning watches, but it feels like I keep acquiring and acquiring and acquiring and acquiring. And at some point, that becomes uh the least satisfying part of the activity. When do I get to just rest and enjoy what I'm doing? And the only time that that's ever happened to me completely, personally, was in collecting fountain pens. Uh I actually ended up with about sixty-five of them at one point and I thought to myself, well this is ridiculous. You're not actually you're not actu you're not actually enjoying them. You're not using them. You know, I wasn't enjoying having that many of that particular object anymore, even though taken individually a lot of them were beautiful objects. So I actually ended up getting rid of most of them. I ended up with I cut cut it down to about five. And that was about fifteen years ago. And you know, I'm sorry to say that I now have about forty again, which probably reflects poorly on my determination not to give rise to desire. Uh but uh yeah, i it I it de it depends on it depends on who you are. And um you know, we both know w uh collectors with wonderful, wonderful collections who seem to uh just they just enjoy the chase. And chase is not even the right word. They enjoy immersing themselves in a world of watches, some of which they may want more than others, and the process of acquisition at some point no longer becomes the most important part of the activity. Uh you know, once you sort of get the itch to acquire, acquire, acquire out of your system, then it becomes you start to move into a domain where it's more about appreciation and acquisition if it happens occasionally, you know, is great, but it's no longer the primary motivation for being involved in the hobby. I don't know. That was a that was a really long rambling ans |
| Stephen Pulvirent | wer. No, no, I think that's I think that's all really helpful and I think it's all in the in I think you and I have similar thinking here. I mean, you know, I've I've done a lot of thinking, and I think I've written about it a few times on the site kind of here and there, about the the idea of enjoying one's collect enjoying the existence of one's collection as opposed to the act of building one's collection. Um, and I think those are two different pleasures. And it sounds like, you know, from from the question, like maybe you're more stressed out about the acquisitions and want to try to find a way to enjoy the collection. And it's I think as simple as sort of like training yourself, which is is a tough thing in the watch world, to not believe that you have to own something to experience it. Um and and that's something that you, know J,ack and I are both in in very privileged positions where we get to see and handle watches all day, every day. Modern watch with vintage watches, you know, the highest end, rarest watches you can imagine down to like our own, you know, Seiko 5s and swatches and Timexes and things that you can buy on Amazon. Um and the ability to experience a watch, to see a watch, to handle a watch, to know someone who owns a watch can can be pleasurable in its own right um and and doesn't necessarily w require the act of of buying. You know, to connect this, you know, thinking about about Buddhism, you know, the the concept of of equanimity, I think is is something we can rely on a bit here, you know, and and in a slightly modified way. So don't don't at me or you know come, for me uh when you disagree with my interpretation of this here. Um or do, you know, I don't I don't really care. But um uh you know being able to say like okay I I see this watch I appreciate it uh I would love to own one, but I can let it go. And like acknowledging that you have the desire, acknowledging that desire and letting that desire move through you. You know, you d you don't have to fulfill every desire in order to have a fulfilling you know experience as a watch collector and watch enthusiast. I think I speak for both of us, Jack, when I say if if you and I felt like we needed to purchase and own every watch we encountered that like stirred feelings in us, like we would both be living on the streets and be extremely unhappy human beings. |
| Jack Forster | Yeah, you know the funny thing about um uh about desire is it's really bottomless, right? Um you know, there's just there's there's potentially no end to it. So, you know, if my if my watch budget l let's say hypothetically I uh had a you know, twenty five thousand dollar year watch budget uh and it went suddenly um you know, for reasons of great financial good fortune, you know, to five million dollars a year or uh you know fifty million dollars a year. I mean, you can always uh expand your appetites to fill your available uh budget. And you know, at some point, uh I think you're absolutely right. It becomes um it becomes much more much more enjoyable, much more pleasant to not feel as if you have to position yourself with respect to everything in terms of i is this something I want or is this something I don't want? And I think that I think that that particular thing, you know, that the that's a way in which discourse can go off the rails that really doesn't it doesn't have anything to do with budget. Um you know, I mean uh the question I think a lot of and it's a question I had to learn not to ask as somebody writing about watches. You know, I mean if I if the if the main thing in my mind when I wrote about watches was do I personally want this or not, I would be uh I think instantly become the world's most uh boring, uninteresting and irrelevant you know, watch writer there is. You know, the question for me is always, is this what does this watch want to be and how well does it succeed in doing it? And at that point, you're asking yourself really interesting questions about the intentions of designers and where a watch is located in the history of the brand, where it's located in the history of fine watchmaking. And it's just not about ownership anymore. And that doesn't mean that I don't see watches that I would like that I can't afford and don't sometimes go, uh gee, if only I had, you know, an extra hundred grand stuffed in the sofa cushions. But it's |
