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The Grey NATO – 372 – Watches And Wonders 2026 Megasode

Published on Thu, 23 Apr 2026 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

In episode 372 of The Grey NATO podcast, hosts James Stacy and Jason Heaton reunite after busy weeks of separate adventures. Jason returns from competing in the Land Rover Defender Trophy regional finals in British Columbia, where he tackled challenging physical activities, off-road driving courses, and wilderness navigation with a diverse group of competitors. He shares his unexpectedly positive impressions of the new Defender's capabilities and the high caliber of participants, many with military or serious overlanding backgrounds.

James reports back from Watches and Wonders 2025 in Geneva, providing comprehensive coverage of the year's new releases. The hosts discuss their favorite announcements, ranging from accessible pieces like the Tudor Monarch and Sinn 554 to dream watches like the Vacheron Constantin Overseas Dual Time Cardinal Points. They explore significant releases from Grand Seiko, Panerai's return to classic Luminor designs, IWC's innovations, and various other brands spanning multiple price points.

The episode also covers the ongoing TGN Best Episode Tournament, which has narrowed down to a Final Four, and previews upcoming events including the Vancouver Time+Tide show and Chicago Windup. Throughout, the hosts maintain their philosophy of appreciating watches as objects of craftsmanship and design, regardless of personal purchasing ability, while still highlighting accessible options for everyday enthusiasts.

Show Notes

Transcript

Speaker
Jason Heaton Hello and welcome to another episode of the Grey NATO, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 372, 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 thegrayNATO.com for more details. My name is Jason Heaton and I'm joined as ever by my tired friend and co-host James Stacy. Uh James, uh back again from yet another trip. This was the big one.
James Stacy Yeah, this is the big one. It was a long, uh, a very long week in Geneva, a lot of uh a lot of long days, uh, to get as as much online as possible. Just thrilled to be home. It was a very uh successful week as far as uh as far as some, you know, announcements of new watches and all the content therein goes. But uh, you know, this is where we really synthesize the stuff that kind of appeals to me and maybe to you and hopefully to people who kinda listen to TGN. Obviously, Watch the Wonder is not really in the exact same scope. There's some overlap, but it's two very different circles. Uh the sort of stuff that we talk about versus versus what might end up But hey, it it it is kind of the start of fair season full stop now as as Vancouver's next weekend. And uh you and I are already making plans for uh Chicago uh for windup and then we'll have Toronto as well. So between now and then we've got a couple good stops and uh and there and there's lots to talk about. But look, it wasn't just new watches. We also have a great update from the best TGN episode tournament uh which has been going on and I believe has made it into is it Final Four we're at now?
Jason Heaton Yeah, we're into the Final Four. Um, you know, big big thanks to to Jackson for spearheading this. I think it was uh a r a really nice thing to uh to offer to our audience since we took uh the past couple of weeks off for watches and wonders and defender trophy and you know of course we're going to talk about all that shortly here but um hopefully this this tied it some people over and it and just uh I didn't dip in as often as I would have liked but um there were some big upsets and it's looking like a really interesting they're down to the final four um and uh we'll we'll throw the the voting link in the in the show notes for um for the final four and final four voting is now open and it will be until the twenty sixth of April and then they move on to the final round the championship voting which is open from the twenty seventh through May 4th or around that time. So we're we're still working out the final date for the final, but the championship voting will open on the 27th of April. But right now you can go and vote for the final four and that comes down to um these four episodes. So in the in the first semifinal, we've got episode 214, which is called Titanium, Travel and Adventure Regional Champ. The Start of Athenians. It's the regional champ of that one. Yeah. Against uh a r an old one, episode thirty five, your report from Clipperton, which seems like a lifetime ago, from Clipperton with love, that was in the driving and diving regional champ. And then um on the other side of the bracket we've got semifinal number two which is episode two fifty two oh this was a fun one the tutor pelagos fxd in its natural habitat that was part of the the gear the gear regional bracket um that was our the episode around our trip to Florida with uh Tudor around the FXD launch. And that's teaming up against uh episode two seventy-six, which was called Jason's Very English Adventure, um, which was part of the most certainly watches regional uh bracket. So um it's it's coming down to some interesting episodes.
James Stacy Yeah, and I'm I'm curious. You look at this as what what's the main like my main surprise is that none of these are like guest episodes. I would have expected uh uh Don Walsh, which I believe just lost in the previous bracket. You know, the loss tapes with Sylvia Earle.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Corey Richards, maybe was always
James Stacy a one one that people bring up to me.
Jason Heaton One of the ballestas or Richie Kohler? How did he not make it? Yeah, Richie Kohler.
James Stacy But yeah, that's that's never really been the plan. We'll have to learn what kind of data we can from all this and maybe not try to infer too much. I am really surprised uh that uh the Clipperton's that popular of an episode.
Jason Heaton It comes up a lot though. I think people r remember that. And it was it was an early episode. It was kind of one of our formative ones. I think, you know, we were both doing a lot more adventuring and I think, you know, that was kind of set the tone for for a lot of episodes going forward. And I think uh w a worthy final four one and it it's interesting that it uh some of the others, especially on the other side of the bracket are well into the the two hundreds uh in terms of episodes so kind of later ones uh whereas Clipperton was I think thirty five or two.. Very early Sure.
James Stacy Well thanks, uh thanks again to Jackson for organizing all of this. And it's not no small lift. It's a huge amount of work to get this done. And like it like we said, it kinda held us down for the last couple of weeks, which I desperately needed off to uh to focus on Watches and Wonders and now uh now we're back and if you're interested in voting and you want to get in on this round and you you're not in the slack and that sort of thing it's as little as five bucks a month uh to join the slack crew and you could get in there and get in on the voting if you have an opinion And it'll be interesting to see what takes number one. I don't know what to infer from these four so far. Uh so we'll need some time to absorb it. But uh a big a big thank you to Jackson and to everybody who's uh taken the time to uh be part of the voting for the bracket.
Jason Heaton Yeah, we might need to come up with um some acknowledgement of of the winning episode. Maybe it's like uh I don't know, a a revisit of that one or something like that. Do I
James Stacy do I go back and remaster it? Yeah. I
Jason Heaton have all the I have all the files. Yeah, right. You know, m
James Stacy I'm not sure. Or we we go back and and and just cut our few favorite moments out of it and make that an episode. The
Jason Heaton director's cut. I always avoid like greatest hits
James Stacy episodes 'cause they feel kind of both hugely labor intensive and yet the the end product can feel lazy.
Jason Heaton Right. If that makes any sense at all. Um,
James Stacy you know, some of my favorite podcasts that's what they do when they go on vacation. I'm like, all right, that's fun, but they you know those are podcasts that have full-time producers and people who can pull clips and that sort of thing. I I it's not something that uh I've been able to task for. But yeah, this is exciting.
Jason Heaton It would be interesting to i if nothing else, re you know, wouldn't we announce the winner eventually to kind of revisit that topic and with with the years that have gone on. I mean we could
James Stacy we could do a uh retrospect what what what do they do on on like Blu-rays? Uh director commentary.
Jason Heaton Oh yeah, right. Right, right. We could do commentary
James Stacy two years later or or whichever episode wins, right? Yeah. We could do that and kind of play a little bit of a pause, talk, play a little bit of it. We could figure that out. I'm not sure that that would be interesting, but we could we could we could think about it. Let us know in the Slack if you have an idea for what you would want to hear as as like secondary content to this original story and uh post. So yeah. But yeah, outside of that, I'll be in Vancouver a little later this week for the Time Peace show. We have an incredible hangout which is at capacity but has a wait list. Please action the wait list. It'll be up to uh you know the folks from Rolldorf to decide how they want to open that up. I would prefer that we get to just open a chunk up. So uh check the show notes for that. And then of course the Montreal Time Peace Show is coming up as well and the Toronto Time Peace Show in the broad spectrum of how quickly time moves with the summer isn't actually that far away towards the end of September. So just hit up timepeace show.com for more. And uh if you're going to be at the Vancouver show, looking forward to seeing you there, uh I'm gonna be shooting a photo report for Hodinki, probably doing the sort of in situ conversations that we've done before for a little uh hostful or a guestful episode for uh for a future TGN. Haven't quite put plans on paper for that. If you have an ask of maybe a group of people you'd love to see in one episode and let us know. Like we I'm open to I'm open to giving you guys and gals what you'd like to hear, you know, surrounding the show. So let me know. But I'm I'm really excited for that. It's it's one of those few things where like sure it's work, but kind of like with Chicago, yeah, it's work, but it's also a bit of a vacation.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. You know, I I don't get to do a
James Stacy lot of these things that happen on the weekend when things are quiet at Hodinky. And uh and so this will be this will be pretty fun. And I'm looking forward to obviously seeing a lot of like the Vancouver buddy crew out there as well.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Oh, that's great. All right, but you're
James Stacy just fresh back from that part of the world. Yeah, just
Jason Heaton flew home from Vancouver uh what was it uh late Saturday night. So yeah.
James Stacy You sent me a textbook at the airport. It's goody, right? It's one of my favorites.
Jason Heaton Well it's great. You know, I remember when I arrived last uh Wednesday, um, you know, you come in through international arrivals and there's this long corridor uh the second level that passes through this beautiful diorama of sort of an outdoorsy scene with a lot of sort of indigenous art and and artifacts and you know big uh canoe and and then they've got you know animal sounds running water and the smell of pine. I mean it's you feel like I mean you really feel you're in British Columbia. And it's uh it's just beautiful. And it's it's a lovely airport anyway. It's just a clean, open
James Stacy Departures has a huge fish tank, like a huge aquarium as well.
