The Grey NATO – 344 – Forgotten Watches We Still Love
Published on Thu, 11 Sep 2025 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis
In this episode of The Greynado (#344), hosts Jason Heaton and James Stacey discuss forgotten but beloved watch references from the late 1990s and early 2000s. They start with some housekeeping about the upcoming Toronto Timepiece Show and merchandise updates, then Jason shares a story about chauffeuring a wedding couple in his Land Rover. The main discussion focuses on interesting but discontinued watches from brands like Blancpain, IWC, Tudor, Girard Perregaux, and others. They reminisce about unique complications, design elements, and innovations from that era that are no longer common in modern watches, noting how many of these pieces are now available at relatively affordable prices. The episode concludes with final notes about Blancpain's latest diving expedition video and the new TV series "Alien Earth."
The hosts reflect on how this period represented a more experimental time in watchmaking, before the industry's heavy focus on vintage-inspired designs. They discuss specific models like the IWC GST Perpetual Calendar, Breitling B1 UTC, and various JLC Master Compressor models, examining how these watches represented innovative approaches to sport watch design that have largely disappeared from current collections.
Links
Transcript
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| Jason Heaton | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Greynado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 344 and it's proudly brought to you by the always-growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support, and if you'd like to support the show, please visit thegreynado.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co-host, James Stacey. James, it's been a couple of weeks since we recorded, since we kind of did some reconfiguring to accommodate the Labor Day holiday here in the U.S. How have you been? |
| James Stacey | Yeah, just fine. Just kind of hanging out, doing a lot of 3D printing, getting back into kind of the swing of the day job with Hodinkee as my sort of paternity leave has ended. You know, kids back in school. It's been a busy like 10 days or whatever, but it's been pretty good. You want to kick it off with a little bit of housekeeping and then we can get into some more chitchat because you have a pretty fun story that you sent me some photos. I'm pumped to share that with the audience. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, sure. Well, we are closing in on the Toronto timepiece show in a little over two weeks now. I'm excited to head up north of the border and hang out with you and do all the fun festivities that are going along with the show. Where are we at with the marathon party RSVP list? Is it full yet? |
| James Stacey | You know, I think we've got two or three slots left and even that might be negotiable. So if you do go to RSVP, the link is in the show. If you happen to go and it says you can't, just send me an email and say, you know, maybe just put waitlist in the subject. And that way I can filter them and make sure that people who would like to make it but haven't RSVP'd early enough. We would have a slot. And then if we decide to open up more options, I can reply with the link, which should be easy enough. But beyond that, we also have a continued call for sending in your questions for a future Q&A episode. We should start recording those probably in the next few days here. So expect to see that by mid-September as we start to crank out some of those to catch up. from the summer sort of slowdown. But if you have a question for us, you can record it into the voice memo app on your phone and then send it to thegraynado at gmail.com. We have a ton of questions. I listened to a handful of them the other evening. Super fun. I'm really excited to get into those. And then finally, for those of you who are asking for an update, we do have our fall merch collection. I am wearing one of the samples as we speak. So I'm not super happy with the placement of a certain design. So that will be tweaked before we finalize it. But we have some fun stuff in there if you're waiting on things like hats, new t-shirts. And there's a surprise one or two things that I came up with that I'm pretty pumped about. And we worked with an incredible designer from the Slack group. I don't want to blow his cover at this time, but we will when we launch. He did an incredible job kind of bringing some of the the tgn superlatives into a more of a visual form so i'm pretty excited about that and i would think before the end of the month maybe even around the toronto time p show we should be able to uh to launch those links i think we're just waiting for a few samples to arrive both for jason and for myself |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, this is a fun one. I think people will be a bit surprised and kind of excited by this because these are some designs that kind of stretch a little bit. We're getting a little bit outside of kind of just tweaking the logo a little bit on some of our stuff and it's going to be some really fun. Not to mention the types of products as well. I think that the one you specifically mentioned is going to be one that surprises people and it's really fun. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, when I realized it was an option, I went, well, I wonder. I took a bunch of Photoshopping to make sure the file size was right, but I think it could be kind of a cool thing and a nice thing for the fall, winter, which could be cool. But yeah, stay tuned for all that kind of stuff. The Q&As and the merch should hit in September, in this month, so that should be great. And we're looking forward to seeing everybody who can make it at the marathon party. So RSVP if you'd like. Jason, why don't you kick it off with what you got up to this weekend? Because it's a fun story and some great images that you shared on Instagram. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, it came about in a really fun way. I got an email a couple of months ago from a TGN listener named John, and he copied his fiancee, Anna, and they had plans to get married. Gosh, we're recording this on September 9th. They got married on the 6th, so it was this past Saturday here in Minneapolis. Anna is from a suburb of Minneapolis, and John is from the New Jersey area. and they had their wedding on a beautiful Saturday here, and they had asked me a couple of months ago that the title of the email was a very odd request. And basically what they asked me to do was to be a chauffeur to drive them from the wedding to their reception, from the ceremony, downtown Minneapolis at the big Catholic Basilica, beautiful building right downtown, to the reception at a country club in a suburb called Edina here. Specifically, they wanted me to do it in the open top 1976 Land Rover Series 3 that I have, which was a little daunting. I said, yes, I'll do it. But, you know, it's an old vehicle. It's loud. It, you know. Exhaust smells a bit. There are sharp corners you can catch a wedding dress on. And then there's the whole matter of the fact that it doesn't have a roof. And the weather can be a little capricious here in September. But I'm happy to say it really came off really well. And it all turned out really well. I wasn't at the ceremony, but as I said, it was in this beautiful church. And I got there and parked outside in front. Kind of got there between downpours. It was fortuitous timing. Um, because it was raining just as, uh, I got close to the, the Basilica and, um, kind of had to hide out under a bridge for a little while till it passed and then parked and the sun came out and they came down the steps, climbed in the back, the photographer jumped in the passenger seat and we drove, uh, it was about a 15 minute drive to, to the reception. Um, and it was just, it was beautiful. It was, it was really, really fun. And, uh, my girlfriend, Christie was able to come along for the drive down there. And then she rode with the wedding planner to the reception. And then we were invited to hang out for cocktail hour at the, at the country club. And that was really fun to kind of, to, to see the, it was quite a big wedding. There were a lot of people there and it was in a beautiful location and, and you know, the weather opened up beautifully and it was just fun. It was such a unique opportunity. And I think, you know, this might be a side hustle for me. I told the, I told the wedding planner, like if you have future, future need for kind of a rustic, uh, open top vehicle for, for any weddings, uh, let me know. So who knows? We'll see. It's, uh, it was a lot of fun and some great photos were taken. Um, this, uh, fairly well-known wedding photographer here in town, Liz Banfield, um, was along for the ride and she was shooting on a, on a contacts, a medium format, um, film camera, as well as digital. And she posted some stuff right away on her Instagram. And I kind of reposted that on my stories and I'll probably do an actual post on Instagram as well. So people can kind of scroll through and see kind of the whole the whole thing but um i gotta thank john and anna for for asking me to do this i you know i had my a bit of trepidation going into it but it came off really well and i had a i had a blast and and all reports from them was that they enjoyed it too so It was a really great time. And the fact that it came via again, like so many things through a TGN connection, made it really special. And in fact, I want to congratulate them publicly here on the show because they wrote me just yesterday and said that they'll be listening to the show as they're driving through Italy on their honeymoon. So John and Anna, congratulations. It was great. Really good time. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, that's a nice use. I wouldn't be surprised if you get some calls about that, especially for the wedding would be one thing. And yeah, even with my considerably more modern Jeep, I'd be worried about oil or rust stains. On a dress. But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if you maybe heard from folks doing engagement photos and that sort of thing. It's sort of a nice little set piece and it's so kind of cute and lovable and the color's great and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, that's very cool. And like we said, congratulations to John and I hope Italy's amazing. Yeah, yeah. What a fun thing to be asked and to be able to say yes to, I guess, both. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah, it was great. And for years I've thought, you know, I could maybe put it out there for, you know, photo shoots for, you know, I mean, let's face it, Land Rovers seem to be like obligatory in like outdoor gear photo shoots or, you know, anything requiring something that's supposed to look adventurous. And I thought, like, how would I get into that? Well, now I've got... Got a couple of portfolio photos for old Giles, the Series 3. See if we can get a couple of new gigs and make that a little side hustle. Super fun. |
| James Stacey | The more modern one would give you a white play as well, which could work for the right sort of weather. |
| Jason Heaton | What's the term? I think you mentioned it a few episodes ago when we were talking about cars. Looks good from a distance, but not up close. 2020. |
| James Stacey | 20 feet or 20 miles an hour. |
| Jason Heaton | Exactly. |
| James Stacey | I mean, to be fair, 2020 is not bad for a Land Rover. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I want to hear something about a little bit about the 3D printing, because I was curious, like, would it be possible for you to 3D print a watch case that would fit like a Seiko movement in it? I mean, is that something you aspire to or could see doing? |
| James Stacey | I think you probably could. Making the file might be a little bit more difficult, but I think you probably could. I don't know if you could with my printer or with the stock nozzle I'm using is 0.4 millimeters. I have a 0.2 as well, just to kind of mess around with. Hmm. But I wouldn't be surprised if you could or if you could at least start and then there might be some fine-tuning that would need to be – like it might be a case and a movement holder kind of printed separately. Oh, yeah. I could see that being definitely possible. It's something to look into. I hadn't even thought of like being able to print a case that you could then put a movement in and throw some hands on and go that direction. That's kind of interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I've I've mostly been printing like just kind of random stuff around the house. I printed some, you know, little toys sort of things for the my daughters. And and I printed myself like a plastic like balisong, like a butterfly knife. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, yeah. |
| James Stacey | That you can kind of like fidget with and flip around. And one of my daughters took that from me. It's kind of wild because you can kind of Google a product and see if somebody's made a solution for it. So like, you know, for years I've recorded the show on a Podtrack P4 from Zoom. Yeah. And the PodTrak P4 is quite a nice recorder and it has a little LCD screen on it. But, you know, it sits flat on the table and you can't really see the screen. So if there's an error in the recording, I don't see that unless I'm picking it up and making sure to check it. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And for a while I had it mounted into like a kind of kludgy small rig arm that would allow me to see it. But it turns out someone just made a stand for the pod track. So for, I don't know, maybe a dollar, two dollars worth of filament, I printed one and that's what I'm looking at it right now. It's gray. It matches the housing. It looks very cool. And I like that. And then I'm a huge fan of like the Ikea SCADIS pegboard kind of system. And I have a wall of it in my office. And man, the SCADIS options are almost unlimited. I found like specific ones for my brand of like Vernier calipers. I've got, you know, my headphones hung up. I've got these little bins printed that, you know, hold pens and pencils and micro screwdrivers and stuff like that. So that's been really, really fun. And then even just randomly, I was like, you know, it'd be interesting if I could get something that would hold the portafilter and wand handle for my espresso machine. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And I was like, maybe this is a scenario where I could find someone's design and then modify it. And it turns out, no, I didn't even have to do that. I just like searched my espresso machine and someone had made one that hangs the... portafilter on the side of the machine it's awesome wow yeah so that was you know 40 cents or something and i've got a little a little stand a little bit of double-sided tape keeps it in place so yeah i'm so far i'm really enjoying it and the daughters are loving it because they can sit on the like bamboo app and and look through all sorts of like stuff for their halloween costumes and weird toys and stuff like that so it's been great so far really really fun I'll print you something when you come up. We'll find something that you absolutely must have. I'll start searching out Land Rover bits. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, yeah? Oh, okay. All right. Who knows? All right. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. All right. Cool. But yeah, that's been a lot of fun. And other than that, I haven't been up to a ton. Just kind of, like I said, getting back into the swing of things with work. And we launched the first episode of The Business of Watches with Andy Hoffman. which I'm incredibly proud of, of Andy specifically, for putting it together. And now we've got, you know, I've had a peek at the second episode, and it's going to be great. So that's a couple times a month. It's nice and busy. We've got a lot kind of in the hopper for the year. And, you know, I had my break, and now it's time to jump back on the throttle and get as much done before. I mean, we're going to blink. It's going to be Christmas break. So that's how it goes. |
| Jason Heaton | Well, you kind of timed your return well because it does have that sort of back to school knuckle down and get busy sort of thing. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, the goal was, at least in past years, certainly throughout the pandemic, August was the slow month. Most of Switzerland was on vacation. Man, it's not like that anymore. I left my team kind of in a bit of a lurch with the workload that they had to kind of cover. So it's good to be back. It's good to be cranking on some stuff. I'm happy to see some new stuff coming out. And and the audience is responding. So we're super happy about that. And and then as far as TGN goes, man, it's just feels like we've been talking a lot about the Toronto Timepiece show. And now I'm looking at it and I go like, oh, man, I need to I need to get a couple of things done. I need a haircut. Yeah, I need I'm going for a suit fitting this afternoon. Wow. To make sure I mean, this is more broadly, I just needed a suit that fit. Having lost some weight, nothing, nothing I had from the pandemic fits me. And yeah, so that's been good. But look, we've got a really fun topic that has kind of been mulling around in my head, and I'll explain why in a moment. But why don't we kick it off with a bit of risk check? You've got something interesting on risk today? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, actually, for about the past, I don't know, five, six days, I've been wearing the 1954 Breitling Navitimer and on a bun strap. It's kind of where I keep it. But I haven't pulled this watch out since before summer. I mean, I think most people will relate the fact that, you know, old old chronographs on leather are kind of more of a fall, winter, spring sort of thing. It's summer's hot and humid weather. you're in and out of water it's raining a lot it's uh humid um just doesn't seem to go well not to mention the kind of the clothing options that you tend to wear in the fall and look fall kind of came a bit early i mean we had um about a week ago it got quite chilly here like into the 40s fahrenheit at night um you know the dog walks in the morning were you know fleece jacket time um which i have to say it wasn't unwelcome i mean i sort of like this time of year when you get this little bit of a sneak peek at fall but then you return like today it's warm again so it's kind of you you kind of lurch back into summer and that's that feels good for a few weeks but uh i kind of enjoyed pulling out a sweater and strapping on the navitimer so That's what I've been wearing and it's as beautiful as ever. I think it just keeps such great time for a 70-year-old watch and the chronograph works well. So yeah, it's great. And you're wearing something old today. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, yeah. Mine's a little on the older side. I agree. This is just that time of year where suddenly my vintage watches kind of go, hey, what about us? Yeah. But yeah, today, especially with the topic, which we'll get to in just a moment, with our main topic being kind of focusing on some forgotten, interesting references that we still love. I grabbed the Buren Minstop. It's a watch that I absolutely adore. I don't wear it a ton, but when I do, I enjoy it the same way every time, which is why it's still kind of in the watch box. I'll include a link to a story I wrote about it several years ago shortly after getting it, and I got this from Retro Watch Guy. Jordan, if you're listening, hope you're well. And he even eventually sourced a really suitable bracelet for it. So it's this gold tone, kind of very strange 70s parking meter chronograph. But it's not really a chronograph. It runs all the time. So you basically just zero it when you want to measure something, which I find kind of delightful and simple and useful. And people called them like parking meter timers and that sort of thing back in the day. You do see these in various versions, but I've never come across another one quite like this. It's all gold. It's all sort of a yellow gold finish, including the dial with black markings. It's quite handsome. So that's what I've got on. It's this time of year where suddenly I'm wearing that. I'm wearing the chronograph Swiss. I'm wearing the old Sylvania skin diver and that sort of thing. So it's always fun. And these watches all look incredible with a nice beefy sweater. Yeah, for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. As a small aside, there's a sauna that parks up by the lake down the street here. With the cooler weather, it kind of felt like, okay, let's book a sauna session. We did that. It's very hot inside. It was 180 degrees Fahrenheit inside. Then there's the lake right there, which is cooling off rapidly with the change in weather. Um, so you go from the sauna to the lake and back and forth cause it's an 80 minute sauna session. And, you know, most people say don't wear a watch in a sauna, but I always like to test that a little bit. So instead of wearing the Navitimer, obviously, um, I, I wore the green abyss, the blunt pen swatch. um which doesn't have a screw down crown but it's rated for 50 fathoms you know 91 meters it has the moisture indicator on the dial and i thought if this thing gets a little moisture inside and i realize this is a first world problem you know whatever you know it's a quote unquote cheap watch you know whatever 400 but i thought right could be kind of interesting like if if i take this from hot sauna to cold lake and back and forth like if if any moisture does get inside i'll know it because that moisture indicator on the dial apparently is Legitimate. Apparently it works. So nothing happened. The watch is fine. But I just wanted to let people know that I was actually doing some real-world testing with this watch. |
| James Stacey | Nice. Yeah, that's awesome. |
| Jason Heaton | All right. Main topic time. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, let's get into it. It's kind of a neat idea, and it's these watches that... We really like, but they're kind of forgotten, whether they didn't find a hold or their timing was poor or they had sort of an era and then the brand moved on. But they're watches that, like, when you see them pop up on, you know, BST on the Slack or in a search on Watch Recon, you kind of go like, oh, I should take a quick screen cap or grab the link and I'll send it to Jason or another watch buddy and that sort of thing. And I think there's a lot of these watches where you go like, I kind of... would like to own one of these one day, even if they're not that popular. Or in some cases, even if they don't exist for a good reason, like they had no real audience, which could be because they were egregiously expensive or too strange, right? But there are a lot of these watches. And what really kicked off the idea to turn it into an episode, I have to give a shout out to the TGN Slack user, Dan Q. because he had posted that he was always kind of enamored or interested in some way by the 50 Fathoms, but didn't realize that in a previous sort of era of the 50 Fathoms, they did these kind of a little bit more strange, less conventional GMT models that have like a relief steel bezel. And yeah, those are cool watches. I think it kind of gives us a nice kind of starting point. For like, you know, if this was a watch made today, I think you'd go, wow, this is really long in the tooth. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And a little dated and doesn't really match the current strategy. But then you look at it just in a vacuum of like, you know, from the mid 2000s or maybe a little earlier for that reference. Pretty cool thing, right? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. This was from that era when I think Bivera was overseeing Blancpain and he was just kind of thinking about bringing back. They did this sort of trilogy thing back. you know I think it was like the I don't know what it would have been the 40th anniversary of the 50 fathoms or something back in the 90s I think it was and it kind of like kind of still has the same dial you know look as the as the current one yeah that bezel just makes it of a certain era that you just don't see anymore |
| James Stacey | Yeah, you know, these are still available for, I'm looking at one on Chrono24 for $6,500 Canadian dollars. You know, it's old enough that the markings on the dial have tanned out a little bit. The hands are either replacement or don't age the same way. And you've got kind of this big, chunky, 24-hour relief-style bezel. So more like what you'd see on a Yacht-Master, if that's a faster way of explaining where you have these big, polished numerals. uh for the 24 hour and it's otherwise looks a lot like a 50 fathoms it has the two segment dial it has the the applied markers the 12369 arabic markers it has a little date tucked away at 430 and then you've got you know just says gmt 300 meters 1,000 feet. So yeah, I think these are very cool. Every time I see them, I go like, hey, is that in my price point? And it's not, to be fair. I don't want one bad enough to make that price work. But man, it did kind of kick off a big list of watches. So I don't know. I have no order for mine. Yeah, me neither. Maybe we jump right to IWC because we do kind of talk about these, you know, maybe every... 5, 10 episodes. Yeah. Our love of the GST or the previous, we'll now call it two generations back on the AquaTimer. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And, you know, I think a lot of these have aged really well. I don't know. Do you think they would work in today's lineup? Like if the GST just came back, it would have to be updated in some way. |
| Jason Heaton | This is my favorite era of IWC. When we started cooking up this topic and started making our lists, this came to mind immediately. And I guess before I jump into this one, I will just say that this entire list, as I look down it, it gives me this warmth of nostalgia for the earliest days of my watch enthusiasm, you know, when we were kind of probably both denizens of the forums and, you know, just kind of learning about all these watches and a few of them I owned, a lot of them I wrote up for gear patrol or for Houdinki or revolution back in the day. And almost all of them without exception were from that. |