| Stephen Pulvirent | not the same thing which is to to answer these questions kind of like one after the other, you know, um when do you actually achieve watch satisfaction? When when you decide you've you've achieved watch satisfaction, it's a thing you have to kind of come to yourself. Um when is it okay to sit with your collection and and feel like you've arrived? Is it ever okay? Um I would say it's okay whenever you feel that way and it's also okay to vacillate. L youike can feel that way one day, feel like something's missing the next day, and then the day after that realize actually it's fine as it is, or maybe something else is is needed, or something needs to go. Maybe there's something in the collection that you don't get pleasure from. Um, I don't know. I mean, I would say, Jack, the same thing I think you and I tell most people, which is there are many ways to enjoy watches. Like there is no right or wrong way to enjoy this hobby like any hobby, and like as long as you're like you said, as long as you're having fun, like this is a great thing. This should be a thing that brings pleasure to your life. Um, and I know I've I've had to struggle with you know my you know, typical uh anxieties uh in the realm of watch collecting, but like when you can let those anxieties go and just enjoy it, it's a lot more it's a lot more fun that way. |
| Jack Forster | Yeah, and you know, one thing that I one thought that I'd sort of like to leave with too is uh it can be uh just as enjoyable to deacquisition stuff as to acquire stuff. You know, I mean uh when you you when you sit back and you take a look at a collection that you've been building and you say to yourself, wow, you know, uh over the last five, six years or whatever, you know, I've built up you know X number of these pieces and now that I see them all together I can re I'm really starting to understand what genuinely appeals to me and what I bought, you know, because somebody else told me they they thought I should or because it's a quote unquote, important watch and a ser serious a collector has to have one. And then you start getting you know you start uh letting go of things. I mean I'm not going all Marie Kondo on everybody, uh but uh you know uh it's uh uh you uh getting getting b the the op when when you start to deacquisition because you're motivated to really strip things down to essentials and uh have things uh uh or a relatively fewer number of things that you ha that you really can have an authentic and enduring connection to and that really do give you pleasure in an enduring and authentic way. I think that's a wonderful, wonderful thing |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . I think we'll leave it there. I think that's some good advice to end on. Thanks for doing this, Jack. Uh, I'm sure we will get more voicemails and I'm gonna be bringing you back on to answer more questions. But uh thanks for dropping knowledge as always. Been a pleasure. Thanks, Jack. Hey James, good to see you, man. Hey, good to see you. We've uh I think we've reached like peak quarantine at this point. Like this no longer feels not like real life. It it now feels like normal, no |
| James Stacey | ? Uh yeah, it's like kind of like a cloudy day that that goes for a long time. Yeah. Like way too long. Uh but yeah, I I think it this is definitely normal, you know, adapting to summer in this scenario is kind of weird. Um 'cause there's there's a lot you want to do and and the normal activities, the stuff that kind of like defines summer fun, like so much of it's just like crossed off until you know hopefully next summer. But we can still wear dive watches even if we're not doing much div |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ing. So thanks could be worse. That's very very true. We can wear dive watches and we can answer voicemails, right? Yeah, for sure. All right. Thanks for joining me here today to do this. I'm excited to see your answers or hear your answers to some of these questions. So let's jump right into it. Let's start with our first question, which comes from Napoleon S from Philly. Hey what's up, Hodinky fam. My name is Napoleon Suarez. |
| Callers/Listeners | I'm from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And from sounding muffled right now it's because I'm speaking through a mask. But I had a question for the for the people that hit the questions and uh but I watched the Talking Watches episodes, which of course I've seen them all. I've noticed that certain hosts have certain watches on their wrists when they're interviewing the guests. For example, Ben had on I think with the Patek when he was interviewing Way Colo. Uh Arthur had on uh Daytona when he was interviewing Ahmed Rahman and I think uh even had on a uh Pepsi when he was interviewing John Edelman. But I was curious on what level of I guess research goes into picking a watch, what things are considered when uh when when you guys are selecting which watches you should wear when interviewing guests on the talking watches episode. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Thanks and keep doing what you guys do. Yeah, I mean I have my own answer to this, but James, I w I wanna know your answer first |
| James Stacey | . Uh yeah, I mean the funny thing is I think I think that Napoleon will probably get significantly better answers from other people. Uh a lot of my talking watches stuff has been done when I was already on the road, so it was the question of whatever I already had, um, which generally is my explorer too, which popped up in some of the videos. And then with uh with Moki, because we were doing um and that this is Mokey Martin who uh had this amazing uh tutor and because he had a tutor on uh I actually s took Will's tutor, Will's our, you know, one of our main video guys, uh, you know, editorial, one of the editorial leaders at Hodinky, but he he has a, you know, a black bay 41 with the guilt dial on a brown leather strap and and I grabbed that because it just kind of fit the mood. I mean Moki's like pillar watch was this dope tutor, this dope old uh tutor that he bought uh from the mid-sixties and and I just thought it lined up kind of nicely. But for the most part it would be kind of whatever I have on. I mean I've only done a few uh TWs, so I I think probably yeah, uh either what I had, whatever I had in in on on wrist or in in maybe a watch pouch when I was traveling, but I haven't I haven't had the chance to like really cater one to someone's like specific