Jason Heaton Yeah, yeah. No, it's uh it's a great airport. Yeah, it was a good time. The weather, I hope you get the same weather that uh that we had out. Oh
James Stacy fingers crossed. It was tremendous. Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So defender
James Stacy trophy. Yeah, we had very difficult. I didn't
Jason Heaton have it. Yeah, we sure did. Equally tiring, I think, but uh yeah the Defender Trophy. So, you know, as I mentioned and I've talked about and written about, I was selected as part of the the first wave of the 40 Canadians and Americans um to compete for the Defender Trophy Finals. This is Land Rover's kind of big adventure, kind of revisiting the old camel trophy of the 80s, where there's some off-road skills involved and driving the new defender as well as some physical challenges. Uh we did some navigation work and some running and swimming and you know all sorts of stuff that I'll I'll describe here shortly. But um th that's kind of the background of it. Um and and it's really a a a big marketing push around the the new defender. And it w the the North American finals were held in just outside of Mission, British Columbia, which was about an hour and a half to two hours um from Vancouver. And the they're doing these regional selection rounds around the world. They've done Japan, they've done Indonesia, I think they've done South Africa. So all of the regions around the world do these kind of elimination rounds where then they select um you know two from each country basically to then compete in the finals which will be in October in Africa and that's a three-week adventure that will be filmed and turned into like a TV series of some sort. And admittedly, you know, going into this, I underestimated this event. I th I really thought it was going to be, you know, kind of watered down, a little bit kind of built for YouTube and social media with lots of, you know, um kind of an influencer driven i event, kind of a little bit light on the on the true adventure, but it was it was not that. It was uh incredibly well run. Land Rover really did an amazing job hurting herding cats, so to speak, you know, with all of us there. And they they had three overlapping waves of forty in each wave. So they ended up, you know, cycling through a hundred and twenty competitors with a whole fleet of defender trophy spec uh defenders, uh, tent camping, uh, off-road driving, skills tests, um, out in the woods, you know, feeding us and ferrying us around. And um, and they they just did an amazing job. And the the other competitors, I wasn't sure what to expect. You know, I again I thought, you know, okay, they're probably pulling people that have a big social media following or, you know, are good looking or you know something like that, which would have I don't know why they would have chosen me in that case, but um it the c th the truth was there were some really interesting competent competitors. There were um a couple of guys there whose um fathers had competed in the camel trophy in the 90s. Um yeah, there was a guy, a Turkish American guy whose father was part of the team Turkey in the I believe it was the ninety-two or ninety-three camel trophy. Um and he was there. He's a he's currently a U.S. Marine. Um there was uh another guy who actually there were twins, two twins um that were both competing. Their father was part of the American team in Camel Trophy. Uh Ken Cameron was was his name. Um and his son Tieran was actually one of the the finalists, one of the selected from our wave um to to to move on to the to the next round. So pretty cool there. Um there were a lot of ex-military guys, there were off-road instructors, a lot of hardcore overlanders, you know, people that that just build out vehicles and just travel up and down South America and Africa and all over Asia. One of the guys I met who I just had a really fun time chatting with for a long time was his name's Brett Cooper and he's a South African now living in Tucson, at least temporarily, and he and his wife all they do is travel the world in a a uh basically the same defender that I own. It's a I believe it's a ninety-three one ten two-door with the two hundred TDI motor in it. And it was great to talk to him. He was very knowledgeable and just had such fascinating stories about you know trips up the Pantanal in Brazil and crossing the salt flats and um going through Africa and he had a lot of photos to share and a lot of wisdom around you know what it is to own these older vehicles. And you know, one of my goals here, I I really didn't have an illusion that I was going to be selected to move forward. Um and that's all fine and I had a great time. But it really I was just wanted to have fun and make some make some friends and learn some new skills and all of that. I can check all those boxes. Um the the format of the event was we arrived, you know, we were taken from a hotel in Vancouver early one morning to to this kind of base camp, which was a a wilderness camp uh outside of mission. And from there they had us um do a bunch of physical activities. You know, there was a high ropes course. Um, there was kind of a swimming competency test. There was an orienteering or, you know, kind of navigation um course in bushwhacking through, you know, I mean if if you know the woods in in British Columbia, like it's everything is covered with moss, very wet, very spongy, slippery, um, overgrown, and they just set us off.
James Stacy Yeah, special type of jungle. Yeah, exactly.
Jason Heaton They just kind of set us off to find checkpoints and move through the woods. Um the the the most brutal part was that was at the end of the day. It was getting dark. We came out of the woods kind of feeling pretty good about ourselves. And then they said, Okay, they uh we emerge from the woods on this gravel road and they had the back of a defender open stacked with jerry cans that held two gallons of water each and two gallons of water weighs twenty pounds. Um, and they said, Okay, this is your water for the camp. Um now you gotta ruck this uh each one each person has to take one of these jerry cans, run to camp with one of these jerry cans of water, which was about two miles away on a undulating gravel road. And that was just I don't think anybody enjoyed that. It was absolutely brutal. Um it's really tough to run carrying a jerry can was was really rough. There was some rope work, you know, some knot tying, um building bridges, building tripods, um and th and that wasn't even but that was it all before we even got into to a vehicle, even before we got to drive the defenders, 'cause this was a a kind of a two day session and the first day was a lot of these physical and skills challenges. And then um and then that night after we had dinner and we all set up, we were in this lovely campground right on a lake. I wish I had known exactly where it was. Some people listening might know from the photos I posted, but you know, pleasant enough, but you know, boil in the bag, dinner sitting around a fire. It was quite chilly, and we were looking out at the beautiful sunset.
James Stacy Um and then darkness fell, and then they set us
Jason Heaton off on a night convoy with four people in each vehicle where we stopped along the way and rotated drivers and they took us up some absolute billy goat um trails, you know, really rocky, steep stuff at night um in in the Defenders. And I gotta say, um I've spoken about gone on record as sort of being a little snobby and skeptical about the new Defender. And um I I won't be buying one anytime soon. Uh you know, they're way too expensive for me, but what a competent vehicle. That that thing was just you know, whereas I you know when I've done off-roading in my defender, uh I'm not gonna pat myself on the back, but it's more about driver skill or ability or kind of really learning what you can and can't do. In these, the the technology is such that, you know, in the stock condition, you know, with some off-road tires, we were able to just scale some incredibly steep rocky terrain, um, off-camber stuff, um, you know, through water, slippery, et cetera. Um, so that was the night convoy. Got, you know, got in climbed into our sleeping bags, dead tired, 10 30. And then the next day was largely um the driving stuff. So we did kind of some um off-road trial stuff again. We had to build log bridge and and drive over it. Um some some pretty gnarly, steep, you know, sandy trails and rocky descents and going through water and things like this. Um and I'm not going to go through each of the challenges, but one of the more fun ones was um changing the tire to uh the the left rear tire on a defender where um they said okay um your your spare tire is floating on a raft down this very steep gully the sand uh slope down in the floating on a little knee deep muddy pond at the bottom of this. You've got to somehow get that up here by building a tripod out of three logs and rope with a pulley um and then as a team pull the spare tire up the slope um and then drive the vehicle to an area on this off-road trail where you can get the rear wheel up off the ground without using a jack, take the wheel off,
James Stacy put the new wheel on. The the
Jason Heaton the judge who was kind of observing us, you know, gives us the thumbs up, take the wheel off, put the original wheel back on, then return everything to where it was. So you gotta put it winch it, you know, or not winch it, but lower the the the wheel back down the slope, put it back on the raft in the in the muddy pond, disassemble the tripod. You know, it it it was this kind of a combination of teamwork and physicality and vehicle skills, um, and just, you know, of logic. And um it was it it was just it was nonstop. It was it was that all day long. And uh and we kind of rotated through different teams uh during the days. Um so you got to meet new people, even though we were kind of all judged uh pr uh individually. Um they were kind of rating people based on their skills and their kind of people skills and and that sort of stuff. So sure. In the end, two Canadians were chosen and two Americans. They announced that on the last night at a kind of a little campfire dinner thing. And um those two then will are kind of going up against the two that were chosen from the second wave and two from the third wave. So altogether, um, you know, four um from each, uh, so 12 total that then go to upstate New York sometime in May for a Defender event at one of those Defender Experience or Land Rover experience places where you do some off-road driving, and then they will
James Stacy sure announce the the two winners
Jason Heaton from each country to go ahead for the the Africa finals. So um the winners definitely um definitely earned it. They definitely deserved it. You know, like I said, there were just some really competent people that I was I was quite in awe of actually some of these these people's skills, you know, using high lift jacks and winching and doing knots and driving ability and and that sort of stuff. So um yeah, I don't know what else to say. I'm gonna be writing up uh my experience for Substack this week and I've posted kind of a bit of a slideshow on Instagram. So if you want to check that out, uh you you certainly can. And um I'll certainly be kind of go riding a high from from this for for a while to come. And and so if if you you run across me or w have any questions, let me know. But it was uh it was a really, really great time.
James Stacy Yeah, sounds like a proper adventure for sure.
Jason Heaton It really was. Yeah. Um that's awesome. Exceeded expectation. So it was uh great, great. Yeah. Well
James Stacy look, uh you're back from that. You're heading to California next week. I head to Vancouver in uh just a couple of days.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um the the other thing that I wanted
James Stacy to put out here, and it and it kind of aligns with what we're gonna be talking about for the bulk of the show, which is new watches, a lot of them quite expensive. Um, you and I will be at Chicago Wind Up. We just sorted that out. Um, we will be putting together some sort of a hangout, so stay tuned for that. Um, if you're gonna be in town, uh, it's a great time. I So uh with Vancouver just a few days away, we'll have Chicago mid summer and then we'll have the Toronto show uh towards the uh start of fall and end of the summer season. So it should be uh should be pretty good. Um what what do you have coming up next week?
Jason Heaton Yeah, kind of this couple of weeks of very varied adventures. Um next week I fly to uh and I should mention, we're since we're both gone next week, um we do have a pretty cool episode lined up for next week. And I I'm not gonna tell you what, but it's it's with a really cool guest. It was
James Stacy a it was a really interesting conversation, so stay tuned for
Jason Heaton that. But yeah, I will be um flying to California this weekend. Um my girlfriend Christy's daughter is uh performing in a series of kind of avant-garde short operas. She's an opera singer um in LA um this this weekend. Gosh, it's coming up. Um and then we're we're we're heading north, we're driving up the coast. We will finish in San Francisco. Um and along the way I will be stopping near Big Sur to do some uh a bit of uh diving shenanigans, uh you know, conditions permitting with uh some special T GN folks um and and you know, people everyone here will be familiar with, including uh uh chap who is in a different wave of the defender trophy. I'll get to see him there. Uh oh nice. And then what it's from there it's on to um uh if if you remember the last episode of Mad Men, the place where Don Draper ends up is I will be there for a day. The like the yoga
James Stacy retreat spot. Exactly. Yeah, I'm going there
Jason Heaton for a day. All right. Um, that's uh just north of Big Sur. And then uh and then finishing up uh the following weekend in San Francisco. And I'm there's a good chance I'll pop in at at wind up San Francisco. Um I mean, how can I not? It's it's going on that weekend and I'll be in town. So um for
James Stacy sure. I'm gonna I'm gonna try to get over there and
Jason Heaton then fly home. And then uh then it's gardening season, which certainly doesn't feel like that here. We had snow yesterday morning and it's quite chilly today, but uh we're turning the corner. So it's uh it just feels like April is just a whirlwind and it's almost over now.
James Stacy Dude, it's crazy. It I blinked and we and 20 days went by.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I I I feel like I have just
James Stacy been kind of attaching so much of my personal excitement to Vancouver.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like that's helped me
James Stacy kind of just s keep my head down and kind of push through the the wall of work that is uh watches and wonders. But look, we've done uh travel and adventure and driving and and diving. Uh, why don't we get into some watches? Uh before we t kick off the main topic, which of course is a look at all of the watches that we're kind of excited about, expensive and otherwise from watches and wonders, why don't we dive into a quick risk check?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. Um, well, I, you know, when I was narrowing down my selections to wear for Defender Trophy, I really wanted something light and rugged, um and useful. And uh I I I think it was a no-brainer. I I wrote I I wore my uh crew watch, number one, so the CWC, our TGN watch, um, which was the right choice, you know, disappeared from my wrist. I just consulted it as I needed to and and otherwise it just disappeared on the wrist. And I'm still wearing it today. So I've got it on an actual T GN gray NATO, which surprisingly I just funny, I I don't wear it that often on in this configuration, but you know, it looks just perfect of course.
James Stacy And any like solid scratches or little dings or anything to remember it by or did it just kinda c come out unscathed?
