Latest / What's on Your Riste? A Watch Podcast / S01E17: Japan, Part 2 of 2, The Indies: Hajime Asaoka, Naoya Hida, Masahiro Kikuno, Kurono Tokyo, & Kuoe

Transcript

S01E17: Japan, Part 2 of 2, The Indies: Hajime Asaoka, Naoya Hida, Masahiro Kikuno, Kurono Tokyo, & Kuoe · What's on Your Riste? A Watch Podcast

• 0:00
  In the early 2000s, a man in his late 30s was sitting in a small
• 0:03
  studio in Tokyo reading a book. The book was Watchmaking by
• 0:07
  George Daniels, the English watchmaker, and the same George
• 0:11
  Daniels we will be talking about extensively next week.
• 0:14
  See how I did that? I teased it a little bit.
• 0:16
  I'm getting better at this now. The man reading the book was not
• 0:19
  a watchmaker. He had no formal training in
• 0:22
  watchmaking. He had no apprenticeship.
• 0:25
  He had no master. He was a product designer with a
• 0:28
  degree from the Tokyo University of the Arts.
• 0:31
  And this person had run a design consultancy for like the
• 0:34
  previous ten years, working on industrial design projects.
• 0:39
  He was reading the Daniels book because it had become
• 0:42
  interesting and he was interested in watches as an
• 0:45
  object and he wanted to understand how they were made.
• 0:48
  He wanted to know specifically whether he could make one.
• 0:52
  So he bought lathes on eBay. He watched YouTube tutorials.
• 0:56
  He set up a workshop. He started cutting metal.
• 0:59
  Four years later, he produced Japan's first in house Turbion
• 1:03
  wristwatch. Let that sink in for a second.
• 1:05
  Six years later, he was admitted to the Academy Holaji Couture
• 1:11
  Independence, which is basically like the Independent Watchmakers
• 1:14
  Horological Society, right? And it's the most exclusive
• 1:17
  independent watchmakers association in the world, of
• 1:20
  which George Daniels himself had been a member until his death in
• 1:24
  2011. And the man's name, Hajimi
• 1:27
  Asaoka. And he is, by serious consensus,
• 1:31
  I think the most influential living independent watchmaker in
• 1:34
  Japan. And so today is Part 2 of our
• 1:37
  Japan series, but I'm getting into now the the watchmakers
• 1:41
  working outside the institutional systems, alone in
• 1:45
  homes and in small workshops, often single individuals
• 1:49
  producing some of what I would say are the most extraordinary
• 1:52
  watches in the modern world. Again, almost nobody in the
• 1:54
  Western press is going to talk about these guys, so I'm going
• 1:57
  to spend an episode talking about them.
• 1:59
  And by the end of this hour or so, I hope that you at least
• 2:01
  know their names. Maybe you get excited to be able
• 2:04
  to go Google them and check them out or get on Chrono 24 and see
• 2:07
  if anything's available. Never know.
• 2:34
  Welcome back to What's on Your rese Day.
• 2:36
  I'm Wachovsky. Last week we got into Japan Part
• 2:39
  1 and I called that the heavy hitters, right Seiko, Grand
• 2:41
  Seiko Credo or Citizen Casio. And I, I call them kind of the
• 2:45
  institutions, the industrial scale precision that made the
• 2:49
  engineering case for Japanese watchmaking at the very top
• 2:52
  tier. And now Part 2, kind of the
• 2:54
  opposite. And I'm going to call these the
• 2:56
  independence, the individual watchmakers who like Philippe
• 2:59
  Dufour or Rechep Rechepi, they're working on one at a time
• 3:04
  in tiny quantities to a standard that matched the apex of Swiss
• 3:09
  hot horology. And these are the names that in
• 3:12
  five years, I think every serious collector is going to
• 3:16
  get to know. And today is a chance to kind of
• 3:17
  get to know them first. So settle in.