collection |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. How about you? Yeah, I'm I'm kind of in the same boat, honestly. Um, you know, thinking about the ones I've hosted, most of them have been on the road or during some sort of like extended you know trip where we've been reporting a bunch of stories and talking watches is one of them. Um, but I do try to try to pick something that's gonna make the other person feel comfortable. I mean, I I don't know about you, I think for me the toughest part of talking watches and hosting talking watches isn't the watches. Like the watches are the easy part. Uh the hardest part is making sure that that person feels comfortable enough that they can open up and that they can share really personal stories often. And that it doesn't feel like they're like going down a list of their collection and just ticking boxes, but that they really feel like, you know, you're on the same page as them. So you know, and I did it with with Mark Hadawi who who's become a friend since you know I wore vintage Rolex. Like he's a diehard vintage Rolex guy. You know, I know he it wasn't in his episode, but he has a few uh explorers. So I wore my vintage explorer. I knew we'd we'd have a conversation about it before we started taping. So um that's usually my approach. But then, you know, I had the pleasure of hosting the episode with Renee Bayer. And like I wasn't gonna try. Yeah, like I'm not gonna try to |
| James Stacey | impress that's that's a joke. Just not a smart watch. Like just wear a real watch and and then you're it's pretty much good. Like he's seen it all there's not there's not a watch in the world that's gonna impress that dude. Uh exactly yeah I I feel you |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . So yeah, I don't know. I mean I think with talking watches for me more more important than picking what watch I'm gonna wear is trying to figure out like how I'm gonna get that conversation started and how I'm gonna make sure I mean these episodes, you know, come out anywhere from like ten to twenty minutes long, but we often record for forty, fifty minutes. And so you need to find a way to keep that person engaged and keep them excited and keep them wanting to like talk and tell stories and like you know kind of have fun with you for that time. Yeah. And so for me a lot of the prep is spent trying to figure out that stuff, not really worrying about like what what watch I'm gonna wear. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. And I I the one thing that I think that people don't necessarily consider is that these are very um a talking watches, like you said, is say forty or fifty minutes of tape that's usually condensed down, compressed, with a lot of editing and attention to detail and and what was actually interesting. And and then the other side of that is when you see other things where two people are sitting and talking that's been produced with video, usually all of those beats have been happening. Or uh usually all of those beats have been predetermined and mapped. If you've ever watched any late night show, there's nothing random that happens on any of them. So that they already know the beats. They know that if even if they have to say like, oh you know, I I heard that you have the thing about dogs, even if they hadn't just been speaking about dogs, like we're all just used to the fact that there's no real segue. But you can't do that to a person who you met five minutes ago in their living room and and you know, your your the your can of coke is still cold. Like you you you've literally just sat down and and it's kinda like, all right, go. Um, and and you're really a lot of it is just trying to like put the person to the point where they just feel comfortable to just kind of like say all the stuff that they've been saying about this watch or all their watches for twenty years and try and get them to to filter it down to like I said you know what ends up being really only a few minutes. And then the the other challenge and you know great gray's on the line uh gray lights likes to make me do the stand-ups uh which are the you know the the little intro today we're talking watches before and uh sometimes after the at the end of the video. Uh he likes to make me do those in like 105 degree days somewhere where it's really warm. So the goal is always to to can I can I do the the stand-up which, is like a memorized two sentence thing, really shouldn't be that hard. Sometimes it's a little easier, sometimes it's just ridiculously difficult. Uh but the you know the goal to do that before you're just you know, key and peel pouring with sweat is uh is is always a good one too |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Agreed. Yeah. Uh I like that you mentioned the the living room, right? Like I think that's another thing people don't realize and and they may realize it kind of on a surface level, but don't really think about it. Is like often when we're filming talking watches, we're in someone's home. And often they've corresponded with us via email and text and calls. Because we we do pre-produce these a little bit, but like, you know, you essentially have like four people show up at your house, sometimes five people show up at your house, you've got your like prized possessions spread out on your coffee table, and all of a sudden it's like there's four or five cameras trained on you and you have to talk for an hour. For people who don't do that professionally, like it's I think unnerving and it's tough. And you know, it's really our jobs to to make them feel okay and to make them feel like this is a thing they're happy to be doing, not something that's like they can't wait for us to leave. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, and and the I guess it's fair to say I shouldn't say that it's it's not that we don't know the beats or whatever. Like we know what watches they have and and Will's and Will and his team have definitely traded emails. I guess what I mean is like what makes these episodes is usually little anecdotes. And and if the person's too inside their head or I'm too inside my head, so I can't help them, like then you don't get those anecdotes. And so like it it it doesn't end up having any real like kind of friendly overtone to the scenario. And sometimes in other cases you can also know too much about the person. Uh like you can sit there and have you know three pages of a Google Tech stock rolling through your brain about all the stuff that David Robinson did and and all these kind of accolades, and none of them really apply to what he was there to necessarily talk about. The context is helpful, but like we're not gonna sit there and going over what it was like to be on the Dream Team. We're there to talk about watches. So |