Jason Heaton It came out unscathed. I was kinda disappointed. I wanted a big ding in the side, but you know nothing. Yeah, you've got something special. Yeah,
James Stacy because of the way that we timed the two weeks off, we missed a chance to talk about uh some watches which will come up just shortly that came out just before Watches and Wonders, but also the new Timex eight lap uh LE that came out with Hodinky. So I was part of the team that was able to kind of inspire what we did with this limited edition. It sold out. Uh we made two thousand of them and I just absolutely love it. I've been wearing it, I wore it a bunch of Watches of Wonders. Uh you know a hundred and thirty f buivecks, which actually kind of puts it on the premium side of the eight lap. Um but I I thought uh I I was okay with with that as far as uh largely the the decision went there. You know, just a uh you know, a a a sort of Game Boy Nintendo translucent, transparent style case inspired version of the watch that got me kind of first hooked on watches when I was a kid. I've I've written about my love of the 8 lap in my first one. I still have. Um this is based off the more modern OG version, which is still a hula hand design, you know, that we've seen in the Abu Garcia and the shades of gray and the eight lap OG and the the you know that purpley one and the the dark the dark tone one and you know we've had a lot of these we've talked a lot about them over time and when Timex kinda came to the LE team and they said what what else might might you want to go for, they happened to come to me and said, you know, do you think it'd be cool? I said we could make something that I would like. Whether or not it's cool will be will be up to uh, you know, something like nineteen hundred and ninety plus other people. Um, but uh yeah, it it I think it came out really well. We minimized some of the text around the uh bezel. Uh so it's dots in most places instead of you know hardcore text. And we've got a little hodinky signature right on the front, which I actually think looks pretty pretty rad. You guys know I'm not normally much for putting a name right on something. Uh It's got a cool hodinky case back and then otherwise the I mean the the calling card is that it's a translucent, sort of smoked, uh semi-clear plastic case and in a really dark room you can kind of see the loom come out of the sides. Oh
Jason Heaton yeah. Uh which makes me happy. And you can see little bits
James Stacy of the mechanism. You can see the like the mounts for the stop start buttons and the lap up buttons. And then we've got sort of a a matched out gray uh sort of taupey gray uh strap. So uh nothing fancy certainly, but uh a watch that I think I'm gonna get a lot of wear from and uh just something that it was kind of fun to be part of. I said, you know, I I like these watches, but they that whole era of having these sorts of watches makes me think back to my translucent Game Boy, you know, N64 controllers that were like frosted green or purple or even G Shock uh controllers from the PlayStation 2. I remember like sitting in my basement playing uh Tony Hawk 2 with my brothers and we all had our preferred uh kind of controller and and that it was kind of a vibe. The memory cards were this was sort of like I said, like green or purple or clear sort of thing where you could get a hint of the tech that was inside, but it felt and I still kind of love that aesthetic and it feels like it's kind of come full circle. And we started started with clear if if if timex would want, we could maybe see other colors down the future. No, no plans as of yet, but uh it sold out in in that first day. I don't actually know how many hours I'd have to double check, but uh it sold out and uh it seems like a lot of them ended up with folks on the Slack, which I'm thrilled about.
Jason Heaton I saw that. Like I said, maybe maybe you're
James Stacy paying uh fifteen or twenty dollar premium um uh to to have this one versus one of the other ones that we've rambled on about in past years. But I really like this. Uh if you're curious and you're at the Vancouver show, I'll have it with me. Uh so let me know if you want to check it out. I'll pull it out of the bag and and and we can take a look. So yeah. That's what I'm wearing today and probably what I'm wearing for the rest of the week. I just adore it.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's it's great. And I it's it's such a kind of a hat tip, obviously, to you and your your love for these watches. you And know,, I think back to over the arc of all of the Hodinki LEs that have come up. And, you know, there have been a few G Shocks along the way. But this one just feels like this it feels like, you know, definitely TGN space kind of creeping into the Hodinki universe and and you know, not that that's a big stretch, but um it's it's it's fun to see, and it was fun to see a lot of the TGN folks wearing those uh that that got them. So that's really cool.
James Stacy Yeah, and if if you're if you're keen on what Jason was just talking about, this idea of like the TGN space creeping into the hooding LEs, just stay tuned. Uh there's something else coming that I absolutely can't say more about, but it is coming, and it's not that far away. And uh I it's an instant buy for me. Um if if that helps uh describe it. It's in an accessible price point and uh it's from a brand that we love. So let's uh let's look forward to that. But look, I've got this on the wrist. It's a nice bit of of kind um perspective shaping as we step into the into watches and wonders. Uh look, like like I said, kind of at the top, watches and wonders, this is always a little bit of a conflicted show for Jason and I because you could talk about a lot of the different watches, but they're most of what comes out at Watches and Wonders is high luxury, uh high premium to proper luxury to ultra ultra sort of spec stuff. And a lot of that's not in our zone. That said, we always try and curate a list of the watches that we feel either represent our zone, but maybe not our price point, or do represent the zone and require and deserve some shine. So that's kind of what we're doing here. Obviously, our zone is maybe closer to a Vancouver show or a Chicago wind up. But as you'll see, I'm quite excited about a few of the watches. I saw a ton of negativity online, which you know, a lot of it's kind of meme and that's kind of fun. And and and I do get that. I think that a lot of it was line extensions, a lot of it was uh you know, kind of stuff that that I don't know that people will be talking about in six months.
Jason Heaton Mm-hmm But there was some stuff there that I thought was genuinely
James Stacy interesting. Um, even if it makes me wish, you know, maybe I had gone into being a hedge fund manager uh r rather than a a podcaster and a blogger, you know what I
Jason Heaton mean? Yeah. Well I I will say that I I did appreciate and I think you brought it up a couple of times in the Hodinky podcast that you guys were doing daily from Watches and Wonders. Um a a point that you made was there's a there's a time and we've we've talked about this on the show, like you don't have to own something to appreciate it. And you can and you were saying um you know there's you you can set the price aside and appreciate the object for what it is. And I think that that's kind of the theme of these picks for for the most part. I mean some are some of them are, you know, reasonably
James Stacy And and look, it's also the theme for my final notes.
Jason Heaton Oh there's a world in which I just
James Stacy get to be a fan of things, even if I know they're c they cost too much money and that I'll never have one and I'll never maybe even experience. Yeah. But sometimes it's just the content around that thing I find delightful or the the ability to have that in this like mental list. Like what we're going to start with a watch that for the next several years, if I do a watch draft and it can fit, it's going to be in the pick. It's going to be something somebody will have to steal if they want to take it from me.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And that's uh a watch that I think a lot
James Stacy of you already know what I'm going to say, the Basheron Constantin overseas dual time Cardinal points.
Jason Heaton So we had Corey Richards on
James Stacy back in the day at 21. They launched the dual time Everest in twenty one. It was a hundred and fifty piece LE, about $31,000 at the time. And of course it sold out immediately. And let's be clear, it's not like I was on the waiting list. I don't have that kind of scratch. And I don't have the scratch for the new one. Just put it out there. And even if I did, I'm I'm a father of three. Uh I live in a very expensive city. I know there's people here uh listening that that would understand. It's not the way that I would spend my money. I drive a twenty thousand dollar Toyota Siena and like a a Jeep that at this point is worth so little I'll probably just hang on to it. You know what I mean? Yeah, it would be crazy for me to spend forty thousand dollars on a watch. But I love these. I just I absolutely love them. If I had to go to into a luxury brand, I love Vascheron, I'm a big fan, but this idea of a forty-one millimeter grade five titanium comes with all three straps. Now you get a bracelet, which didn't exist uh previously, and in the world of Vacheron, where you're paying uh what's now, you know, twenty nineteen watch prices were vastly different. So the to be clear, this new watch is forty one thousand dollars, which is a
Jason Heaton yeah not a small amount of money.
James Stacy Um but think about what pricing was like in the in the watch Wldor in 2019 pre,-andpemic pre,-COVID, all that kind of thing to now. And on top of that, you're getting a grade five titanium quick change bracelet that's finished to Vascheron standards. Not as wild as some of the other is still a ton of money? No question. We're not going to argue that point. It's it's arguably not even that interesting to talk about. I love this watch. It's now available in they're calling it the Cardinal Point, so it's north, south, east, west, which gives you uh four different colorways, a sort of uh silvery white, a green, a brown, and a blue. The white and the blue are the two standouts for me. Uh the one thing I will give them credit for is I don't like brown watches, like brown dials. I wear a ton of brown and for whatever reason I I don't really enjoy brown dials on watches. I obviously I like a brown strap for sure. Um but this is a brown that I it's just it has a lot of gray in it and I like it a lot. It it comes out really nicely, it matches the orange tone really well. And then the green seems to be where a lot of people are going, like this is the one. And the green in person is very soft, very subtle, very kind of emerald grass versus more of that like artificial green that we see in in a lot of shinier dials.
Jason Heaton Mm-hmm. Just a just a really good function
James Stacy set as well. So you have AMPM indication for home, but the date is tied to the local display.
Jason Heaton Mm. Yeah. Which makes a lot of sense.
James Stacy And then you have a instead of it being more of a subtle dual timer like uh a 5164A, so you have an entirely distinct quote unquote dual time hand, which is this orange arrow tip. I just I love this watch. Uh I I will talk about it too much. If you if you dislike this watch, I apologize. You'll you'll be hearing me talk about it a lot. It it's now like right up there with a dream watch from a modern brand, like a modernam Drech fromw aat current current brand, it it you know, it immediately leaps up next to a an AP Royal Oak offshore diver and right next to the Everest, you know, the b the preceding spec.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Jason, on paper, what does this uh
James Stacy you know, price conversation we I feel like we've crossed, but from a standpoint, how does this one speak to you?
Jason Heaton I mean, I'll admit when I saw this, I I immediately started like it didn't even take long before I started doing mental math, thinking, like, if I just sold my entire collection, like this could be Yeah,
James Stacy could it one watch that like and you could wear it every day. You
Jason Heaton could wear it every day and I'd be very happy with it. Like i i it I'm I'm smitten with it as you are. Um and I think um for me it'd be the green. I'm looking at it you know straight up in the code in the in the Hodenki story. Um with that sort of textile strap and then the the rubber strap and orange against that green looks great. And then I think the the bracelet looks particularly nice with this uh with this green dial and then the the white sweep hand um stands out against the the green dial as well. I I it's just it's a beautiful piece and I'm I'm curious what if any are are the differences between this and the the original Everest version. Did they change anything besides you know colorway or or anything like or you know specific branding or
James Stacy it's a slightly different version of the movement that has some NAC treatment for the bridges.
Jason Heaton I believe otherwise it's it's a very faithful
James Stacy reconsideration.. Different blue Obviously, the the previous one was a different tone of blue, a little bit more on the purple side of the spectrum.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um, but I believe otherwise these
James Stacy are uh largely similar, slightly different finishing for the bezel. Um, but I would have to see the two of them in person to remember like to be able to recall that. And if you're curious on more stories, we will have a hands-on on Hodinky for this watch, likely from Tantan, who is also in love with it. And then I have a special story coming up a little later. I I want I want to be able to go back to the original model and a couple of the models that precede it. I'd like to also there's an opportunity to see everything, like the bloodline that led us to here.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um and incorporate uh
James Stacy Corey Richards again. Um so give me some time on that one. Um but I I it's it's definitely something I I want to go a little bit deeper into how we got here, what this kind of represents for for Vasheron and that sort of thing. But yeah, I dig it. And I'm also doing some of that mental math where I go, Well, you know, this model be really hard to get for a couple of years, so I could have some time to kind of put myself in a position for it. But like I said, I mean, it it's not really a world in which I've I've ever attempted to play. But if I was, especially at a modern level, I just I get it. This this one speaks to me for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. It's really good. It was it was definitely the the highlight of the show when I even scrolled through our list. It was uh it was definitely top of the list. Well, I shouldn't you know what? I shouldn't have to be a good thing. There's some a couple
James Stacy other goodies, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jason Heaton All right, where do we go from here? Yeah, let's jump
James Stacy into Tutor. Uh obviously a fan favorite um for the brand. I mean, I don't want to gloss over Rolex, but uh Jason, was there anything that specifically spoke to you like something you would want?
Jason Heaton Nope, not a bit. No. Me neither.
James Stacy I mean, I I like the Jubilee dial, but it's not the kind of thing I'm gonna go for. Yeah. Uh the rest of it was a lot of like very expensive sort of gold and I you know the uh interesting stuff, stuff I think worth knowing about if you like being kind of encyclopedic on watches, but nothing that spoke to me directly.