| James Stacey | early 2000s time frame which is uh which is really kind of fun to kind of revisit yeah like gst or just after yeah exactly right i think it is fair to highlight a lot of these are going to come from like a sweet spot of maybe like 97 to 2007 yeah which is really when when jason and i would have been diving in more deeply into like really like a deep love of like you and i did kind of start our fascination at a similar era we didn't know each other at the time yeah I guess for my pick for the IWC, if I had to pick one that I kind of think they could just make it again, it would be the Ocean 2000. So the IW353804. Yeah. This is a titanium dive watch with an internal re-up. I think it's kind of like a bridge between... the GST format and even a little bit of the, the sort of, um, iconography of like Porsche design and that era with where, where the Aqua timer went just after that with the Galapagos additions and the larger cases and, and that sort of thing. And in my mind, this captures some of what we saw in like the deep one, but in, in a more conventional watch that doesn't have the, the extreme complication. I just think these have aged so well, 42 millimeters titanium. I really like them on the rubber, um, The internal re-up, so you get a, it's a black, white, yellow sort of color scheme that I think looks really good and quite distinctive. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | I just think these are great. Probably the more conventional model, I'm blanking, this was a 3586 that had the, you know, the captive rotating bezel and no yellow accents. That might be a little closer home, but I think in a world where the Pelagos remains popular, this watch would have an audience. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | No? I agree. I agree. I had the steel version of this. I bought it brand new from a dealer. Oh, okay. And it was 1,000 meters. I don't know if I knew that. Yeah, so the titanium one is 2,000 meters. The yellow one was the one to have, the yellow with the titanium. But I think that was a little outside my price range at the time. Um, and I had the steel one and I, and I had it and I went full in full on with it. I think I had the bracelet, the rubber, and then I bought the end link attachment for that cool Velcro strap that they made. Oh yeah, for sure. |
| James Stacey | Very GST. |
| Jason Heaton | And then they had a, that adapter, they had a really longer dive friendly rubber strap that you could swap out. Cause it was all quick release, um, mechanism, which made it also cool. It was very early in my diving days. I think it was 2009 or so. Um, And I took a diving up in Lake Superior and very first dive, I got water, water got inside and I brought it back. IWC, you know, fixed it under warranty, whatever. But foolishly, I mean, I lost faith in the watch and foolishly I got rid of it. I just I couldn't live with it. And now I mean, to this day, I kind of regret it. But I think one thing about this list that I'm discovering. I mean, scarily enough, these are watches like you mentioned, the Blancpain. If you ever wanted a Blancpain 50 Fathoms, that GMT is at $6,000, whatever, Canadian. That's downright affordable. You couldn't get into Blancpain for that, more modern Blancpain. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I mean, that's a little over $4,000. |
| Jason Heaton | And same thing with an Aquatimer, to get one of these. And the one that I have that I put on my list was this... It was from the same kind of era, and it's the GST Perpetual Calendar Chronograph. Oh, it's a wild thing. There's one on Chrono24 that I sent you a link for, $10,950. Oh, yeah, look at that. It's a lot of money, but for a perpetual calendar chronograph in a titanium case that in its day was rated for 100 meters. Yeah, it's a bit of a depreciation special now. Talk about a spectacular watch to get into a perpetual calendar chronograph. from IWC with that beautiful bracelet and case. I mean... You know, it's like, sell everything and buy this thing. Like, you've got everything right on your wrist. I mean, it's just an incredible watch. I've seen one of these in person once, and it still sticks with me. I don't think I have. This is such a cool watch. I love this family of IWC. |
| James Stacey | And, like, it's big, but keep in mind that it's not big like all the other, the current IWC Perpetuals. It's 43 in titanium. This is, again, just for reference, and all of this will be in the show notes. It's the IW375603. And yeah, these are cool. I actually kind of forgot that this spec kind of existed because this whole idea of like a sporty QP from IWC has so heavily transitioned to the big pilot. Yeah, yeah. Right, in a ceramic case and they're $80,000 and they're light blue for the Miami edition and yellow for this edition and that kind of thing. They're cool watches for sure, but this is so much more of a certain era. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And I think even the complexity of the dial kind of makes me think of like the really early ceramic Da Vinci's. Yeah, this is definitely an interesting watch. You still get the wild moon phase, which looks just insane on such a sporty sort of design. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And then to be doing the QP and the chronograph. Yeah. Pretty interesting thing. |
| Jason Heaton | Good pick. I like that a lot. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Kind of two sides of a very similar aesthetic with with mine being just the dive watch with the internal, you know, the two crown super compressor sort of but turned modern. Right. And then and then this like very complicated. I mean, man, like a service on this watch could cost most of what they're charging for. Right. Which might be why it's for sale. You never know. Yeah, true. It could be like, you know, finding a 911, a 996 just before it needs, you know, the next big engine service or something like that. Yeah, that's a lot of fun. Very cool. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Let's jump to another kind of great brand that had a real heyday back in those days, and that was Girard Perregaux. You've got one on your list, and I've got one on my list. Why don't you go first? Yours is a really interesting one. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I have such a soft spot for the WWTC. So this is a watch that came in a lot of versions over the years. Some were kind of dressy. All of them were quite large. Basically, the WWTC was a world timer and a chronograph. uh all combined into a single movement very oddball a little bit asymmetrical um you know borrowed some um some aesthetic elements from the jar pergo you're going to mention in a moment jason i wouldn't have picked this watch but the one that you have on your list i had to leave that for you because i know you have a soft spot these are just really cool watches but they were very 2005. in their thinking. It was maximalist thinking, super sporty. And with the WWTC, I'm not that interested in the ones in the precious metal cases that are all polished. I like the ones that are kind of like in steel or titanium and maybe with some red and white elements on a black dial. They're a little big at this. They haven't aged really well in terms of their proportions. But I think from a functional standpoint... That's such a cool blended complication of an active world timer and a chronograph. And you have a date on there. And yeah, I don't know why necessarily. They're very expensive and they're kind of hard to come by. I have to imagine they'd be difficult to service at this point in time. But I do have a soft spot for this era of Gerard Perregaux and certainly the WWTC. You ever spend any time with one of these? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, this era of GP, I do have a soft spot because I remember I did a press trip and visited Gerard Perregaux in Switzerland and their kind of sister or, I guess, child brand, if you will, Jean Richard. And I've got Jean Richard on my list as well. I don't know. It's just, it's such an unsung brand nowadays that had such a presence, you know, a long time ago, you know, a hundred plus years ago, and then, and then just kind of never got traction and, you know, they're still around, but, um, this era was great. And, and I mean, I'm looking at the specifically, I pulled up a link to, it was the Oracle USA racing edition of the WWTC, you know, the blue, the red, the, the, you know, sporty case. And it goes back to the GST IWC I just mentioned. sports watches with, with complications are so cool. Like it's, you know, this is supposed to be like a sailing watch or sailing adjacent kind of homage watch. And it's got those kind of chunky hands with a big, big arrow on the hour hand and then all this color on it and that the world timer. Yeah. These are, these are rubber strap. I mean, just so great. So great. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I just updated the link because the one I had provided, I must have typed it in wrong or something. But yeah, the one I was kind of interested in and still kind of like is the 4980. So it's black with white accents. The chronograph dials are tiny because they've crammed so much movement in there. The date is at like 1.30, which is just, it's such an oddball thing that I think today people would go like, why did you make this? Why does this exist? And you're like, yeah, the late 90s, early 2000s were a wild time. And you get these kind of cool watches. And there's a lot of interesting stuff happening in sport watches around 43 millimeters, which, you know, I guess today you'd call it more like 39. But these watches, you know, this one and the one that you're about to mention, these are kind of the last... Sort of watches that were popular, interesting sport watches that didn't refer to the mid-century. So there was no marketing for Gerard Perregaux's that involved Steve McQueen. Right. You know what I mean? Despite the fact that the brand was there before and thereafter, this predates that. These are probably from around the time when the Daytona was still a big deal. but not every steel Rolex. Yeah. There was just more, there was more variety in the, you know, the gene pool at the time in terms of what people's ideas were for what a sport watch would be. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. And the one I pulled here is the Seahawk II. So cool. Look at the case shape of that thing. I mean, there's nothing like it. It has this asymmetric case. Great dial, too. Yeah, with 130 date again. And this movement, I believe they call it their 3300 movement. It was in every watch back then and probably adapted for the WWTC, given the date position. I mean, maybe that was just their trademark at the time. This dive watch, it's rated for 3,000 meters. It has two... Let me say that again. Two helium release valves. No idea why. Just in case. The crown at four. |