| Stephen Pulvirent | all right. So so last question before we move on, because we could we could do this all day. But the last thing I want to ask you is if you could go back to one of your talking watches episodes and wear a different watch, which episode would it be? And what watch would you wear? And it it doesn't have to be a watch you own, but like which wat which episode do you think there was a perfect watch for |
| James Stacey | ? Uh yeah, I mean I think I I think none of them. I don't I don't. I would I think it would be fun to go back and r and just hang on, just keep wearing my polar explorer two in all of them so there's just just this one through line I could even maybe almost like I kind of always wear only one or two shirts uh that that I like that that kind of work and don't mess with the camera and that sort of thing. So yeah, I would probably just say in instead of grabbing Will's tutor, I it would be fun to just always to know that like this is my talking watch watch. I have it for all of them. Yeah. I dig that. How about you? What what would you uh maybe spin it |
| Stephen Pulvirent | up? Um I'm trying to think. You know what I might do? We'll go with a watch I own for the John Edelman episode. John is a huge Seiko guy, specifically like weird vintage Seiko. Uh and this past year, or most people listening probably know this, but I bought a vintage Grand Seiko on my first trip to Tokyo uh as kind of a little memento from that trip. Uh I would wear that. I think he'd get a real kick out of the story. He's obviously a big design guy. Uh and the design of this watch is just off the charts good. So I think he'd enjoy it and be a a fun little thing to talk about. For sure. Yeah. Good pick. Cool. So uh let's go to the next question. Hi, uh my name is PKK |
| Callers/Listeners | nine three one eightinky uh community username and uh my question was there seem to be a lot of new watch collectors in the market and they seem to be almost exclusively concentrating on new watches with no appreciation or interest in I would say collecting uh vintage watches. Is there any thoughts that you might have in terms of collectors how they can open up into the vintage market? Or uh is there what are your thoughts on people collecting only new watches in their catalog and uh have no vintage watches. I know Hudinky values vintage watches and do you feel that one needs to appreciate those uh to be a true watch con |
| Stephen Pulvirent | noisseur. Uh just wanted to know your thoughts. Thank you. So I'm gonna do I'm gonna do the same thing here, James. I know my answer, but I want to hear your answer first. Did you did you start with modern watches or vintage watches? I started with modern for sure. I |
| James Stacey | mean I think I think it's much more accessible. Um I I probably could have at the time I got into watches, which is maybe like let's call it like about 12 to thir yetearsen ago. Um, there was still a lot of information online about vintage, but none of it had it blown up like it has now. So I probably should have and very well could have started with vintage. But I got into being interested in watches because of things like you know Seiko Monsters and SKXs, like stuff you could buy that had like a known um quality threshold. You know, there's variances, of course, tiny variances in manufacturing, but like when you start to get into vintage, and I'm sure anyone who deals with this sort of thing, you really start to accept a much wider delta of what you may or may not be getting when that box arrives. And and of course that's why the idea of vintage dealers and and retailers and things like that are so crucial because those people are the funnels that that filter out the garbage. Um and once you're attached to that sort of a scenario, that I think, and I think that attachment can take some time. Um but I I've known people who got into vintage immediately because that's what their dad was into, and my dad's not really a watch guy, so I didn't have that impetus. But you know, they got it from their parents, and and so they came in with like um with like a built-in knowledge base, or or even just a set of expectations that are different than a new watch. Um to to PK's question, I I'm sorry I don't remember the number, but it was PK something or other. And um to his question, I do think that it's crucial to appreciate at least attempt or or experience as much of the watch world as possible. And if you're collector, like a collector proper, which I'm not, a capital C collector, I can't bel I you know, I can't imagine somebody would differentiate in any way between I've only collect new stuff, I only collect vintage stuff. My guess is it's an ebb and flow. You do vintage for a while and get to the point where like it's just not kind of scratching the same itch, or the prices got way too insane in the last few years, which means that must have h held a lot of people back. And then maybe you tilt over towards new. And and I know among a certain kind of type of buyer, the idea of having something ungettable like a a new uh BLRO or a Daytona or uh you know, uh a a Nautilus or something like that, i is kind of there's more clout to that than having a vintage watch that maybe three or four of the people in your friend group have owned before you before it got to you or left you. |
| Stephen Pulvirent | Yeah, that's a funny thing that you mentioned there. And it's kind of a tangent, but I think it's worth touching on, which is like the watch community is is relatively small, all things considered. And so like once you get to a certain level, it's it's not unusual to see somebody wearing, let's say, like a mill sub and you can like, it's not weird to know the last four or five owners, right? Like I've definitely seen watches where I'm like, oh, that's that's a really beautiful whatever. And the person who owns it says, like, oh yeah, I got it from so-and-so, who bought it from so-and-so three years ago, who got it from whoever. And you're right, I think there's a funny way in which these things kind of like circulate in the same community. So finding something truly unique is is in a funny way like harder. Well that's why the the one the one owner things become hu |