Jason Heaton Yeah. But with Tudor, I saw a couple things
James Stacy that you know launched and the main thing was w was a an absolute curiosity for me. It was the kind of the the the time between when the PDF hit my inbox and when I got to hold it in my hands was the moment of my most curiosity at the show, and that's with the Tudor Monarch.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So the the Monarch is sort of a
James Stacy 90s to early 2000s model. So kind of preceded when Tudor made it made its way back to the the North American market, or more specifically the the America market. Uh uh Tudor was uh available in Canada all during that time for the most part. And the monarch's a weird model, you can't really pin it down to one idea. There was stuff in there that kind of felt like Tudor was going was trying to distance themselves from from being too similar to the submariner and maybe going more in the direction of um an integrated steel sports watch or even things like uh tag hoy or aqua racers. And I would just encourage you to try and go on Google's image search and search Tutor Monarch and scroll past the the one reference that was launched a couple days ago just to see the scope because they kind of put Monarch on a bunch of different watches and there's not really like what feels like a home home plate for this design. But for this new model, you know, it's a it's a fifty eight hundred dollar watch from Tudor. Um it's in steel, it's 39 millimeters wide and it uses both COSC and Metas, which is kind of in the Rolex playbook of using COSC and then the superlative chronometer. They do both, where the movement is certified and then once the watch uh is fully built, the movements in the watch, then you get Metas, which is nice. And and it's sort of, you know, it's not specifically like a hundredth year anniversary model. It is the brand's hundredth year, but it's like a rethinking of of what the monarch could be with its very faceted, almost grand seco-like case in some ways, and then uh a matching bracelet and a movement that's only being used in this watch. So this one uses the MT5662-2U, um, which is uh 65 hours of power reserve. It takes a four hertz and it offers small seconds.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And the watch itself has sort of a Cali dial
James Stacy with like a coppery sort of finish. I believe they call it like papyrus, uh, with sort of like a brushed copper finish. When I saw the pictures, you know, calling balls and strikes, I thought this is weird, kind of strange.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And then I looked at some of the other pictures where
James Stacy you get to see more of the relationship between the case and the bracelet, and I go, all right, I like it. It could be cool. Uh looks like it makes sense largely. You know, it's one of those ones, does it look like a tutor? That might be up to you. And then when I saw it in person, I was kind of swept away by it. Uh I really like it. I think it's it's weird and fun and interesting and and a bit of an oddball that obviously that's that's my zone. And I really like the hands. I thought the finishing of the case and the bracelet was kind of like Black Bay Plus, kind of that next level up.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh when you get a peek at the case back
James Stacy of the uh to to see the movement, you see sort of a higher grade of of finishing and anglage and you know the bridging is a little bit different than we'd expect from from something that we'd see in a Tudor Pelgos or or a or the that sort of thing. You know, thirty-nine millimeters, uh not especially thick. I don't have the number here in front of me, but it not thick enough to to start having a uh you know worry worrying about it. And then we've got um an interesting sort of finishing on the center links, which is like steepled like a roof.
Jason Heaton Oh yeah. So no matter how you kind of turn
James Stacy it, it always holds the light in some way. Just a sort of uh I mean unique as a stretch in the watch world, but within the scope of you know, post 2012 tutor, a very sort of unique option that I think offers a sort of special thing from a brand you know, but that's not a black bay, it's not a Pelagos, it's you know, it's not something like that what on paper how does this one hit you jason
Jason Heaton i i like it i think it's it's nice looking i i think that what wins me over with this one is yeah the the the flow of the case into the bracelet. Um,' Im not a California dial person, but the way they did it with these kind of raised black kind of stark minimal look of
James Stacy fully applied Yeah, they're really cool.
Jason Heaton And to incorporate the the shield logo and then the handset. Like it's a clever way to integrate that sort of snowflake handset. But the real winner for me is the the color of that dial. I think I could see this in other colors.
James Stacy That's the part that you like the most, eh? Yeah, I
Jason Heaton think like I think this could work with like kind of an interesting grained kind of more of a matte blue. Could work on this. I think a
James Stacy blue would be would be awesome. I think some other colors.
Jason Heaton I this is a watch. I think they could spin off a few different dial colors. Um and it could work. It's it's such an oddball. It's just, it's like, why did they need to make this watch? But tutor's always been that way. Like why did they need to make the FXD? Why did they need to make the um you know that the PO1 or whatever? You know, these kind of I love the Tudor does this sort of thing. Um it's not a watch I would own or wear, but it's it's a really neat neat thing for them. It's a it's a nice looking watch.
James Stacy Oh I could definitely see like for me now the monarch would be direct competition if I was going for the Ranger thirty six.
Jason Heaton Oh, really? Okay. Because I think I would wear them
James Stacy in a similar setting. This feels a little bit more special, a little bit more interesting.
Jason Heaton Yeah. A little bit less expected. And you
James Stacy know, the P01 will always have the the oddball charm for sure, but then this whole background of a huge group of two tutor nerds expecting a certain watch and getting something
Jason Heaton else. Yeah. Right? They were
James Stacy all expecting a sort of a tribute to a very specific reference from the Snowflake uh uh from the early Tudor sub world.
Jason Heaton Mm-hmm. And with the monarch one,
James Stacy I don't I don't know that anybody saw it coming. I didn't at least see anybody go, you know what they should do for their hundredth is bring back a a kind of oddball watch from the nineties. And on top of that, you know, I because I don't think they were necessarily promising anything to just come out and say like, hey, it's kind of a a special thing that's off on its own. There's no there's no official word that there's gonna be like a a broader monarch line necessarily. I I think it's a cool thing. And and I I like that it's not we we got a lot of other Black Bay, you know, we got um we got MetaS and Jubilee bracelets. We got a ceramic bracelet for the Black Bay ceramic. We got a new Black Bay fifty four blue, which we can get into in just a moment. I like that the unexpected thing was like totally outside of any of those lines. Yeah. Which is kind of cool.
Jason Heaton Yeah, Tudor kind of has to they have to take care of their other lines too. I mean I think we're we're so focused, at least you know, in our little bubble um with with Pelagos and Black Bay, um and Ranger um kind of the sports with the classic sports watches that we all love and go gaga over. But you know, uh they they''veve they've got got other other watches and other audience as well, so they've got to take care of those people.
James Stacy Absolutely. Yeah, and I thought that the in person, the update to the um the royal was actually quite nice. That's one where I would say not I'm not gonna like go out seek one out necessarily.
Jason Heaton Yeah. But it it made more sense. It felt
James Stacy much more refined, the sizing's really good. I thought the pricing's quite realistic for the world we're in these days. And I think if that's the sort of watch that speaks to you I. I think you'd be quite happy with it. I I got a chance to see them in person and uh a few different specs, a few different sizes, and I think they work quite nicely. Um and then with the with the monarch, I I think that the brain needs some stuff that's kind of divisive or or so characterful that some people will really like it and others will go, oh I I you know, I'd rather have my whatever that I already have. I think that's okay. Yeah. You know, it's fine to have that sort of it it keeps them relevant, keeps them in the conversation and that sort of thing. And then the next one to to chat over because it's something that I think we've actually talked about on the show was this idea of like, oh, if they had a tutor fifty four in blue,
Jason Heaton yeah, that would be quite interesting.
James Stacy What what do you think of this from uh from the release?
Jason Heaton Um I would say I was a little disappointed in the shade of blue. It it it it's too bright. I think bright is the word I'm I'm thinking of here. It's um
James Stacy very radiant. Yeah, I like to be even more specifically. Like if they'd use the
Jason Heaton blue from from the other black bay. From the like 58. Yeah, the 58, it would have um it would have it would have been a winner for me. But uh yeah, this is a little bright, just like the kind of that Burgundy um didn't quite do it for me or you know, the kind of that reddish.
James Stacy Yeah, again, because it's a very metallic sort of finish.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and and that has its that has its lovers, of course, but I'm not one of them. So but uh yeah, cool line line extension for them.
James Stacy Yeah, and I I could see it being popular. For me, it's a miss. I love the idea of a blue one without guilt and all that kind of stuff, but I do wish it was the the blue from yeah, from the 58.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh this this was much more uh
James Stacy like we said kind of, radiant, sunbursty, bright with highlights. And also the dial especially has uh a strong undercurrent of like a purple mm that's more much more noticeable in live images. Um, which just didn't work for me. Yeah. Um, this would keep me still kind of pre preferring the black uh spec for this model. Uh but all in all from Tudor, I I think uh a nice year of of updates. I think that seeing the ceramic bracelet, quite exciting if you're uh a you know a a Black Bay ceramic fan, a Black Bay Black fan. Um, I think that's a very cool addition for that watch and not something that a lot of brands are doing. And then otherwise, you know, just some strong sort of updates of bringing uh metas and bracelet options to more watches, more colorways in the fifty eight, the B B fifty eight GMT as well. So strong stuff all around, kind of strengthening that catalog.
Jason Heaton Yeah, and if if we if we loved all the tutors that were released, we'd be uh far poorer. So it's probably good that they have some years where we don't pull out our our uh credit cards.
James Stacy Absolutely. Yeah. And I and I think look it's it's you know it you got you got to call balls and strikes and and you may look at this uh fifty four black Bay Blue and really like it. Um, I that and that's that's kind of the point of having line extensions is to have more for more people. So I would say good stuff all around. Definitely um I will have a story on the monarch. Maybe by the time this episode goes up, we'll see when I can get to it. Uh, but I shot some nice photos. So uh it's definitely something I'm interested in learning a little bit more about what the monarch was and how that might pertain to what the monarch is, if that makes sense.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, that's the new tutor
James Stacy watches, but it's not the only tutor stuff I want to talk about. The other thing that we got to do, and it started to trickle out on social media, and we'll have a photo report um in the coming uh couple of weeks on uh on Hodinki is this tutor collector event that they threw this year. So normally they would do a dinner.
Jason Heaton Oh, you know, invite some of the press, you come down,
James Stacy you have a glass of wine, you have some dinner, they'd you know, maybe some people dance on a trapeze or something like that. And you know, it's all very Swiss. Uh this year uh they decided to bring a bunch of people to the HQ, and by a bunch of people I mean a selection of of you know press and journalists and influencers that know Tudor well, and a huge group of collectors where they had a giant table and each collector kind of had a little spot and they brought out some of the most wild, like essentially everything you could imagine, the most complete collection of vintage uh tutor military spec sort of stuff.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know, if you're a Snowflake fan, if
James Stacy you love um issued divers, if you love uh watches with incredible backstories and all that kind of stuff, it was just a table full of uh one hit after another. It was hard to contextualize. I don't actually know how I'll be able to tell even a a percentage of the stories in something like a photo report. It's just it was just one tray of incredible collectible vintage tutor that I've ever seen.
Jason Heaton Wow. You know, so we you and I have been on a lot
James Stacy of tutor events where people pull out something interesting with a great case back or a special dial, and it was just like it was ten of those per trick just moving around a table.
Jason Heaton Wow. Wow. That's amazing. Yeah.
James Stacy Some really, really cool stuff there. So uh we'll figure that out in the next coming few days, but look forward to that. And uh a big thank you to obviously our our good buddy Cole and off uh uh as well as to Christoph and the rest of the team at Tudor for including an invite to uh to that event. It was overwhelming when I walked in the room. I had been going for like sixteen hours at that point and then I was like, Oh, this could this could take me, you know, two days to to chat with everybody and contextualize the story. So it might be a little bit of a lighter sort of photo report on that scope. But
Jason Heaton yeah. Wow. All right. Should we move up up up the I won't say up the food chain. That's uh unfair to tutor, but uh up the price chain, let's say, with uh maybe dive into IWC?