• 3:19
  We're going to meet a couple of watchmakers from, you know, from
• 3:23
  a place that you, you, you know, but you don't know, and maybe
• 3:27
  one young brand. So let's get into our first
• 3:30
  example here. We're going to get into Hajimi
• 3:33
  Asaoka, and he's the designer who taught himself.
• 3:37
  So let me tell you a little bit about Asaoka story because I
• 3:39
  think it's one of the more remarkable origin stories in
• 3:44
  modern watchmaking. And for me, honestly, I just, I
• 3:47
  feel like the story needs to be told, especially in a platform
• 3:50
  where, you know, these podcasts can kind of live on well beyond
• 3:54
  me. And I'm my hope is that by
• 3:56
  shining light on this, maybe one or two watchmakers, maybe future
• 3:59
  watchmakers get inspired, right? Maybe you're someone who listens
• 4:02
  to podcasts and has never thought about watchmaking.
• 4:06
  Maybe that inspires you to do something, right.
• 4:08
  I know this podcast was inspired by other folks that were kind of
• 4:12
  going out on a limb and just doing something they were
• 4:14
  passionate about. And for me, discussing and
• 4:16
  telling these stories is a passion of mine, and that's why
• 4:19
  I want to share with you. So Jimmy was born in 1965,
• 4:23
  Kanajiwa Perfector in Japan, and he graduated from the Tokyo
• 4:27
  University of Arts in 1990. He got a degree in design,
• 4:30
  again, not watchmaking like industrial design.
• 4:32
  And he spent his 20s and early 30s as a product designer.
• 4:36
  So in 1992, he's about 27 years old, he established his own
• 4:40
  design consultancy in Tokyo, and he spent like the next decade or
• 4:44
  so designing consumer products and, like, industrial objects.
• 4:48
  But somewhere along the way and exactly when is not entirely
• 4:51
  clear from all the public record, He became fascinated
• 4:54
  with watches, now not as a collector, as kind of an
• 4:57
  engineer's curiosity. And he wanted to understand how
• 5:00
  mechanical watches were built, how the gear trains worked, how
• 5:03
  the escapement actually regulated time.
• 5:06
  And specifically, he was fascinated by how a turbion cage
• 5:09
  was actually rotating. And so the path, the standard
• 5:12
  path for someone in his position would be to collect.
• 5:15
  That's most of right, Buy interesting watches, read the
• 5:18
  books, listen to a podcast, maybe take a basic course, you
• 5:22
  know, grab a simple Seiko movement and disassemble and see
• 5:26
  if we can reassemble it, but never to actually attempt to
• 5:29
  make one. And Ahsoka didn't, he didn't
• 5:31
  take the path that regular folks like you or I might be taking.
• 5:36
  So in 2020, in 2005, at age 40, he decided to teach himself
• 5:42
  watchmaking. And the textbook that he chose
• 5:44
  was Watchmaking by George Daniels.
• 5:47
  Now again, that's it. That's a banger of a book to go
• 5:50
  and say like, I'm going to read my first book, right?
• 5:51
  And then you go and pick up like the some of the greatest
• 5:54
  literature of whole time, right. So the same the same book that
• 5:59
  again, Roger B Smith used to teach himself in his parents
• 6:03
  garage and and bolt in England, and that was 15 years earlier.
• 6:06
  And so the same book has more than any other single object, I
• 6:10
  think, been responsible for the modern revival of complete hand
• 6:15
  fabricated watchmaking. And so I think that all will go
• 6:17
  circle back to George Daniels now also, OK, He he bought
• 6:21
  lathes on eBay. He watched these YouTube
• 6:23
  tutorials and he set up this small workshop in his Tokyo
• 6:26
  studio and he began to cut metal.
• 6:28
  And he had, by his own admission, No Fear of failure.
• 6:32
  He had no formal training to protect.
• 6:34
  He had no master to disappoint. He he was approaching this craft
• 6:38
  as an engineer would approach a problem.
• 6:41
  Can this be done? And if so, how?