| James Stacey | ge. Yeah. So it w it hasn't been through the three dealers you know, it didn't you know it didn't come out of the circles that you're already aware of. You get something that's quote unquote Yeah. But what do you what do you figure as far as uh vintage goes? It's uh uh kind of a requisite as far as the understanding. Why do you think people are kind of leaning towards modern these days |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ? Yeah, I don't know. I mean I do think there's there's something to be said for what you mentioned, which is is prices have gotten a lot a lot higher. You you know, know. L Iike I first got into watches, you know, maybe nine years ago. Yeah, probably nine to ten years ago, and like really seriously about eight or nine years ago. Um and back then, like I could buy I had a choice of a lot of really cool vintage watches for about a thousand bucks, which is what I wanted to spend on my first like quote unquote nice watch. Uh and I bought a vintage pole router, and those are now at least double the price, if not more. Um, you know, you can still we've talked about it on this show before, but like you can still get a great old Seamaster. You can like there are great fines to be had for eight hundred bucks, a thousand bucks, fifteen hundred bucks. Um, but it's harder and there are fewer of them and there's more people like redialing and and kind of like bastardizing these watches, and so you really have to watch out for it. Yeah, I th I think you have to build up a bit a bit |
| James Stacey | of a s a thick skin to the idea that that like when you buy uh your first couple Seiko's or whatever, like I said, you know that you're not gonna be getting something that's like not the right dial or the wrong bracelet or being sold a lie in to some extent or a build upon story or something with too much paint on the markers or the rest of it. Bad case polishing the rest. Um and I I think once you kind of clear that maybe it's a first rung, or at least for me it was definitely first rung, the the the challenge of learning about the other stuff becomes like rewarding to know that you picked a good one or to have an interesting story about how you learned by getting burned with a bad one. I completely agree |
| Stephen Pulvirent | with you. I mean, I've I've bought I mean not a ton, probably somewhere between eight and ten vintage watches ever, which is like all things considered not a lot, especially for somebody like me who's who does this all day, every day. But but, you know, anything that I would say is like high-end, I've bought from somebody I know, from somebody I would consider a friend. Um anything like, you know, a little more affordable, I've I've tried some different places. I've gotten burned on eBay. I've had a huge score on eBay. Like I've done both. Um but I think you're right. Like there's one of the things with vintage that you get that you don't get with modern is there's that sort of like scholarship aspect to it. Uh, and so the watch can end up representing you know months or years of learning about something so that you could discern the right one. Yeah. Whereas with modern, like there's a lot of ways to enjoy a modern watch, but like you walk into a store, you buy it and you leave, and like that's kind of it to a certain extent |
| James Stacey | . I mean that's that's the thing where there's like there's a a whole um like pecking order for cars, right? And and kind of the more difficult, the more obscure, the more uh buried this vehicle's information and and ownership history and and the rest of it may well be, the more kind of a flex it is to say this is where I choose to put my money rather than walking into a dealership and buying something brand new. And maybe that reflects in in watches in the same way. I'm not entirely sure as I you know, I'm like I love vintage watches, but the by the time I had a knowledge that would apply to being able to even d pick one from the other, like a a tas taste, level ofte. They had been priced out of my world. So Ye |
| Stephen Pulvirent | ah. Yeah, I mean to to circle back just before we before we finish up this answer, you know, I I think to answer the question directly, I do think it's important for all watch collectors to at least try both, just because you won't know what you like. And, you know, for example, like personally, when I first got into watches, I hated Rolex. Like I just did not get it. It did not interest me. I thought the watches were like kind of ho-hum looking. They looked like to me what I thought a watch looked like. Like they felt generic. Um, and a lot of that was honestly, I I didn't understand it. Like I didn't I didn't know as much as I know now and I didn't know the history. I didn't understand the influence. I didn't understand I'd never had one of those watches on my wrist, you know. Um and I would say there's a lot to be gained, and this is I think solid advice for vintage or modern, there's so much to be gained from handling watches. So whether it's going to your AD, whether it's finding a local vintage dealer, whether it's talking to collector friends, going to meetups, whatever, just like the more watches you can handle modern and vintage, the better. Because you'll just, you'll understand what they feel like and what they're like on your wrist. And then you learn. And you know it's a constant iterative process. Yep, I agree. I can't put it better than that. On to the next question. On to the |
| James Stacey | next. Hey Hodinky Radio. My name |
| Callers/Listeners | is David Clint, uh D. Clint in the Hodinky community. I've been a fan for a long time. Um my question is more around watch journalism. Uh I run a blog in my spare time about watches just for fun and uh that actually led to me getting uh paid to contribute to another watch blog. And eventually I'd like to make that my my full time career. But I'm not really sure where to go from here. I'm not a classically trained journalist and you know is it just as simple as just continue to write more for the publication that's that's paying me or how do I go about acquiring more contributor gigs, |