Unknown Yeah, there's some great stuff at IWC this year,
James Stacy but the one that stood out for me, I think a lot of it's very understandable if you know the brand. Like it was intelligent kind of tweaks. There's new engineur stuff if all the way up to titanium QPs, new 35mm colorways, some some good stuff there. And Blake Betner did a great job kind of summarizing it for Hodinky. So we'll include Blake's story in uh in the show notes. It's such a treat to have Blake write for right for us. And he also covered the panorized stuff, which we're just about to get into. But the one that I that I think was like hard to understand unless you had a moment with it was the pilot's venture vertical drive, which is a 44 by 16.7 millimeter ceramic white uh watch that's kind of made in conjunction with vast. And it's uh uh just it's it's hard to it's just a a very cool mechanism where they've they've set both the standard timekeeping and the the secondary time zone timekeeping into uh a little kind of clutch and switch on the side of the watch and then the bezel.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And you know, but IWC
James Stacy does some stuff where you can change the time with the bezel. They have the time zoner. Itself quite a large watch. But here uh yes, it's a big watch, but it wears quite nicely. And that bezel turning features a a bit of a delight. Uh so I would definitely, definitely spend some time uh reading more about that uh online. I I thought quite a cool thing. Uh, you know, comes in at like twenty eight thousand two hundred dollars. So again, kind of outside of our scope, our normal scope. Um, but they they had a had a a a pretty solid run of of new models, new petite prints, colorways for a bunch of different watches. Like I said, new engineers. The Sarah Loom in person is nuts. Like it's the the strap, the case, the dial, it's all loom. Uh we put up with just a short reel of of the loom coming in action. You can see my hand with the O-light charging it in uh on Hodinky and it you know immediately kind of blew up on uh on the channel. Uh I I think it's very cool. It's kind of silly, but I would like to see them extend that to more watches, something more in a smaller size range. And then you got the new pro set, which is is both uh kind of a rethinking of the sizing of a big pilot uh QP. Oh
Jason Heaton yeah. But at the same time a movement that now
James Stacy allows you to set it backwards, which is a uh or like uh adjust it backwards. Adjust is probably better than set it, um, which has been sort of not an Achilles heel, but a pain point for people with those QP movements over the past little while. So the pro sets a really nice evolution of product that has like worked for the brand for a long time.
Jason Heaton Yeah, very cool. I you know I I'm I'm still waiting for IWC to kind of return to some level of their roots. I do think that that with this um this venturer and and the QP, like that there's still there's still IWC in the engineering sense, um, but in terms of the aesthetic sense and kind of the minimalism, uh I I and also like where's the aqua timer? I just I'm I'm just waiting for uh one of these years, they're gonna come out with an aqua timer and then we'll we'll be you know the the angels will sing and we'll be really happy. But uh
James Stacy I'm very excited for for whenever that happens for sure. Yeah. Um because I think if if they take the if they take the space, like the attention that they gave the ingenure in taking something that they know
Jason Heaton and updating it for today and they lots
James Stacy of nice sizes and complications. And if they just apply that like an I understand that the aqua timer is still made to some extent, but it's it's the absolute least prioritized line at the brand and has been for several years. Yeah. And I just think you look back, you know, you and I ramble on about uh what 3568s and uh the Cousteaux and there's like they'd only have to go back twenty years to see some pretty cool stuff and then just modernize that a little bit, keep the price in the you know, in the pilots range. Uh I think that could be really good. And and I also think it's it's a space where like the next two brands we're gonna talk about are kind of showing them what's possible in the let's call it seven to eight to fifteen thousand dollar range. Yeah. For uh interesting special dive related sort of watches. So I think let's jump into a Grand Seiko.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Um this uh Spring Drive UFA Yushio 300 Diver. Um I remember you yeah when when you first saw this you wrote me and you said wow I mean you were super excited like they've they finally made absolutely. The size that everybody's been hoping for because that's been the gripe that we've had for for so long with Grand Seiko is just these giant um dive watches because they've they've always been beautifully finished and spectacular watches, but just just mammoth. Yep. Um so yeah, why don't you tell us about this one?
James Stacy So if there's some world in which folks listening to TGN didn't catch that there's a new high spec GS diver, uh this is a forty point eight millimeter by I think it's a 12.9 millimeter 300 meter dive watch from the brand, all made in high-intensity uh titanium. And then it runs the brand's relatively modern 9RB1 UFA ultrafine accuracy uh movement, which is plus minus uh 20 seconds a year. And uh and yeah, it's it's basically it's at least some version of the watch that a lot of people have been asking for. Um, where I think people have gotten some sort of divisive elements is the dial design. It's very grand psycho, you know, it's very beautiful. It's it's really, really nicely made and it has these lovely markers, but it's also at the same time a little bit fancy for a dive watch.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh it fancy's a word that
James Stacy I don't like, but I don't really have a better version here. It's very elegant, the dial. It feels like a dial taken from a different Grand Seiko and then put on on something more like a diver. And I'm curious to see where this line evolves and where we maybe just get a black dial or a blue dial or that you know there was that purpley tone dial of the larger model of a few years ago.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And then the other thing that comes up in the conversation,
James Stacy and and look, I this comes up in the conversation, but a lot of watches is the price. Um, this is a $12,400 dive watch. And the what I would say is the difference between reading the stuff online, which I'm I am excited about this watch, I'm thrilled that they're making it, that they're putting this m uh movement into this watch. I would go with for me at this price point it wouldn't have to be the the UFA. It could be any one of their great automatic movements. That would be fine uh for me, especially if it meant that you could get it down under the the ten thousand dollar price point. Like if this if they had a version of this with a more basic, simple dive watch sort of execution, but the same case, the same the bezel's really good. The the hands I really like. I I really like most of the stuff. It's just uh some if it's like the most premium spec for the brand right now. And you know, UFA is a flagship and and all that sort of thing. It really felt like we kind of took um what's the right way to say this? It's okay. If you imagine like an SPB-143 or even one of the SLA divers, and then cross it with a bath escap.
Jason Heaton Oh, sure. Yeah. It's kind of
James Stacy like this. Yeah. Yeah. It has this technical attribute, but at the same time, you know, the Bathiscaf always has a fairly uh subtle dial, but it has these beautiful markers. It's still very blanc pon. And and I think that's where this kind of lands. And if you're comparing them, you know, in that metric, the pricing makes more sense. I think that it largely comes down to what you had in your mind as like what a what a Grand Saco diver should cost. Um the pricing could be a conversation that's exceptionally subjective on this metric as Grand Seco has a ton of fans and has done a lot of work in the over $10,000 market for the past while. I really like this one, especially the blue, where the dial really looks like you know the surface of water and and that sort of thing. It's a bit little romantic, but at the same time it's a little bit technical. And it's so different from a a pelagos or a bathasca or a submariner. Um and that sort of thing. And the quality my experience with the quality in my hand is it's it's just very high.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I'm not uh you know, my only quibble with this, and it's not even a quibble, this is my personal taste, and um I'm just not a textured dial person, you know, sure in any sense. But Grand Sago does it better than anybody, and they do it in a so many of their watches, not specifically the dive watches, but across all their lines. Um, so it does make sense here. And I think this is a brand that has always, you know, when price comes up, there's always this bit of justification that Grand Seiko fans kind of feel a bit of a chip on their shoulder and they have to kind of back it up with, well, yeah, but it's not Seiko, it's Grand Seiko, and they do this and this and they do everything really well. And if you hold it in your hand and look at the finishing, I mean, it comes with this whole raft of justifications, but um for people that really know their stuff and are really watch nerds, like so many of us are, like we get it. And and I I would imagine that this is just a a superior watch in almost every metric, you know, uh even compared to the the some of the Swiss brands that you mentioned, you know, like we're talking, you know, above submariner pricing in this case, um, you know, we're itching inching into the kind of Blanc Pon, you know, the Bathiscaf pricing area and uh
James Stacy especially in the big titanium and the obviously the very high end movement and that sort of thing for sure.
Jason Heaton Good to see and good to see the size uh getting more reasonable. That's great.
James Stacy Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I think I think a great move. Um, and especially if this if this ends up being the you know, the footing for an expanded line where like I said, we might get some more simple versions, lesser, you know, less accurate movements in in the grand scheme of things um and more simple dials. I think I could really see this being a hit for the brand uh in the long term.
Jason Heaton Yeah. This feels like something the the brand
James Stacy was had been asked for several times in terms of please, please take these watches we really like and make them a little bit smaller.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I think it works. You know, not unlike
James Stacy the conversation we had years ago where, you know, you were able to go from the the larger like SRP seven seven seven to an SPPB one four three and drop down a few millimeters. Um this is the same thing. Just taken to that sort of ultra premium level.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's move on. This was to me personally, as Jason Heaton, star of the show, um, Panorai, so happy to see them returning to some some of this stuff. Um, you know, getting away from a lot of the the you know, the some of the the exotic materials and kind of the the sailing focus stuff, which is you know it's all fine um but you know I just crave these kind of some more simple uh luminars and uh boy they knocked it out of the park with so many of these I was just drooling over these.
James Stacy Yeah so they they did and we have a story also from Blake Bettner. Shout out Blake, thanks again. Um, covering kind of the five luminores. There was a very special one with like a 30-day power reserve that's you know, like six figures, and and that's fine. Uh definitely they do that to to speak to a certain type of their collector, but these really represent what feels like a core that they haven't been talking about for a while. Um the pricing's, you know, modern panores. So we've got uh I think you and I are gonna talk mostly about the forty-four millimeter versions. Uh specifically the seventeen thirty-two, which is uh the forty-four millimeter luminor, but in with a blue dial and the left side, the destroy it's really, really nice in
Jason Heaton person. Looks good, feels good,
James Stacy wears really nicely. It's I mean it's still 44mm panerize, so it's big, but it's big with purpose. It's like it was meant to be big.
Jason Heaton Um it I don't it doesn't feel oversized uh
James Stacy to me if, that if that makes any sense. And just an absolute delight, the blue's really, really distinctive. And on you know, on a strap, it it hits that pan right thing really well. 9200 bucks, which feels, you know, I I I definitely reviewed a forty two millimeter submersible bef well before the pandemic. That was ten or uh eleven or twelve thousand dollars. So so this is just offering something a little bit more special. Um what what did you think of the blue or or or the black version, the the standard version with the the right side crown?
Jason Heaton I'm just absolutely smitten with this and and you know looking at this this full kind of new lineup of Luminours, there were several in here that um again, you know sch,eming, mental math, etc. Um, but this matte blue dial or the brunito steel um with that, I guess it's kind of a gray gray dial. Um just uh I I I I don't know, they're they're both just stunning watches. But the the blue is just just that much different and I'm a bit on the fence about blue dials in general. I mean, we just talked about the the new Black Bay fifty four with the blue that didn't quite hit us right, but this this blue really does hit me right, at least in photos.
James Stacy Absolutely, yeah. I look, I mean the this the 1732, I like both of the the new forty-fours, but it's definitely the seventeen thirty-two. Left side crown is nice for a larger watch. I wear my watch on my left's left wrist, so that's kind of handy in some ways. Um if you're worried about the possibility of the crown kind of hitting a bony spot on your wrist. Ninety two hundred bucks, that's a lot of money obviously for a a watch of any type. But then if you're gonna be in for ninety two hundred dollars, I'm not going to skip what's a relatively small jump up to eleven thousand three hundred dollars, again, all within perspective. Uh, and that's the uh the 1733, which is the Giorni 8. So it's an eight-day power reserve model that uses this. Uh it's I I it's steel, but they use uh P V D coating or or uh you know, sort of a a coating to the steel that's then worn away. And in person it's just like it's an absolute stunner. This is just a really, really pretty big watch.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. And and the eight day power reserve
James Stacy and all that kind of stuff if if that's meaningful to you, uh kind of helps. But
Jason Heaton that is meaningful. That you know, I'm not usually a power reserve person, like you know, just wear your watch it'll stay wound but like with an automatic but like for something like this where it's uh you know a hand wound eight day power reserve like it's just that is that is something special I that that's just something I would just get such a thrill out of, you know, just letting this thing run for a week.