• 6:43
  Right. The questions that he asks were
• 6:45
  completely different and I love the questions that he was
• 6:47
  asking, but what happened next? By the standards of conventional
• 6:50
  watchmaking pedagogy, is it's impossible.
• 6:53
  OK in 2009, just four years after this guy started, he
• 6:57
  completed Japan's first in house Turbion wristwatch prototype.
• 7:01
  He called it the Turbion 1, and he had taught himself alone to
• 7:05
  produce one of the most complex mechanic mechanisms in horology.
• 7:09
  Now, in 2011, now he's 46 years old, he formally launched the
• 7:14
  brand Hajimi Asoka Tokyo, Japan, and began selling watches under
• 7:19
  his own name. And we know that from the Shep's
• 7:22
  example and story as well. Branding under your own name,
• 7:25
  you know exactly who the watchmaker is that's on the dial
• 7:28
  of your watch. The Turbulon 1 led to his
• 7:30
  admission into the Academy the ACHHAHCI, which is again the
• 7:36
  Swiss based association of independent watchmakers, again
• 7:40
  founded in 1985 by I believe it was a Vincent and Send,
• 7:45
  Calabrese and Anderson. I could be mistaken by the way
• 7:47
  those names are not correct, but I should have had that in my
• 7:50
  notes. I think it was Vincent and Send,
• 7:52
  but if I'm wrong, correct me. And so membership in this group
• 7:55
  is actually by invitation only. And so the AHCI currently has
• 8:00
  about 30 active members worldwide.
• 8:03
  And so Asaoka was was admitted or you know, brought into the
• 8:07
  team in 2015 and only the second, he's only the second
• 8:11
  Japanese member in the organization's history.
• 8:13
  And his current collection consists basically of four
• 8:15
  models. He has the tsunami.
• 8:17
  It's a 37mm hand. It's it's a three hand time only
• 8:21
  watch. It has a very distinctive plate
• 8:23
  move pigment architecture and this oversized free sprung
• 8:26
  balance. And the wheel is mounted kind of
• 8:29
  prominently on the dial side, which is always unique.
• 8:32
  So on the side that's actually you're looking at, you can
• 8:34
  actually see this oversized free sprung balance.
• 8:36
  Very, very pretty. Now the Tsunami is the watch
• 8:39
  that most people know when they associate to his work.
• 8:42
  It's kind of this, it's a piece that announces, I think
• 8:44
  immediately that the watchmaker is doing something different
• 8:47
  than what everybody else is doing.
• 8:48
  Tsunami at the time of this recording is priced around 25
• 8:51
  grand. OK, Then he has the TT as in the
• 8:55
  tour beyond to watch that he produced in collaboration with
• 8:59
  two Japanese precision manufacturers, OSG, which is a
• 9:02
  kind of a major tool maker and then Yuki precision, that's Yuki
• 9:07
  and aerospace grade precision component maker.
• 9:10
  Well, what a what a smart idea to go into aerospace and make a
• 9:13
  connection there because of the the precision required for some
• 9:16
  of those tools and parts, right. So the Project T uses these ball
• 9:19
  bearings instead of traditional Ruby jewels and very critical
• 9:23
  critical positions in the watch. And it's this radical departure
• 9:27
  from what a horological convention might stay is the
• 9:31
  standard because it's inspired by aerospace engineering rather
• 9:34
  than watchmaking tradition. It's a total different take on
• 9:36
  the way that the Tour Beyond is going to be built and
• 9:38
  specifically how a watch is going to be built.
• 9:40
  Those start again at the time of this recording around $80,000.
• 9:43
  There's a chronograph and it's his interpretation of what a
• 9:46
  column little chronograph would look like.
• 9:48
  And it's based on the tsunami movement architecture and then
• 9:51
  built up a bit. And that one is around 100 and
• 9:53
  20,000. And he to my understanding at
• 9:56
  the time of this recording, there's only like been three
• 9:59
  that he's ever produced. And so you have also the Turbian
• 10:04
  and I believe it's the Pura. It's PURAT, but I think the T is
• 10:07
  silent. So Pura and then the Turbion
• 10:11
  Noir and those are his most recent Turbion variants and
• 10:15
  production is it's extreme. He produces fewer than like 5
• 10:19
  watches per year like total across the entire collection.