| Stephen Pulvirent | expanding my knowledge, you know, good resources, et cetera. Thanks. I mean, James, there's nobody better to have on to answer this question probably than you since you did this, right? Yeah |
| James Stacey | , I mean uh it's a lot you will have to temper my answer by saying that like the the world of being a watch writer didn't fully exist when I started. Like there were definitely guys who've been doing it for books and for magazines, there was maybe one or two watch blogs at the time, but they were everyone's third kind of passion project. Um, you know, the the guy that originally hired me to write about watches was like a a software developer for Adobe uh in his day job, you know, his normal job. And he continued doing that after this website changed hands. You know, maybe about a decade ago, we started to see the rise of like professional watch blogging. Uh when blog of course like blogging blew up about a decade ago, that we can keep this answer the relatively short in terms of history. But uh in in my case, it was really just a question of like you you it comes in stages, but it's a question of always put in the work to try and make the best possible product. It's a little bit different now, where if you want to make your own thing, if you want to make the next big watch blog and have it be yours, every single thing that you do has to be better than what everyone else is putting out in the market. Um you can't have okay photography and a great perspective on a watch. You can't have amazing photography and no perspective on a watch. You can't have amazing photography and a really beautiful website and a nice store and some perspective on a watch, but then you know, no ability to reference how one brand connects with another one, uh, or competition, or an understanding of what people are interested in reading about. There's a certain like if you want to run it from the top, you have to have taste and skill and an incredible work work ethic, and you have to be ready to be faster than everyone else. And for what that costs you within your life. It's just like it's it's it's something that I think a lot of people kind of like glorify as probably being a really great job, and the actual work is really great, but it's also huge layers of hard work that build up the foundation that makes a hodinky possible. Um, and and then I think that the big thing is if is if you're if you would more like to develop like I did by moving from different blogs and and outlets and even different topics, whether it could be cars or watches or adventure travel or or whatever, um, I think it's just a question of continually working. Um a lot of it uh there isn't in any of these spaces, there aren't that many people that make the decisions about as to who pays you or who picks your work. Um so just deal with those people. If if you want to write about watches, offer to write things on spec. Uh I think is probably the easiest way to start. Find a busy editor at the site that you're working for and say like, hey, I I already have this story. It's mostly developed. I'd love you to take a look at it. And if you love it, put it on the site. And I would say start there, then once your name is out, uh, you can start being involved at press cycles. Um, in which case if you wanted to move from say one platform to another, one blog to another, one entity to another, you would take your own credibility kind of with you as a as a little a package that allows you to write for other people. The other thing I would say is if you if you would like to start earning money in this industry, look into white label opportunities. So those magazines that you see when you go into a retailer, someone has to write those. Uh go to the back of the magazine, look up the people who are managing the magazine, creating the magazine, those pe those things that are kind of like fake newspapers that you see at that retail environments, someone has to write all of that as well. It pays nicely. You can absolutely supplement learning and supporting your own site by by doing white label sort of work. And then there's also a whole branch of kind of watch writing that's that's getting into writing press releases. And that could be for brands you've never heard of, the brands that are in Kickstarter, all the way up to huge brands that just don't manage all of it inside or are tired of uh you know assigning press releases to PR teams that maybe don't even understand watches that well. So some of the writing doesn't end up making any sense |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . To be to be honest, I don't have a whole ton of a lot to add to that. That is all really solid advice. Um I would |
| James Stacey | also say just be prepared for it to take a really long time. You know, for me it it was was it was ten years of essentially being my main hobby, my main pastime, my main thing I did with any of my free time. And only in the last two years was it something where I could say, like, this is what I do at a professional level? This is what supports my my living and my family and the rest of it. So it's it can be a slow burn. Certainly, other people come up, but if you pick pick the route you're going and you need to make sure you are the best, or at least endeavoring to be the best with every single thing you do. Um so if you do YouTube, study, find out what everyone else is already doing, and then do it better. Um and and the other thing I would say is to anyone listening to this, whether you want to write about watches or cars or anything else, um, learn to write quickly and clean. It makes editors like you more. Especially clean. Uh timelines are typically are pretty bendable. A lot of these sites, like people will tell you that you have a deadline and I'll always make your deadlines. But make sure that when you do it, you submit something that's readable that they can use. And then the other things I would suggest is learn um like actively as in seek seek out uh tutors or study classes or whatever, uh Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, and Lightroom. Those will be your friends. Those are skills that will