James Stacy Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I I I don't disagree. And I think also also, like I said, if you're already in for nearly ten grand, you're at least going to be considering this one and for your extra money, not only are you getting the the different steel treatment, you're also getting the upgraded movement and the coloring between that aged sort of effect steel and then the very tan sort of coloring of the dial just feels so core panor eye. Uh I I think and and I like that it's not all polished. The a standard Luminore like like the 1732 is quite a polished sort of experience.
Jason Heaton Mm-hmm. Uh very cool. And obviously
James Stacy that if if you're willing to go up even higher into forty seven millimeters, they had the um the limited edition in forged titanium, which is very cool. But now we're talking twenty-four thousand dollars. And I I you know I you Jason and I both came into the world when you could buy a uh base oh oh five or whatever, maybe maybe second hand, maybe not, in the four to five thousand dollar range, and and often secondhand less than that.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And it it it can be difficult to
James Stacy translate to today's pricing. But if you're in the zone, I I think the two, the that destro especially and the the eight day in the Brunito steel uh definitely spoke to me. Both really, really handsome things.
Jason Heaton Yep. Definitely winner for the show for me. All right, let's jump into some more affordable stuff here. Um well reasonably more affordable and in some cases quite a bit more affordable with uh with the new releases from Zinn. Now were they at Watches and Wonders or were they over at uh Time to Watches
James Stacy wonders proper. Oh, nice. I got to see Marcus and the team uh right right down the hall from Gnomos, which is a real treat, uh, to see them in there, and they were thrilled to be there. They had the entire lineup, so you could just walk around to a case and open a glass door and just pick up a 613 or a 556 or whatever you're into.
Jason Heaton So for somebody like you, like to go to Watches and Wonders and be, you know, visiting Cartier and Paddock and Vacheron, do you just have this like do you just feel your body relaxing when you watch into walk into the Zen booth and just be like, oh, these are my people, these are my watches?
James Stacy Yeah, I I think definitely, you know, the a lot of it is quite regimented. You know, there aren't watches available to just pick up. You have to have the meeting, you have to go into the room, and then they bring in it one trade at a time, and every watch has to have the full storytelling. Yeah. And with Zinn, the storytelling's there, but you're going to have a conversation with Marcus. Shout out, Marcus, if you're listening. He's an absolute gem. Andy and I went to check these out and they just kind of put a tray down on a table in an open air space, like where other people are walking around. It's very casual, um, it's very straightforward, it's a very light on pretense, if you will. And on the table, we had the new 554 and 554 RS. We had the new version of the 936 now in S, the full black kind of treatment, uh, the chronograph, and then the one that I know that you were interested in, which is the 308 hunting watch. Uh three different specs. Obviously the one that spoke to me, uh if if if I'm if I'm uh you know aggressive enough to go first in this in this trio is uh the 554. Um Jason, obviously you have a 144. I've owned a 144 in the past, and imagine if you take a 144, cross it with a 556, which is like kind of the brand's entry-level pilot style watch, put those two together and, you kind of get this really interesting, not that very big, uh easy-to-wear, uh, and nicely priced, uh, kind of Salita-powered take on kind of blends of bits of field watch and pilots watch all in one. Very one four four in its in its execution. Um w di of the w did this one interest you at all?
Jason Heaton Oh definitely. I I think of the three actually um you know even though being being a big chronograph guy that the nine three six was uh
James Stacy yeah was a was a real winner for me. The the hunting
Jason Heaton watch, I'm I'm not a hunter, um interesting watch, beautiful looking, etcetera. Um but the yeah, the five four four w w w what of the three would be the one that I go for, not only, you know, for its aesthetics, but you know, price-wise, it's quite reasonable. And I I just feel like this is this is that space that Zinn does so well in. You know, they're known for for chronographs, they're known for kind of these really high-tech rugged divers, but like when it comes down to it, um you know I've known I I think I I've known of about two people that that in the past kind of bought, you know, we're looking for a one watch, truly a one watch that that they just thought, I just want something I that just works and and I can take anywhere and do anything with. And and Zinn is one of those brands that you know most people don't know about, the average person, but like to to throw this on your wrist and just like you know, to go back to my defender trophy stuff, like I I could almost see someone like traveling the world and not wanting to have to worry about their watch um and kind of flies under the radar. This is this is the one. I mean, the especially this 544. it It's slim. It it's like on the on the bracelet, it's it's so seamless and it would just wear well. Um, great size. Obviously, it's gonna be have that Zen durability to it. Um, definitely the winner. And I'd I personally would go for the RS with the uh with the red sweep hand. Yeah. Or sorry. Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacy So that's the only difference between the the 544 and the 544 RS is the color of the second's hand. It's just a little bit of a da a splash of color.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Kind of feels a little bit like RS is a good call
James Stacy because it does kind of feel weirdly more automotive.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Like a like a rev counter or something
James Stacy like that. I mean, maybe that's just you know my interpretation. But the pricing, if you buy this on a strap in the U.S,. which is only through watch by, so you you have the one option,
Jason Heaton is 1740 for
James Stacy a brand new Zen. Yeah. With a automatic 60-hour power reserve, 38.5 millimeters, wears nice and thin. I would personally either go strap and then put it on a NATO. It comes on sort of a a pseudo bun, fold over. It looks good, but not my style. Or
Jason Heaton if you really want something that makes the case
James Stacy feel like it's just part of the bracelet, if that makes any sense. The the unit on the bracelet is 2170. Uh, for so you get the full steel bracelet, and they flare the link that connects with the hooded lug so that it comes off quite seamless, and there's just way more metal in the bracelet and clasp than there is in the watch. So it ends up with this sort of integrated cuff-like feel.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um, the the thing that it reminded
James Stacy me of is watches that have the like Oangapo, bracelet because there's just so much metal kind of wrapping it around your wrist. It's a cool
Jason Heaton effect. Yeah. It's not really like anything I've come
James Stacy come across before. It's their it's their H-Link uh quick adjust bracelet. And again, we're talking under twenty two hundred dollars,
Jason Heaton which uh not an inconsiderable
James Stacy amount of money, but well under the Tudor price point, um, maybe over most of the Seiko Hamilton sort of price point, but in that middle with a brand that is just, you know, we're big fans of Zinn.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Great, great stuff. The the 936 S with this the the sixty minute uh uh uh minute counter um and the chronograph unique feature. Um great looking piece. Um you know, Zen just does great all black watches anyway. Um they just almost feel like a a brand that's kind of made to always have a black version of everything. Um so that one's sharp as well. So yeah, strong showing glad you got to see them and and glad they're at uh watches and wonders proper now. That's a big big move up for them.
James Stacy Yeah, it's exciting exciting to see them there for sure. If a fan fave. Uh next up, let's let's jump into Oris.
Jason Heaton Yeah, the standout for me was this uh star edition. Um it's uh it's it's just kind of a simple piece that it just looks so authentically kind of um I I guess sixties. Um
James Stacy with this uh Tano shaped case. It kind of
Jason Heaton reminds me of so many watches of that era, like uh, you know, Omega constellations or, you know, just just so many of those vintage pieces that you find at at vintage shops or things like this and um good to see the aurus star name on the on the dial again.
James Stacy Yeah it was it was one of those ones where and Oris does this with other models but and a few brands are good at it where you literally feel like you're picking up a vintage watch.
Jason Heaton Yeah. It doesn't weigh anything.
James Stacy The 35 with the tonneau case wears a little bit bigger. So I think 35 is quite smart. It probably lands in that 36, 37 zone. Um it, you know, it's not offered on a bracelet, but I would immediately go what's the most interesting bracelet I could kind of source for this from either a vintage or or vintage ish aesthetic. And you know, coming in with a nice backstory that connects with the brand and uh and also a price point of twenty three hundred bucks. I think this will be an interesting watch for the brand that again kind of plays to their strengths, but isn't just another point or date or isn't uh another Aquus. It's it's something a little bit extra, a little bit on the side, sort of like the the like we talked about with the monarch. And I just think the pricing makes sense. You know, it's eleven point one millimeters thick and only forty one millimeters lug to lug, which means it's gonna be very comfortable, but it's also probably work on a lot of different straps depending on how you wanna, you know, mess around with it. And that and that's where I think a bracelet could be a lot of
Jason Heaton fun. Yeah. Yeah, it is nice to see, you know, a tutor, Ourus, whatever, you know, kind of moving beyond the the usual suspects. You know, we we've come to expect new Aquas uh line extensions or a you know, a new diver sixty five or pointer dates and stuff. And and this is just a bit out of left field and and kind of um one of those kind of I don't want to call it necessarily a do anything watch, but it's not it fits somewhere between a dress watch and kind of just an everyday watch and at 35 millimeters with this shaped case, I could see it wearing quite well. And I would I I would certainly wear wear something like this at that size. It looks great.
James Stacy And then the next one, well while we're kind of touring, you know, brands we like and just down just down the way, both uh geographically in Germany, but also uh i in the halls in Geneva would be Gnomos.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And they were kind of two the there's
James Stacy a lot to cover with Gnomos if you wanted to get into these uh two of two sort of unique art dial watches, not really our zone, but I would encourage you if that sounds interesting. They're also extending into precious metals with a bunch of yellow gold uh models this year, which I think work really well for them and probably offer some of their like most ardent fans somet,hing a little bit more special
Jason Heaton than than what they're used to. In person,
James Stacy all really good stuff. But the two main ones are you know the Tingente Diomatic 38 update. Uh people seem very excited about that. And then more core to maybe certainly my interests is uh obviously the the the uh club sport pneumatic world timer has had two standard versions since it came out, the sort of steely blue and um and the sort of steel tone dial and now joining the non-limited edition options will be a white dial, and it's really good in person. And I love that it's not limited.
Jason Heaton Yeah. But now they have what feels like
James Stacy the best of the three, certainly for my taste of unsurprisingly, a white dial. What did you think of this one?
Jason Heaton Yeah. Or the update. Yeah. No, I I think the the white dial looks good I'm looking at it right now. And um uh I was gonna ask
James Stacy unlike most of their other colorways. The other standard colorways are quite metallic.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean I still think I I prefer like if I was gonna go world timer in this case, I'd I would I would go for one of the the more colorful dial versions. Um but but you know, white dial works on this, especially with the kind of that the nod to the Pepsi on the on the 24 hour um subdial. Looks great. For sure.
James Stacy A good year for them, I think. There's a ton more. You should check it out if you're a big Gnomos fan because you have a uh the addition, like I said, of a lot of precious metals and then these unique sort of art options that are being sold as pairs.
Jason Heaton Um uh which is uh like I said,
James Stacy may maybe not our zone necessarily, but certainly cool stuff from them. And then we've got a few more that I want to throw out before we uh before we get too deep into the episode. And that would be the one that I haven't had a chance to see in person, but uh Andy and Tim did and said it was just fantastic, and that's the new JLC master control chlorometra. Uh so this spans uh time only uh one a version with like a power reserve and then like a QP at the top of the range, starting around twelve thousand dollars. It's like you know, their integrated bracelet sports sort of design. And I I think it looks really good. I I probably prefer I don't know, of of the three, the QP's very cool, but I think the best balance seems to come from the uh power reserve model.