• 10:24
  So like by 2018, after seven years of producing watches
• 10:28
  commercially, he completed 19 pieces.
• 10:31
  Each watch represents hundreds of hours of individual handwork.
• 10:35
  And there is one detail about his watches that I want to
• 10:37
  highlight because I think it tells you something about him as
• 10:40
  a man. He does not source all of his
• 10:42
  components from new manufacturers.
• 10:45
  He sources difficult components form from these historic unit
• 10:50
  toss movements, again, pocket watch movements from earlier in
• 10:53
  the 20th century. He uses cases that were produced
• 10:56
  by automotive suppliers when conventional case manufacturers
• 11:00
  couldn't produce what he needed. And over the years, he's
• 11:03
  developed working relationships and the this wonderful
• 11:07
  connection with with the Swiss, including, you know, contacts
• 11:12
  like Philippe Dufour or Antoine Prezioso.
• 11:15
  And these two both share amazing knowledge and components and
• 11:20
  then guidance with him. And that is the network of
• 11:23
  modern hot horology. People like Philippe Dufour
• 11:26
  again helped this self-taught Japanese product designer source
• 11:30
  components for watches that the Japanese watchmaker needed to
• 11:34
  make things by hand in Tokyo. And Asoka said in interviews
• 11:39
  that his goal is to surprise his fellow watchmakers in
• 11:42
  Switzerland. That's the bar he sets for his
• 11:44
  work. Not commercial success, not like
• 11:47
  marketing position. It's to surprise the Swiss.
• 11:51
  What a beautiful way to deliver a product.
• 11:55
  My goal here isn't to make a ton of money.
• 11:57
  My goal here isn't to have a massive spread on a magazine or
• 12:04
  be acknowledged by anyone. My goal here is to surprise an
• 12:07
  entire industry. And by any reasonable measure I
• 12:11
  would say that he has successfully completed that
• 12:13
  goal. But I think his goal is to
• 12:15
  continue to surprise. Now there's also one thing that
• 12:18
  he has done that is worth knowing because it changes the
• 12:21
  accessibility and the aesthetics significantly.
• 12:25
  In 2018 he Co founded a more accessible sub brand called
• 12:30
  Korono Tokyo. It's Kur Ono Tokyo and we're
• 12:34
  going to get into Corono in its own segment kind of later in the
• 12:37
  episode, but the relationship matters.
• 12:39
  It matters specifically to him because this Acci master
• 12:44
  watchmaker who's making, you know, like 5 watches a year at
• 12:47
  25,000 to like $150,000 per year.
• 12:51
  He's also the designing force of a brand that sells watches in
• 12:54
  like the sub $3000 range. And it's the same.
• 12:58
  I it's the same Japanese sensibility, but it's this
• 13:00
  different price tier that's much more accessible.
• 13:03
  OK, now segment 2, we're going to get into our insider who
• 13:08
  waited 29 years. I believe the pronounced this
• 13:12
  watchmaker is na O ya Hida na O ya Hida.
• 13:17
  And he's our second watchmaker. And so Hida's path is almost the
• 13:20
  opposite of Ahsoka's. Ahsoka was self-taught outsider.
• 13:24
  Hida is the consummate industry. I don't want to say insider
• 13:28
  because that's the wrong word, but he, he was in the industry.
• 13:31
  He spent 20, 29 years working inside global luxury brands
• 13:35
  before he launched his own brand.
• 13:36
  He began with his career at Desco von Schultes.
• 13:43
  And this is the major watch importer and distributor.
• 13:46
  You don't know who they are. From there, he moved into senior
• 13:49
  distribution and the brand management roles for Japanese
• 13:52
  markets. And this is this is going to be
• 13:54
  big because you're going to know these brands.