transfer into every generation of the work that you do. And whether you start in writing and move to video, being able to say, like, no, no, I already know Adobe. Even if it's not something that you do that commonly, just being able to even interface with editors raises the bar a little bit. And that's something you can learn from home. You could learn from your lunch break at work. There's tons of YouTube opportunities and then of course you can pay a little bit of money and go into Skillshare and get uh a more kind of directed uh school-like approach to learning those tools |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . That is super solid, my friend. I I mean the only the only two things I have to add to that at all are uh I would say whatever whatever field you want to be in, whatever approach you want to do to this, there's there's two pieces of advice I'll add. One is show up to everything. If you get invited to something or if you have the opportunity to go to something, whether it's a meetup, an event at a brand boutique, a I don't know what, uh, show up, meet people, uh, be nice. Um, just like it goes such a long way in any industry that you're covering to have people know you and like you. Um it's it's really everything is is kind of access based and you know if you're a part of the community, you will get that access. And if you're not, you just won't. You just won't hear about things. You won't know what's going on. You won't build that kind of foundation of connections. Um and that again holds true in watches outside of watches. Um and then the other thing is is again whether you're writing, producing video, shooting pictures, uh do it a ton. Do it until you think you've done enough and then do 20% more. You know, you you will only hone these crafts and these skills by doing them constantly. And like if you look back every six months at the work you did six months ago and say, geez, I'm so embarrassed by that. I could have done so much better. Like that's a good thing. You know, that means you're growing and it means you're evolving. Absolutely. And that will only happen through uh through repetition. So uh I think you know, before I started writing professionally at all, I'd been, you know, keeping a blog, you know, three to five times a week for years. Um, and I honestly don't think if I hadn't done all of that writing that basically nobody saw, uh, I don't think I would have been ready to to write for a magazine. I just don't think I I think the stuff I would have turned into my editor to your point, James, would have been a disaster. You know, I would I would not have wanted to edit 20 year old me, you know? For sure. Um it would have been a mess. But uh cool. I think that's yeah, seriously. Good luck and uh you know, if you get to do to see you soon. All right, so up next we've got a question that I think a lot of people are probably wondering about and it comes Hi, this is Jeff D. I' |
| Callers/Listeners | m calling from Chicago, Illinois. I've been following you guys back since uh Ben was curating watch sales for guilt back uh about ten years ago. And my question relates to Rolex. In the past, I've heard you guys talk about how Rolex views its greatest competitor as itself uh in reference to the vintage Rolex market. And so I'm wondering why Rolex doesn't come out with vintage reissues like Omega and Langines have done and try to take advantage |
| Stephen Pulvirent | of that extra market share. Thanks, guys. I mean, this is one that we get asked I think all the time. Like everybody wants to know everything about Rolex. And first of all, I just want to preface this with s by saying everybody assumes that we have some sort of like secret inside knowledge of how Rolex operates, which like James, the fact that you're laughing immediately as I say that tells tells everybody everything. Like we don't we don't know anything. Like Rolex is a black box. And we know I would say more than the average like walks by a Rolex store consumer, but like not that much more. Like the scene at the start really 2001. Theopolis. Yeah. Exactly. It's exactly like that. Sometimes a watch comes out. Sometimes, and other times it just screams at you. Like you have you have no idea. Uh so I I I just preface I I I want to add this preface just to say like I have no clue why Rolex does or doesn't do anything. Uh I can guess, uh, but I I like I don't even have it on like good authority from an unnamed source inside Rolex. They don't do that. That's just not how they operate. But uh yeah, with that preface, like |
| James Stacey | what what are your thoughts, James? I mean, I'm my guess is it's they don't have to because they have Tutor. Uh you know, obvio theyusly they've they've've funneled an incredible amount of money and research and development and the rest of it into making Tutor uh largely a vintage inspired brand. Not just vintage inspired line, right? But like the whole brand, as far as it's since its US relaunch and the black bays, the heritage chronos, et cetera, is a vintage-based brand. And I think um maybe it would be different if Tudor hadn't hadn't stuck around through the quartz crisis and the rest of it and Rolex was on their own and maybe we would see throwback submariners. Uh but I I think the way that Rolex operates is a lot like um uh is a lot like uh like a Porsche. Like make the new one. The old ones already exist. We understand people like one. Our job is to make the new one. Um right and to make the best thing they can make, right? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So I think I think they're there it's a research, it's technology. I think they understand and and they appreciate the existence of the love of that people have for their for their vintage models. But I think that they're really wise enough and kind of on a on a long enough perspective to just see that what makes sense to be Rolex is to be the same Rolex that existed in 1950, but today. And Rolex in 1950 wasn't making throwback models |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . I couldn't say it better myself. I think that's probably the right answer and honestly I think it's the only answer we got, right? Tudor. Yeah. Alright, so we got we got time for one more and then I think we gotta bail here, but uh this last question comes to |