Jason Heaton Yeah uh which has a uh a dial
James Stacy at nine for the power reserve and then another dial at three for the date really beautiful very j sort of dial execution uh definitely something I'm looking forward to to seeing in person. And then the time only just looks like a really straightforward take on sort of the master control dial dropped into what feels like uh, you know, if you imagine uh uh integrated sports sort of design from uh from JLC.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I'm I'm I'm happy to see a JLC that I'm I'm kind of excited about this time around. It's we don't talk about them a lot anymore and uh this this is a fun one. I I prefer the just the time and date one. I think it looks great. Yeah,
James Stacy it's a good good looking watch. I'm I'm and I'm excited to see where they can kind of move in that again, expand from there, kind of like with the with the Grand Seiko. And then the next one in a nicely priced category is uh a kind of a new update to the Alpina Star Timer pilot. Uh this is forty millimeter watch. It's only a little a hair over ten millimeters thick. It's stainless steel. You can go black, blue or green. I actually really like the black. And uh and Jason, you dropped this one, and I appreciate you did because it you know it's a very recognizable fleger adjacent sort of design, but then at the same time, kind of a matte textured dial, and then the like 3D kind of milled blocks of loom. And I think it works pretty
Jason Heaton Yeah, I do too. I I I think it's handsome. Um I think, you know, Alpina, uh especially with these kind of pilots' watches, the Star Timer series that they've done for years, they've they've always looked a little bit like, you know, up kind of a along with the raft of kind of big pilot alternatives like for the affordable, you know, kind of version of those. And I think this one stands apart a little bit more, especially with the dial texture and kind of the three-dimensionality of that dial with the the raised um kind of minute track and then that that that blocky loom um and then the smaller size just just makes it more accessible. And you know Alpina kind of I I I've always kind of liked their watches from afar and I think you know the the pricing on these is 1795 in steel and you can get the the black PVD coded one for 1895. So um you know if you're looking for this style of watch uh with a little tweak on a little bit uh difference to it. I think uh these are solid choices, especially since they offer some different colors, which isn't always the case with kind of this genre of watch that tend to be pretty sober.
James Stacy Yeah, I think the the sort of um rich but not overly over stated blue. Looks quite handsome in the steel.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And then I think I I have to imagine
James Stacy the full black on black will be quite popular. It's a nice price point for the watch. You get a date uh which kinds of suits it and nothing about the watch feels overdone. Um so I I would say kudos to Alpine on that, and again able to hit a price point that is not common at the Pal Expo last week. You know what I mean? And then look, let's let's uh let's kind of close it out with a look at what I think was kind of a pretty interesting and big year for Tag Hoyer. Uh, we've got the new Monaco now in titanium, and then we have, if if you're willing to go kind of into a whole kind of different realm for chronograph, a brand new way of kind of actuating a chronograph, the Evergraph. Uh a big year, you know, they're calling it the year of the chronograph for them. Continued massive connection into uh in uh you know, a sort of continued massive connection into Formula One. Last year we saw kind of the entry level to that with the new F one. And this year we're seeing sort of a lean into the the world where they started with the automatic chronograph with the Monaco and now we're seeing the the kind of new cutting edge in the Evergraph, which is like a very special project that really rethinks the way that a chronograph might work. And its peers are, it's a, you know, I think it's a $28,000 watch or something like that. Its peers are not in that price point. You know, like the some of the technology that's in this we see in like things like the RD five.
Jason Heaton Oh, sure. From uh Otomar P Gay. Yeah.
James Stacy And it it's it's a I think both uh the you know a, t a new a new Monaco in titanium, that's great. People people who love the Monaco uh can connect with that. But the Evergraph feels like like a leap for them. It's also the first one with their um new uh hairspring technology, the the carbon hairspring technology uh to be put in sort of a production watch. Uh so I I think a huge year for for uh for Taghoyer for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah, these these are these are great. I mean uh especially the titanium monacos.
James Stacy I mean i again, I I think this is one
Jason Heaton of those watches um I don't know where I would slot it in terms of kind of our over the years we've done various episodes talking about guilty pleasures or you know, watches we'd like but would never own. I I think this is one of them. I think the Monaco is one that I've quite is kind of admired from afar and if I see someone wearing it, um, I always want to handle it and and try it on, but it's just it's not my personal taste. It's just nothing I would wear. But they're every time I see them, they're really cool. And this titanium monaco in the kind of traditional blue with the red um is is just tremendous. It's it's great stuff. So and and it's it's such such core tag hoir that uh it's good to see.
James Stacy Yeah I think I think it's a line that, you know, kind of like what we're talking about with the Aqua Timer.
Jason Heaton Mm-hmm. It's not that tag wasn't servicing
James Stacy it. They were extending it. They had they had a bunch of good models. I like the kind of standard steel one they've had for a while.
Jason Heaton Yeah. They never quite fit my wrist that well, but I
James Stacy will say that's probably more that I you sell I seldom get to try one on with like a strap that's broken
Jason Heaton in. Yeah. It's all it's always like,
James Stacy you know, the brand new strap that has to wear down a little bit. Um they are an interesting, very y obviously truly a kind of a unique proposition with an incredible history. And it's nice to see them just kind of continually work on it, especially like I said, with this connection to Formula One. I mean like if if they've c if you have Max Verstappen on your on your roster of of ambassadors and you've got your brand name all over cars and the timing at uh at Formula One, you kind of need a cutting edge chronograph. And I and I think the Evergraph takes that slot. I think it's I think it's good pr good interesting product that comes from um comes from the right sort of history uh for that for that brand.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And you know, as you were talking, I was trying to bone up on my Evergraph. Um, because I wasn't that that familiar with this one and I'm I'm looking at this article that looks like uh Mark wrote for for Hodinki.
James Stacy This article's nuts. It it is nuts. I
Jason Heaton I'm gonna read this, I'm gonna set it aside and read it after we're done here because I
James Stacy highly recommend. Um there's this whole history
Jason Heaton of the you know how reset works in a chronograph and uh with multiple examples um goes very in depth. So um yeah, I'm gonna have to read up on this and and see what's different about the new one.
James Stacy Absolutely. Well look, that's everything that we kind of put on the list. I guarantee there's probably a couple things that we missed. Uh so by all means let us know in the Slack if there's something that you go, hey, why why didn't you guys talk about this or that? This kind of encapsulates the majority of what I saw that immediately resonated with me or that got me excited.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Whether from just a I'm happy it
James Stacy exists zone or a dream watch zone or like I could definitely own this or would absolutely recommend like like with a five five four is just a r a new recommendation
Jason Heaton when someone goes like, hey, I just I just want a really good
James Stacy watch that's like doesn't cost a huge amount of money.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um, but will will work and kind of
James Stacy stay out of the way and and and keep up with my life and that sort of thing. So some really good watches. Obviouslyly, hopeful I'm not overstepping here, but normally we would have Doxa to announce the only thing that they had uh that was uh available to speak about at this time was the sub two hundred two, uh which is the new larger sizing for the previously existing sub 200. That said, they have some stuff coming. Don't feel too bad uh about Doxa, the timing. Um I if I was Doxa, I also wouldn't announce major watches amongst the other 200 brands that are doing that that one
Jason Heaton week. Yeah. I would say stay tuned on that
James Stacy one. But uh yeah, that's that's the rundown, man. For you, it's the it's the Panorai. Like it's somebody else's credit card. We're just having a little bit of fun here.
Jason Heaton Oh, yeah, I think it'd be the the blue destroy panorai. That I mean all day, every day. The blue one. Yeah, I think so. I I I think it would be the blue destroy I think it's just different enough with the left hand crown and that gorgeous blue dial. Um I think on that. I mean a an eight day hand wound is pretty special. Um, and I I guess you know, for if it is somebody else's credit card, maybe that's the route to go. But I don't know that blue one just really speaks to me. And I, you know, okay, somebody else's credit card, I'll I'll probably go with your pick, which is the Vasheron as well. I just think it it it truly got me scheming. Like what can I sell? Can I sell a couple Land Rovers and my whole watch collection and sell
James Stacy like a house. I kid, of course. I'd be an extremist. But yeah, uh look, somebody else's credit card, it's it's Vashron. But the ones that really spoke to me, Vashron, the monarch, uh, and I and then I just really loved the the idea presented by the uh Spring Drive uh UFA diverse I'm very excited to see where that could go. Uh if they can give us like a very toolish version of that. They're already so close. Titanium excellent. And then yeah, the panorama stuff just to see it in person. And look, I'm I know that they have a market for the the giant submersible with the Navy SEAL and the rest of it, but for me it's it's stuff like that blue destro and and the the seventeen thirty three. I think if you're if you're into a a luminar marina these days, that's about where the price point is, maybe a little bit less. And I I don't know. Like it it's it's hard to feel really special at ten thousand dollars, which is kind of a sad statement to a certain extent, because there's a couple there's a couple watches that are like the go-tos. You know, if you're spending 10, you're probably considering a sub, you're probably considering uh maybe you can save a grand or two and go with a C master and still get a really good watch. And that sort of thing. And this just feels different. And sure, maybe Panteri wasn't in the best phase of time to link up with the pref preference for smaller and smaller watches. But while I like a small watch, and and I genuinely prefer a smaller watch with something like a um like the panerize, like I said, they're big, but they don't feel like balloonish or like like they took an idea and just upsized it.
Jason Heaton Yeah. It's kind of like that's the right the forty-
James Stacy fefourels like the size that it is. Yeah. Um I would love to see an expression of a marina at 41 just to see what it would wear like. I love that forty-two submersible from a few years back because it's exciting to have that big watch made small. But if they're working to their core, you have to give them the credit of like the core is that 44 and 47. Yeah. And I think that they put out some pretty solid product into that space. Not going to be for everybody, but they never were. That's not I don't think that's their goal. And yeah, I I think of the two, I think y it's more money, but I think you get more for your money with the the seventeen thirty three, the uh Brunito Steel Giordy eight day.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Both really cool things. Yeah.
James Stacy Man, some some I think some pretty solid watches. Sin and Oris holding it down at uh you know the $2,000 to $3,000 price point.
Jason Heaton I'm I'm pumped to see I I've been
James Stacy so busy I haven't like dialed in on on all the chats and Slack.
Jason Heaton Yeah. So I'm pumped to see where people kind of landed,
James Stacy how how kind of price fatigued everybody is. That sort of thing. Cause man, there were some big numbers at the show this year, right? I mean a a largely steel Daytona for sixty thousand dollars.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Um that that you also
James Stacy I don't think you can buy necessarily. I think it'll be a tough one to get so I I I think there is product here to kind of uh celebrate uh in some ways, whether it's in my price point or not. Like we you know, we had that conversation and I'd love to feel like I could actually zone in on on what I'm trying to share when I say that like it's important to have the pricing and and if you're absolutely the immediate buyer, the pricing matters. But as an enthusiast, I I just kind of enjoy things and and the pricing becomes kind of separate. And maybe that's like a perspective you have if you work in the industry and you want other people to be excited about watches rather than just upset about the price. But it's also there's only so much you can talk about with the price. Like the price is what it is, and maybe it will ebb and flow. Maybe if nobody buys it, the pricing will drop down, but that doesn't seem to be, you know, the last five, six years doesn't seem to paint that picture. You know what I
Jason Heaton mean? Yeah. Well, and I think to take, you know, to kind of go full circle even the back where we started this episode, um, when I was at the Defender Trophy driving around the the Defender Trophy edition um vehicle, you know, in my mind, I'm like, this thing is pretty great. Um it it exceeds my expectations. I I've got a new perspective on this. I would love one of these. How could I make something like this happen? Um in the end, I can't, you know, these are
James Stacy yeah, hundred thousand dollar vehicles,
Jason Heaton luxury vehicles that are absolutely gorgeous, but um I can appreciate it without owning it. And I think it's a bit like, you know, Watches and wonders,. Like you go you try on that Vashron. It it in a way, Watches and Wonders is kinda like visiting a museum in in which you can actually touch and and strap the stuff on, which is a nice privilege. Um and and you can appreciate it as as art and as craft and I think uh there was a lot of good stuff.