| James Stacey | Two is one. One is none. |
| Jason Heaton | Four o'clock or a little after four o'clock. And this sloping right side of the case that's asymmetrical. Titanium case. Fitted rubber strap with a great clasp. I remember this clasp because I wrote a review. I took this watch diving in Belize. I remember this review. And adored this watch. I think I had the white dial, which was even cooler. White with some orange accent. Yes. Oh, man. Good watch. I could still see you buying one of these. The power reserve. This is one of the cooler power reserves, too. I don't know. It's just something bold about it. |
| James Stacey | It's kind of chopar, but it has sort of an automotive feel to it. It's cool. And the relief bezel. |
| Jason Heaton | I got to not look at this because this is such a cool watch. And again, affordable again. These watches that we dreamed about back then that were, I don't remember what the price would have been back in the day, but outside of my reach. Now it's like you can look at a Blancpain GMT, you can look at an IWC Perpetual Calendar Chronograph or a GP Seahawk or WWTC and think like, huh, that's like Tudor pricing these days. Crazy. |
| James Stacey | Well, look, on that note, let's let's jump right to Tudor, because I this is a tough one, because I think Tudor's era, the real sweet spot is kind of now or in the last 10 years. But all this one. But and look, don't get me wrong. People like the Hydronaut and you still occasionally see people talk about how good they are. Sure, that's fine. I don't love the aesthetic of the Hydronaut. Yeah. But I'm around for an aeronaut. So a great story from Fratello, which covers kind of the quote-unquote knots of the hydronaut, the aeronaut, and the iconaut, which were all something that Tudor were doing at the time. But the one I'm more interested in is the aeronaut, the 2200, 2-0-2-0-0 is kind of the main, the core reference. And this is a GMT... model from Tudor in a 41 millimeter steel case. And I like these. I've never come across one secondhand because I think I would go like if this went on my wrist and I was lucky enough that maybe the bracelet was the right size and I got that vibe from it. I don't think I could say no. Wow. This is a weird sort of watch. It bears three crowns or those pushers? I think it's one crown and three pushers, but I can't quite tell. I've never messed around with one extensively. It's a fixed 24 hour bezel GMT with a sub date, my guess. And it's just a guess because again, I haven't had the pleasure of digging into this is the eight o'clock pusher likely does the date and the two pushers in the chronograph position advance or retract the hour hand. |
| Jason Heaton | You are dead on, according to Fratello, according to this article you link. That is such... It feels like overkill. It feels like just too much... Too many pushers and things just for a watch that kind of just does dual time. |
| James Stacey | And I think this is that era of like they weren't making their own movements. So you would have to just figure it out, right? And that sometimes meant a weird UI that wasn't linked to a crown where you were able to plan a watch based on its movement. This was, you know... conceivably a module on top of, yeah, the 2892, you know, was a modified version. I think these are cool. Maybe someday I'll come across one and not like it in person. But every time I happen to cross a photo, and we'll include this great story from Fratello. that was written by Dave Sargent. We'll include that. Anytime I come across these, I do kind of get like a buzz from them because they are from that era, you know, just before Tudor, you know, did the Heritage Chronograph and the Black Bay and that sort of thing. Yeah, yeah. Crazy stuff. A little goofy, but cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah. What else you got on your list? Okay, here's a favorite. And this is a watch I actually owned and loved. And boy, I get some deep nostalgia for this one. The Bauman Mercier Capeland S XXL Diver. Yeah. I recall you being a fan of these. Oh. Okay. Yellow Kevlar dial. And the markers just sort of float on that dial. Yellow Kevlar dial. Let me say it again. I think there was a... i feel like they had a limited edition of a different color too like a they had a black dial version i think they had like a blue dial that was in very limited edition but this style almost looks like bone yeah photos yeah yeah great loom titanium case with a helium release valve a thousand meter water resistant and it came with like a like a sailcloth strap which was excellent and then they also provided in the box this long weird um rubber strap and this article I linked to from deskdivers.com because there just isn't there isn't a lot of on the internet about this watch um and there's some great photos of how this this this rubber strap would fit on it and they gave you a tool um but it was this extra long diving strap um that I thought was really neat that they included and it's like this brand like they made this one-off really complicated interesting watch and then it just disappeared and they've never gone back to a diving watch um it was just it was just a neat thing and it wore really comfortably it had this kind of great profile and case shape um super light and the titanium great strap |
| James Stacey | Almost 18 millimeters thick. Yeah. You know, bezels 43 millimeters across with the crown 49. Not a small watch, but in titanium. I mean, this is one where I would say it's it at least to my eyes would be insane if they were still making it. But I would say it's an entirely different company now. Yeah. Than the one that created this watch. But I do. This is one where when I see it, I kind of think like I heat and love that watch. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah. 2892 again. Great movement of that era as well. |
| James Stacey | Man, they were around. Omega was all over the 2892 and certainly now Tudor and Baume and Mercier. Very fun. |
| Jason Heaton | We don't have any Omegas on this list. I'm suddenly realizing that's a bit of an oversight because they had some apnea and all these ones. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I had a handful and I just feel like we talk about them. We talk about the pre-coaxial GMT divers, the great white and the black version. We talk about the apnea. Like, I think we've been all over those. So I wanted to kind of expand a little bit. You know, the other one, if we're talking about ones that we've owned. Did you ever come across in person an Orient Beast? No. No, I got to click your link here and see what this is. This is like in the first maybe 10 watches I ever owned. Whoa, look at that. Was a red Orient Beast. So I guarantee there's people driving their car right now, listening to this while they cut the lawn or whatever, that are like, yeah, Orient Beast. You know, it's like this is at a time when when, you know, this is just such a cool watch. So, again, it's a bright red dial. The one that I had, they came in multiple versions, had a power reserve up at 12. So it's probably the first watch I ever had that had like a complication where I could like sit there and wind it. It was an Orient 46 series movement. Twenty one joules didn't keep great time. good loom, amazingly inexpensive bracelet. I think it was one of the first watches I ever had that had a display case back. Oh, yeah. This was just a watch that made me so, so pumped because it felt so unconventional. And I knew next to nothing about watches. Yeah. But I was spending a ton of time on the Poor Man's Watch Forum. And I remember I picked one up. To this day, I don't recall if it was brand... Like I might have bought it from Rito or from his collection, like from his shop that he was running at the time. Or if I bought one... like through Watch You Seek, like through a secondhand scenario. But I remember these were on like lists of like, you know, you had to have an SKX007, you had to have an NY0040 Citizen, and you had to have an Orient Beast. And of course, like 007s and NY40s, still a thing that people reference and bring up. And, you know, in some version, the aesthetics still exist. These are gone. Yeah. The Orient Beast. |