| Callers/Listeners | Hi Stephen, my name is Steve Kay. I'm calling from Massachusetts. And my question has to do with flipping and keeping watches. My question for you is how do you discern between a watch that you're really attracted to and a watch that you think you're going to be able to keep for life. We're all attracted to so many watches. And one of the diseases with the hobby is buying watches and flipping them. And I'm wondering if you have a particular technique or style that helps you to evaluate which watches are gonna be those that you can keep. Thanks aga |
| Stephen Pulvirent | in. Appreciate it and have a good day. This is something I think about way too much, actually. Um, you know, I I as my watch collection has grown. Like you, James, I I don't really think of myself as a a collector with a capital C. Like I'd much rather have a a sort of tight, small collection of watches, all of which I wear on a regular basis and really enjoy, than to have sort of a sprawling collection. So I I'm always thinking about what can come out when things come in. Um and yeah I, think for me it's it's a lot about thinking before I buy something about like am I buying this because it's attractive to me and I like the idea of having it, or do I like the idea of wearing it and using it and do I think it fills a void? You know, I I'm very lucky that like at this point there's there's no world in which I need any more watches. Uh however, like, you know, until maybe a year ago, I didn't really own a modern high end sport watch. Like I just didn't. I own vintage sport watches and I owned a couple modern watches that were on the dressier side. So like I saw a need, I filled it, and now I wear those watches quite a bit. Um but I think it's it's also, you know, in addition to practicality, it's it's about emotions. Like I find the watches that I've bought to commemorate something or the watches that um you know I bought because there's a memory tied to it or it means something to me or I know the people at the brand or the people who make it in some cases. Those are the things that I don't ever expect to leave my collection, you know. Um I think like you know, the Grand Seiko I've I've already mentioned on this show that I bought when I went to Tokyo for the first time. Like I've wanted to go to Tokyo since I was a kid, literally, like since I was in high school taking Japanese classes. Like I wanted to go. And I made it and I bought a watch. And that's that's not going anywhere. You know, there's there's lots of things I would sell before that. Um so yeah, I mean that the simple answer to kind of wrap up all of this rambling, uh, Steve, is uh I think there's a difference between being attracted to the watch and being attracted to the thing the watch represents. The latter is much stickier for me. I don't think that's necessarily the same for everybody. But for me, that's that's kind of how I weigh weigh the value in my collection and and what's what's there forever and what maybe is is just making a stopover |
| James Stacey | . I I guess I don't think of it as being one or the other. I I'll pick a watch and then if it some of them just never leave. Um I wear them a lot, I enjoy them a lot, they're then with me through experiences and then they become more more important to me. It's it's kind of you know, th this sounds kind of ridiculous and and uh you know almost childish, but it's it's like people in your life. You know, you meet people, you d I don't think you necessarily plan on meeting them, maybe they have attractive qualities, personality, et cetera. Um, and then some stick around and some don't. And you know, the it's the folks that you actually text and try and meet up for dinner, or or maybe it's this is someone you're dating and then later later you get married, it's that sort of like this it's this kind of natural progression. And I I pick watches based on watches that I think will make me happy. And then if I just don't really wear them, I get rid of them. And Steve, if you're looking for some sort of a trick to decide about a watch you have if it should stay or it should go. The only one I found is one that I I found a watch you see a decade ago was called like the box trick, and the guy would just put the watch back in its box, put it on a shelf or in a closet, and then just see until his brain was like, oh, I'd really like to I'd like to wear that one again. And if it didn't for a certain amount of time, uh he would get rid of it. And and I've done that before, where I I put something away in in one of my cabinets and uh you know si,x months later somebody references the watch in a conversation and go like, I have one of those. I don't need that, I guess. You know, it for me, I just like I want the watch, I want to put the watch on and feel whatever that feeling is, whatever that that buzz is that you get from the watch and its memories and everything else. Yeah. And uh some do that and some don't and if they don't, they gotta go |
| Stephen Pulvirent | . Yeah. That's good. I like the idea of it being like a buzz, right? It's it's uh almost like a you know, Marie Kondo situation, right? Like if you pick the watch up and it makes you and it makes you feel something, should probably hold on to it. If you pick the watch up and you say, This is a beautiful watch, but I could take it or leave it, maybe clear it out, maybe find something new, because there probably is something out there that will will give you that buzz, right? Yeah, I agree. And and there's a lot of metrics. None of them are really easy, but there's a lot of metrics to sell a watch now. Yeah, that's true. So it's probably that's probably a conversation for another time, but it's definitely something we should Complicated but possible. Yeah. Uh thanks for joining me, man. This was good. I think we're gonna have a lot more voicemails to go through uh. Yeah, thanks for all the questions, everybody. Uh yeah, thanks everybody, and you know keep keep the questions coming. Check out the show notes. We'll have uh the phone number in there so that you can dial in and leave us more voicemails. Awesome. Thanks, James. Thank you. Catch you soon. This week's episode was recorded remotely by our group of editors and was produced and edited by Grayson Corhonin. 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 next week. |