James Stacy Yeah. Yeah. No, I don't disagree and and for sure I I would have it would be easier for me to spend a certain amount of a lot more on a watch than on a car. Uh just because like there's a good chance the watch will hold that not always but will hold that value more strongly than an SUV that I'd like to go bang around at the cottage in.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Uh that sort of thing. But yeah, the the Defenders
James Stacy are super impressive vehicles. It's just they're much more luxury coded than they used to be. I don't think they lost capability. They just kind of changed their culture code, if that makes sense,
Jason Heaton right? But yeah, good stuff nonetheless.
James Stacy Uh look, that's an hour and thirty ish. Uh we've still got final notes to get into and it looks like yours is a is a good one. And I'm very excited about mine. So any other final thoughts on the watches and wonders before we dive into final notes or do you wish that you had been there for the you know the to to borrow the term do do you wish that you'd been in the screen uh with the rest of the side I do
Jason Heaton have a little twinge of missing it um from time to time but you know I was I was having my own fun this week and I I watched from afar and um you know the some of the you know the miles you you put on your shoes and and the amount of coffee you drink and I used to get sick every year after getting home from just being dehydrated and shaking a lot of hands and whatever. So I no I I think you know having done it for a number of years I I don't miss it. That said, um you know come around next year. Who knows? You might find me in Geneva again. We'll
James Stacy see. Hey, if you're in the position to go every now and then, that's pretty sweet. Yeah. Uh for sure. And and yeah, the it's it's a it's a big silly lift for a job that otherwise barely ever feels like a real job. Um and it's very busy and there's a lot of expectations, but it is just a few days, and you just kind of jump through it. And I can't I genuinely just can't tell you how excited I am for Vancouver. Oh, yeah. And now for Chicago. Yeah. Uh because I we must have had a uh I'll leave this on the show, why not? But like you and I must have had some sort of a communications. We're normally pretty good at this.
Jason Heaton Mm-hmm. Um but I I swore that
James Stacy you were like, uh I didn't know about Chicago this year, and it's uh you know, it's very close to some stuff in my family that you know it's difficult to travel. And then we were talking and you're like, oh no, I thought we were going. I was like, oh
Jason Heaton that's great. Okay, cool. We'll make it happen. Yeah, right, right.
James Stacy Uh yeah. So I think I think that could be that could be super fun. We're still working on, like I said, like what what the hangout kind of scenario will be. But the goal would be like to go back to what we did a couple years ago with a beer and pizza sort of zone um where people can sit around and chat watches in a nice casual setting.
Jason Heaton But yeah, that'll be the one to shoot for. And you
James Stacy and I'll get our our now not quite annual sushi dinner
Jason Heaton in. Yeah. And uh and it's a great time
James Stacy to see some buddies as well. So yeah uh this is uh this is a nice time of year. Uh I I would love to say that it's starting to feel like spring here, but it is definitely below zero in Toronto today, which feels really unfair. Uh it would be really quite nice the last couple of days in Geneva. Yeah. What a beautiful place to be when it's like twenty-ish Celsius out. Um but yeah, why don't we dive into uh some final notes and put a bow on uh on one of the longer episodes of the year? You wanna go first or Shadar?
Jason Heaton Uh sure, I'll jump in. You know, we'll kinda piggybacking on our one of our last brands that we talked about, Panorai. Um this is Panorai adjacent because it involves um someone I admire, Mike Horn, Panorai Ambassador? Um, he has been doing these uh these kind of I guess he's sort of, you know, the guys uh believe he's like 60 years old. He's um he's still adventuring, he's still out there exploring, but I think he's in this phase of life where he's sort of revisiting his past and and now he's got some grown daughters um that he wants to include and take along and kind of revisit some of his past adventures. And in this case, it's uh it's a YouTube video called Surviving in the Amazon with my daughter. And it's actually um it's actually a little over an hour long. It's an hour and seven minutes. So this isn't one of these fifteen minutes. An
Unknown hour and seven minutes long. This is awesome. Yeah.
Jason Heaton And and so he takes his grown daughter Jessica to back to the Amazon. Now, if you remember 30 years ago, um Mike Horn did this wild expedition. It was one of his first ones where he like swam the entire the entire length of the Amazon. Um much of it using like a like a I don't know what you call it a a boogie board sounds like I'm I'm selling it short, but you think of it like a boogie board or kind of a whatever they call these things, um, and a like a dry bag, and basically just swam the entire length of the Amazon from its source to its mouth. Um he didn't do that this time around, but he took his daughter there. Um they sailed there on his uh sailboat Pengaia um and then tromped and and you know, canoeed and hiked and uh and camped in in the Amazon. And he kind of exposed his daughter to to what he remembered about about being there thirty years ago and kind of all of the humidity and insects and and difficult conditions. And uh it's really quite good. I think it's it's it's a very humanizing one. It kind of it shows my horn and kind of a softer side of him, um which is pretty cool. And uh you know, I talked about some of the father-son connections in Defender Trophy, and of course your uh your Clipperton episode is in the final four for the top TGN episodes, and uh it makes me makes me think, you know, I could see you you know revisiting Clipperton one day with with one of your daughters or something like that. You know, it's it's it's kind of neat to see that that handing down or introducing the next generation to to something cool. He's done yeah it's really it's a neat neat film. And I think it's part of a series. I didn't get in too deep here, but he's kind of got this uh I follow him on Instagram as well as his daughters, Annika and uh Jessica, and he's been including them on a number of these adventures. And I think he took his other daughter on a similar trip to to Greenland with him. Um and I believe this. Looks like it's called the
James Stacy What's Left Expedition. What's Left Expedition,
Jason Heaton yeah. So um yeah, this one was particularly good. And strangely enough he wasn't a panorai in this, he's wearing like a garmin. Um which uh
James Stacy okay. Which is uh kind of who knows why,
Jason Heaton but uh whatever. Was he at was he at uh Watches and Wonders?
James Stacy Yeah, he was there. Uh he gave a talk actually just before I gave a talk with uh with Andy and Tim at the like auditorium. And uh I we missed uh I'd probably you know, I think I've met him once at an event years and years ago and and I was running around that morning doing a couple other things and then got back to the show. I went to uh Chronopolis, which is like now uh another show in the city. And that that''ss like like somebody took uh the one the Toronto show or the Vancouver show and kind of it in its first year it's a little smaller, but really social, really fun. Um saw a handful of people there, Sarah and Atelier Wen and uh awake and denison and that sort of thing. So we were doing that, and by the time I got back, I realized I'd missed Mike sitting down to uh to talk about some stuff. And uh and and then yeah, so that that's a that's a treat. And he he's gotta be in our like the top few for uh for a guest on the show.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I'd love to get him on. Yeah. Um yeah, if anyone out there can share an email. I bet yeah, but you've got some connections. Yeah. L'set let's make that happen. That'd be great.
James Stacy Yeah, we can we can figure that out. That could be very fun. And uh it would be an interesting we'd be on a bit of a run given next week's episode.
Jason Heaton That's true. Uh it it would be it would be it'd
James Stacy be kind of fun as far as uh a cool thing. So yeah, shout out to uh to Mike. This looks great. I'm gonna watch this with my daughters. I was not subscribed to his YouTube channel, so big hole in my subscription uh settings there. Uh, but this looks awesome, and yeah, I think my daughters would enjoy this very much. And look at this. Like he's publis ithed looks like this is this is just his channel and he's putting on a an hour and seven minute long
Jason Heaton movie. Yeah. Yeah. Good for Airmade.
James Stacy Man, that's awesome. And he's already he's got a ton of comments and it's been watched almost half a million times in three weeks. That's fantastic. That's so nice. All right. Uh mine is also a YouTube video. Uh some of you can probably guess what I'm talking about here. Uh and this is the uh the absolutely hilarious, beautifully shot and really, really excellent uh example of what makes Dodderhouse so good, and that's their recent video with the Porsche 911 Reimagined by Singer DLS, uh, which is kind of the most expensive, most hardcore version, uh up until I guess the DLS turbo recently to have come out. This is a car that I couldn't believe some of the numbers and specs when it first hit the market a couple years ago. They were well over a million dollars. I think they're pushing like four million dollars now uh for a DLS uh if if you were able to get one but goodness sakes is this video good uh obviously Thomas is a buddy and and I wrote him immediately and and shout out to James shout out to the entire team. It's such a good video about such a special car that I will never drive, that I will never get to own, that I've walked past at the quail. Um it and and yes, it is just a resto mod, but it's like take all of that. All of what Singer does and just crank it up to I don't know 30 instead of 10.
Jason Heaton Wow. Yeah. Uh it's incredibly lightweight.
James Stacy It has an an immensely special motor. This spec is is very wild and obviously you can spec whatever you want. It's essentially a bespoke car. Uh this is throttle house really this is like a massive flex. They always do a great job. This opens with a truly fantastic uh skit at the top of it. Uh I think both Thomas and James have some time in the car and then they're together. Uh, there's a there's a uh a bit that I still don't know is a joke or not involving somebody getting stuck in the car that's quite funny. Uh I absolutely love this. I've watched it two or three times. Um, I'm I'm fascinated by this level of of execution on a resto mod. Um because it's it's in it's inconceivable from the its starting point as a nine eleven from the eighties or nineties or whatever, to now see this. This is the this is, you know, this is going from uh this is starting with a Cessna 72, a great reliable, you know, plane that that brought a lot of people to a certain type of flying and going to you know a learjet or something like that and largely in the same scope. It's just such such a crazy car. So high highly recommend this video. Shout out to uh the Throttle House team. Just a great job. And I love like the very first comment on there is, oh yeah, the grand tour is gonna be great with these guys. And I couldn't I couldn't possibly agree more. So uh a delight and uh highly recommend.
Jason Heaton Yeah, this looks great. Gotta watch this one. Yeah, cool. Uh by the way, did you see uh Singer, the the watch side of their business uh this last week? Were they there anywhere in Geneva?
James Stacy They were probably there. I didn't see them. Um I I did I didn't uh didn't get a chance.
Jason Heaton Yeah, it's such a such a weird overlap, but they're they're wild watches. Um, you know, the dive track and then just some of the beautiful chronographs and then and the cars. So cool synergy there. Um good stuff. Yeah. Well, quite quite the episode here. We're we're coming up on uh hour and forty-five now and uh I don't think people are gonna begrudge us that. Um it's always fun to do the mega sod.
James Stacy Hopefully not. A little longer than last year's episode, not as long as some of the Basel World episodes where there were like twenty, thirty brands that kinda hit our price point a little harder.
Jason Heaton Yeah. But yeah, let us know what we miss. Happy
James Stacy to continue the conversation and I'm thrilled to see uh anyone who makes it out to Vancouver. Please say hi. I'll try and wear my my blue hat around the show to make it a little bit easier to spot me uh amongst what I assume will be quite a busy crowd. But uh yeah, solid episode. One I always kind of look forward to recording, less less so to edit.
Jason Heaton Right. And yeah, as always, thank
James Stacy you so much for listening. If you'd like to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode, or even consider supporting the show directly for as little as five dollars a month. Maybe even grab yourself a new TGN signed NATO along the way, please visit thegrayNATO.com. Music throat is siesta by jazz or via the free music archive.
Jason Heaton And we leave you with this quote from André Mauroy, who said, novelty, the most potent of all attractions, is also the most perishable.