| Jason Heaton | Quick set date button. Look at that. Wow. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I think, again, they're just making it work. And yeah, if you wanted to advance the date, there's a little button to do so. Had a circular magnifier, this incredible red dial with light blue accents. on various parts. Yeah, these are cool. If you don't know the watch I'm talking about, I'll include a spot from watchmandan.com. He got one in August of 2006. So we might have owned one at very similar times. But yeah, these are just so much fun. |
| Jason Heaton | I think a logical next place to go here since we're in that part of the world from a Seiko adjacent brand is this yacht timer that you have linked here. These are so cool. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, so these ones I've had like an eBay notice on for a while. This is one from Analog Shift because their photos are great and the example they have is very cool. But again, if you're a real bit of a Seiko nerd, especially the weird Seikos, you'll know... an 8M Seiko Yacht Timer. In this example, they're saying it's an 8M 037 6000. So that's a 90s, 35 millimeter quartz, white dial, compass bezel, nine o'clock crown, two pushers where the chronograph pusher would be. yacht timer and i just think these are very cool i've never really pulled the trigger on one yeah um but these are the kind of watch where if i have no self-control i would just i would have 50 or 60 of these watches that i wear once or twice a year yeah yeah um and and it would be i think yacht timers are so cool i don't watch yachting i don't follow it I don't have really any interest in yachting, but there's something about the use of color, the use of a specific complication. I just think yacht timers are rad. Sometimes they can get quite expensive, and this one being quartz and Seiko, and just it looks so sort of nautical and instrument, but at the same time, it has these primary colors and a very clear layout and your bright big start notice. And I just think these are rad for sure. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh, man, that is neat. That is really cool. |
| James Stacey | Wow. They're just neat, neat little watches. And if you're sort of a maximalist in terms of your collection, I think they're a fun thing to consider. |
| Jason Heaton | All right. Well, let's stick with Regatta watches because I have one on this list that I really fell in love with and I wrote it up for Hodinkee. I put the link in here. Actually, this is the Bremont Regatta Oracle Team USA. I remember, I guess I wrote this in 2016. This was the brief window of time when Bremont was the timing sponsor for Oracle Team USA when Larry Ellison, big sailing buff as he is, he brought Bremont on and that did not last very long. And I remember going to Bermuda with Bremont for kind of the big kind of press event for these watches that they created for this. And I remember being really smitten with, I was just so pumped that Bremont came out with a Regatta watch because it is one of my favorite complications and looks of a watch. And I just think that their Regatta piece just was so handsome. It was kind of from the same DNA, if you will, of the partnership they did with Boeing for a while there. Yep. And it just had this great giant big crown. Again, you know, Regatta watches seem to always have the primary colors and kind of the countdown stuff. And they put the countdown at 12 o'clock in this kind of unique double aperture style, you know, that kind of cycled through below the dial through the aperture. And yeah, and a rotating bezel. They made a few different versions for Oracle, but this one is the one that stood out. And I really, really adored this watch. It was great. |
| James Stacey | So if that was 2016, then I guess the Boeing came out in 2014, which would have been when we met at the Palace at Baselworld. Yeah, exactly. Those were the TI-46 Bremonts, I guess. Model 247 comes to mind. Yeah, right. I think kind of a short-lived thing. I don't know if the Boeings were still around. I don't know if that partnership was still active by the time the America's Cup came, and then I believe America's Cup lasted... a year, maybe two. And then it went to Panerai. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, exactly. Right. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Tough, uh, tough sort of sponsor, but yeah, I do remember those watches with, with some, I mean, look, I remember a lot of the, the double complication, we'll call them chronographs from Bremont with a lot of, uh, with a lot of reverence, you know, the alt one ZT and the WT world timers. Those are all like really interesting watches that I fell in love with for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, cool stuff. Yeah. Speaking of watches that kind of had an era and then sort of went away as the company shifted and changed, how about like some of the JLC Deepsea sort of stuff? I have such a fondness for... This would have been, I guess, mid-2000s. They did the... the Master Compressor Diving GMT. It's another dive GMT. But in this case, you have no seconds, like no seconds hand. You have a date at three, and then you have a sub-dial, kind of like Panerai style almost, over at nine that's tracking a second time zone. And I think the look of these... could be updated with very little work. It's just that JLC doesn't do this anymore. They made these, they made the Navy SEAL ones with the really cool bracelets and all the rubber clad bracelet and the rubber clad bezels and all that sort of thing. And again, what was going on in like the mid 2000s with relief steel bezels? This is yet another example. But I love the dial on this. And if you don't know the watch, I mean, it's in the show notes. Gorgeous black dial, big hands, big markers, still looks like a JLC. And then I think this one, this whole idea kind of ended with probably my favorite JLC in a watch that I do intend to own someday, which is the Deep Sea Chronograph. Yeah. A short lived kind of subtle, beautiful chronograph diving style chronograph with an activity meter, you know, like a flag to let you know that the chronograph is running. So those are the two JLCs that jumped to my mind. But there was a lot of interesting sort of sporty dive JLCs in the early 2000s. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I, I, the one and only cruise I've ever been on, um, we had a stopover somewhere, Cozumel or something. And I went to duty free and I sprung for the master compressor diving chronograph. So I owned, I owned the. Totally. If I knew that, I totally forgot. Yeah. Um, and it was a wild watch, um, outrageously expensive. Um, I had a very different life back then. I was working a corporate job with decent salary and I just was like, I was on, I was on vacation. I was in that mindset and I bought that watch and, uh, had it for a couple of years and then sold it. And I just, that it just didn't stick, you know, as, as happened back in those days, I was a mad flipper and just kind of bought and sold watches like crazy. um cool watch and then um when i was writing for revolution i got to test the rose gold master compressor it was a long name something diving geographic whatever and it had the the depth gauge the depth sensor that big thing on the side of the case um that was a while it was part of the same family and and like and this was that era when they were doing the amvox stuff with aston martin yep I mean, just, I mean, they were all so innovative and so modern and, and then they just stopped doing it. I'm not sure what the corporate sort of strategy became where it was like, we can't be doing these. We need to be the brand that kind of leans on Reverso and the geophysic and that sort of stuff. But, um, |
| James Stacey | I think what happened was the, you know, the Reverso was coming up on 80 years. And at the same time, we saw this shift towards mid-century classic steel, Rolex, all that sort of stuff start to percolate due to the continued kind of extreme popularity of the Daytona. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And then downstream of that, I think there was an attempt. And that's what we saw with the deep sea chronograph. And I just don't think it kind of found a home. I think it felt a little bit, basic's the wrong word, but too subtle maybe. Yeah. As an evolution of these much more wild, the master compressor stuff was big and chunky and super masculine. And I think they kind of made an adjustment that was maybe a little bit early. I kind of think that a deep-sea chronograph would make sense today in their lineup, a couple different versions. And then I think we had the era of the Reverso with the 80th anniversary tribute coming out. And then beyond that, you had the geophysic and the one with the deadbeat movement. and all that kind of stuff. And I think it, it moved us towards Memovox, which had kind of its own era as well, just shortly after there. And we lost the sport watches in the background. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Um, you know, again, it was, this is stuff that, uh, this is stuff that was the stuff of dreams back in, back in the early days. And I think nowadays you can probably pick them up fairly affordably if you can track one down. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I mean, these are the sort of watches like I've been chatting quite a bit recently with my buddy Paul Hubbard, used to write with a blog to watch and has maintained his own watch blogs in the past with Watchitaku. And, you know, he's on our Slack and he bought a Zodiac that I sold a little while ago. And we've been just kind of chit-chatting back and forth. These are watches that he and I kind of obsessed over. I think he probably had one of them at some point, one of the JLCs. And then one of the other ones on my list is a watch that I kind of have filed directly next to, you know, my mental image of Paul. That's the Glashuta Original Sport Evo GMT. if you want another sort of interesting dive GMT experiment that was, I think, quite successful. It was around for a while. 42 millimeter steel watch made by Glashuta, 24 hour bezel. And then you had a push button advance or retraction of the hour hand. And then a grand date at four o'clock. Quite an interesting watch. One that I still really like. And I know Paul had one. If I remember his little report from his blog correctly, he had it, liked it. It went out for repair. And during that time, he kind of fell in love with a more competitive model from Grand Seiko. And when it came back, the Glashuta moved on. But every time I see these, they do kind of make me happy. But they are from an era that just doesn't exist anymore. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I mean, it kind of harkens to the, the blunt pan of that, you know, that we talked about earlier. I mean, it's just, or, or the IWC, like these, these high end brands putting out these, these complications in, in sport watch cases. Um, just, uh, something I'd love to see more of these days. I, it's just, it's so cool. IWC still does to their credit. Yes. |
| James Stacey | Absolutely. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, and I believe there's still a Glashütte original diver floating around on BST these days. Not this era, a more modern one. |
| James Stacey | But yeah, these are... Yeah, I mean, they still make a diver. But again, these are watches that existed just before we all had to have watches that referred to the past of watches. |
| Jason Heaton | Right, right. |
| James Stacey | Right. You know, and whether the tipping point was the modernity of the Apple Watch and all that kind of thing that made us all think like, oh, a watch needs to look like it's from the 70s or be referential to a model from the 70s and all that kind of thing. You know, there's a media theory here that, you know, you and I aren't going to develop in one episode. But in the annals of time, like we did just kind of lose this era of... fairly modern, fairly interesting, competitive, complicated sport watches, luxury sport watches, as people went back to more simple, more straightforward, more conventional, and more traditionally-minded options. And I do think that the pendulum will swing the other way, and we'll see some favor for these. Maybe not the stuff that's harder to get serviced or more complicated. But in some cases, I think some of these will come back around and have a bit of a tail. Again, not like what's happened with Rolex and that sort of thing, but in a similar fashion, I think, to some extent. I got a couple others to buzz through. Oh, you've got a fun one there with the telescope. Do you want to do that? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I've got one more on my list. This is the, I mentioned earlier, the kind of sub-brand of Gerard Perregaux that has now gone defunct or into dormancy, if you will, I hope. Because I hope they do come back someday. Because it's one of the oldest watch names in history, apparently. Jean Richard. they were a fun brand. They were, um, they made, um, I believe it was called the aquascope. And then the telescope was like the land version. And they were kind of in, uh, you know, I guess you'd call it sort of a Panerai adjacent case shape that sort of squared off. I don't know if it's a tonneau shaped case or what, what you might want to call it, but it's, um, it was, it was just this kind of chunky watch with, with kind of a neat handset that sort of looked like the Girard Paragos. And yeah they made a white dial they made a blue dial they made a black dial they were affordable they were well made you know i did a press trip with them and i got to hang out with their ceo bruno grande which is one of the great names and and watched him and he was a super nice guy who's since gotten out of the watch business um you know bless his soul a neat watch. And I'm seeing one on Corona 24 for $1,300. Like, um, there was nothing particularly high end or special about this watch, but it was just, it was fun and it was well-made. And I, I kind of liked what the brand was doing then, but I, they didn't, they didn't catch, they just didn't take and, and they kind of got shuttered. So hopefully they'll, they'll come back someday. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, I recall early days of, you know, it would have been 2013 or 2014 Baselworld going to the Gerard Perregaux meeting. And then after that, you would go downstairs back through a hallway and meet with the Jean Richard people. I remember that. Yeah, right. And they were really nice people and they had like a really wide range of colors and this sort of thing. And I think I thought the aesthetic and the price point was really strong. I don't know if they just got heat checked out of existence by Tag Heuer and Longines and that sort of thing. I'm not sure. It could be marketing. It could be that they never found a home in North America. I genuinely don't know. They were there, and then one year they weren't. But I do remember the telescope. And yeah, I mean, for $1,300. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Sweet little watch. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, yeah. |
| James Stacey | Definitely of an era. But if that era suits you, I think it's a fun one. Right. I've got a couple others. And we're entering a couple that I would absolutely love to own. The first one, obviously, I'm a big nerd for the aerospace. Yeah. But we've talked a ton about the aerospace and a ton over the course of the show about the emergency of which you've owned. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. |
| James Stacey | And we find to be endlessly interesting. But the one that I think we've only mentioned a couple times, and I do think about these quite a bit, it's the Breitling B1 UTC. So it's another... Imagine if you took the form of a Navitimer, crossed it with an aerospace, and then have the bracelet with the second time zone in the little watch link. I just think these things are super cool. I've definitely been close... It's bartered here or there. There's a handful on, you know, Chrono24 right now for under $2,000, $3,000 Canadian. And, you know, look, it would be too big. I know I would buy it and six months later go, why did I buy this? I wish I had bought an E-Series Aerospace. And, you know, the joke that I've made on Slack is, you know, I only sold my Aerospace to eventually buy the solid gold one. That, of course, hasn't happened yet. The market hasn't bottomed out on solid gold Aerospaces like I kind of thought it would. But these hold a pretty fun spot in my mind just because I love Andy Digi watches. And this is such a... lux version yeah you know this is a step above the pluton a step above even an emergency in some ways or it's it's similar to an emergency but without the the you know radio uh you know sister yeah if you will the transmitter thank you yeah yeah these are funny 44 millimeters huge heavy all you know from an era of breitling that's long gone yeah but i i think of them quite fondly |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I do too. Yeah. I mean, just the fact that Breitling was making these watches and that this is totally, you know, we're kind of, I believe this, this era of Breitling, it's funny how things happen. You know, they've, they've changed, they've elevated, they've, they've kind of taken off in a whole different direction under George Kern. But now this era is now enjoying a bit of a, not a renaissance, but sort of an appreciation thanks largely to our friends over at Watches of Espionage and hopefully to our appreciation of old aerospace and things like that. And I just think the whole, you know, sketchy guys wear Breitlings. This is one of the sketchy ones, you know. This is one that arms dealers and CIA guys were wearing back in the day and they're still super cool. |
| James Stacey | And look, as we're now cresting an hour, so we've still got final notes to get to. I'll buzz through this last one. But a watch that I was around right when I got into watches. It had the lore of such a special company. It had this connection to all sorts of things that I love. And I still look at these about twice a year and go. Is this the year that I get a, you know, a kobold soar away diver, a seal is what they're commonly known. And I just, I absolutely love these. They're a little big at 43 and a half millimeters. They're nice and thick. You know, it was a thousand meters water resistance, but like, it's almost like, you know, Michael Kobold and his, in his wisdom looked at us in and went, no, that's, there's too much going on there. Like I can do, we can do more with, by doing less. Yeah. And the watch is like probably 30% bezel. It's great. I really like these. I think they've aged really well. Yeah, massive bezel, you know, fully graduated. You've got the really chiseled sort of lug profile. And then you just have this super sterile white on black dial design that just simply says Kobold, Soarway Diver, and nothing else. And I just think these speak to me. I can't fully... I mean, you can tell from all the other watches I own and love why. Um, they're a little big if they were, I mean, if this was something that was more like in the 40 to 41 mil space, I probably would have bought one by now. Yeah. I just think they're super cool. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And there was a series, uh, that they, I believe they made, I think they were probably listening and did make some kind of smaller, like the, the doorway diver 41, there's a 41 millimeter, the Arctic diver, but, but the, the seal is their icon. And I think it's still in their lineup. It's just, it's just a chunk. I mean, it's just, it's, it's such a, it's such a serious tool. I mean, it's just, it's, it's incredible. My, my good buddy Kevin out in San Francisco, um, has a very early one and, and, you know, he's worn that thing a lot and I've gotten to handle it and they're, they're just wild pieces and ones you just don't, you don't see. Like if you see one of those on an airplane or, you know, at a restaurant or something like. or if I do, I'm going to run across and like strike up a conversation immediately. Cause they're, they're just neat watches. Yeah. Good, good. |
| James Stacey | And yeah, the, the, the 41 millimeter is a much more sensible thing. It's way less bezel. It's, you know, a much more reasonable thickness. It's about 40 and a half millimeters wide. They came in different versions and I, and I do like those and I would be interested, but there's something about the seal that just, it's, it's a proportion thing that, that it, yeah, it's just good. I like it a lot. Yeah. Yeah. But man, this has been such a fun episode. This feels like the kind of thing we do when we're just hanging out. In a couple weeks, we may continue this episode in my living room when you're up for the Toronto Timepiece show. But the exciting thing is, years ago, we would have done this and then moved on. Now we have the Slack. And we're going to get 200 watches we forgot about. These are some references that people don't talk about a ton, but there's definitely some that I've forgotten about. And whether they're forgotten because they didn't have a big impact or they're forgotten because the brain is a fickle thing at times. Yeah, I'm really excited to continue this chat on the Slack and see what other references I had forgotten but still love. yeah thanks to dan q for uh inspiring this uh this great topic yeah super fun thank you so much for that and if you have a watch that you think fits the the parameters of this episode start a thread on the slack and we can all jump in and go down memory lane a little bit i think we'll have a good time but uh in in the interest of speaking of time in the interest of not going too long on the episode do you want to dive into some final notes |
| Jason Heaton | Sure, yeah. I'll jump in quickly because, look, I feel like a broken record here with all these Blancpain videos that I always bring up, but they're just too good not to mention. They released another recent one that is the Tubataha Reefs Deep Dive Expedition from Gombessa Expeditions, our icon TGN past guest, Laurent Balesta and his team. in the Philippines, um, not far from where I was back in February, um, but far deeper. Um, they were diving to a hundred meters on one of the kind of world heritage dive sites, a marine protected area. One of the great, um, coral triangle dive locations is Tubataha. And, um, Apparently, you know, there wasn't really any data about what goes on below 40 meters and, you know, who better to explore down there than the Gombessa team. And so they went down to 100 meters and documented, you know, what flora and fauna are existing down there. And it's a good, you know, 11, 12 minute video with Laurent kind of doing some voiceover. There's just some incredible images of, you know, macro photography, you know, small stuff. And then at one point at 95 meters, a big tiger shark sneaks up behind Laurent while he's taking a picture. And there's a great photo of that with a couple of divers, you know, off to the side lit up against a big block of coral. Just beautiful stuff. I just can't get enough of their videos. They're doing such a great job. And as you mentioned on a past episode, they're just not getting enough eyeballs for this. I mean, I want them to keep producing content like this. And, you know, the more people that click and look at this stuff will encourage them to do so. So check it out. |
| James Stacey | Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad to feature yet another one of these. Again, we're seeing them pop up on the Slack anytime people find a new one. So it's great to see more of these films. And if Blancpain, if you're listening, we'll take all you've got. If you've got super long cuts and we can put them in front of an audience, we're happy to put them out on the Slack. I think you'll find that people will be thrilled to watch them. So get in touch if we can support in any way. I think these videos are awesome. All right, what do you have? And then mine this week is a television series I've been really enjoying to the extent where I'm kind of eagerly awaiting the next one, and this is Alien Earth. It's a TV series set in the world of the alien films, which of course started in 1979 with Ridley Scott's Alien. This television show is set two years before that. And it basically considers the possibility, like the premise is, what is the destiny of mankind? You know, you have these cyborgs, which of course are part of the show. Synthetics are part of the sort of lore of Alien. And then you have synthetic beings that have downloaded or transplanted human consciousness. which I think is quite fascinating. I don't really want to give anything away. The show goes in multiple different directions, but the writing is really quite sharp. There's at least one character on there that I cannot get enough of. And again, I really don't want to ruin anything. But if you enjoy the world of Alien, be it the original films all the way up to the more modern stuff that has come out, I'm a fan of almost all of it. and uh and i'm really enjoying this show so a hearty recommendation if you enjoy the tone the violence the kind of grossness of of all of this there's some good alien you know weird life and and stuff that kind of fits the tone of of some major sequences from the first film and that sort of thing so yeah i'm really loving it oh that's great yeah i'll have to check this out because i do have a soft spot for alien there was somebody um on my recent trip to new york in front of |
| Jason Heaton | The row in front of me, I was watching over the shoulder. I don't know why. I didn't just cue it up, but they were watching the original Alien film. And I was like, I got to watch that again. That's so good, man. But yeah, this looks good. |
| James Stacey | Just make sure you're watching the correct version. You want Ridley Scott's directors. Ah, okay. There's a couple things that they put in that really help the film. Ah, cool. But yeah, that's my final notes. And that was a pretty fun episode. I had a really good time doing that. A highlight. |
| Jason Heaton | I did too. That was a blast. |
| James Stacey | All right, well, thank you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab yourself a new TGN sign NATO, please visit thegraynato.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazar via the Free Music Archive. |
| Jason Heaton | And we leave you with this quote from Arthur Kessler, who said, The prerequisite of originality is the art of forgetting, at the proper moment, what we know. |