• 13:56
  He started to work with the management roles for a Swiss
• 14:00
  watchmakers like Brigade, Basharan Constantine, Shijiuku.
• 14:04
  AP Daniel Roth And you're going to see is Roth.
• 14:07
  It's Roth, but it's, I believe it's pronounced Roth.
• 14:09
  And then obviously FP Jorn and HIDA is credited with launching
• 14:13
  FP Jorn in Japan in 2004. And he was, he was the man who
• 14:18
  more than any other single figure, he established Jorn's
• 14:21
  reputation among Japanese collectors.
• 14:23
  He spent decades inside the institutional luxury watch
• 14:27
  business, watching it from the inside, understanding how brands
• 14:31
  work, what collectors want, what makes a watch matter.
• 14:35
  And the entire time he was doing this for 29 years, he was
• 14:38
  holding a personal taste that nothing in the modern Swiss
• 14:42
  luxury was producing. He loved mid century classical
• 14:47
  dress watches like the Patek Philippe, Calatrava, the
• 14:50
  reference 96, the brigade reference 3210, small cases,
• 14:55
  restrain proportions, hand engraved brigade numerals, heat
• 14:59
  blued steel hands, movements that were beautiful but quiet,
• 15:03
  and watches that didn't announce themselves.
• 15:06
  The complete opposite of what you would consider flex culture
• 15:09
  is what he was drawn to. And the modern luxury market had
• 15:12
  been moving in the complete opposite direction for for
• 15:15
  decades. Larger cases, more
• 15:18
  complications, loud design language, more visual branding,
• 15:22
  much more visible branding as well.
• 15:24
  And Hida, he watched this happened and he helped sell it.
• 15:28
  But privately he wished someone would still make the watches
• 15:32
  that he actually wanted to wear. And so in 2019, at age 58, Hida
• 15:36
  launched his own brand, right, Ayoya Hida and Co in Tokyo.
• 15:42
  And he is not a watchmaker by training, OK?
• 15:46
  He's a brand builder. He's a curator.
• 15:48
  So he hired A watchmaker. He hired Kosuke, Kosuke Wujita
• 15:54
  and Engraver and Hesuke Kano. And the three of them worked
• 15:58
  together in a small Tokyo workshop to produce Hida's
• 16:02
  vision. The collection is structured
• 16:04
  around numbered types. So like Type 1, which is the
• 16:08
  original, was released in 2019. It's a 37mm time only dress
• 16:12
  watch and it recently refined itself to a 36mm so got a little
• 16:17
  bit smaller and it has hand engraved brigade numerals filled
• 16:21
  with this lacquer and it's on a German silver dial blank and it
• 16:26
  has these leaf shaped hands that are heat blued has nine O 4L
• 16:30
  stainless steel cases. The movement is a heavily
• 16:33
  modified ETA 7750 and it has a, it also has a, you know the and
• 16:42
  if you know this, if you know the ETA, which I believe was, it
• 16:45
  was a chronograph function originally.
• 16:46
  And so they strip out all the chronograph functions and they
• 16:49
  add this additional wheel for a center seconds.
• 16:52
  And so the entire movement is refinished and it's rebuilt to
• 16:55
  like what I would consider hot horology standards.
• 16:58
  And the last part that's worth dwelling on I think and kind of
• 17:01
  diving in a bit is that he does team takes kind of vintage Swiss
• 17:04
  chronograph movements. They remove everything except
• 17:07
  for the kind of the going train and then they rebuild it from
• 17:10
  the foundation into what I would consider a contemporary hand
• 17:13
  wound caliber. And the result is a movement
• 17:16
  that costs them significant amounts of Labor to produce, but
• 17:20
  also allows them to maintain this vertical integration with
• 17:24
  most of the watch industry that what what most of the watch
• 17:26
  industry is kind of abandoned. And so the clicks of the hand
• 17:30
  winding mechanism, if you've never heard one before, they've
• 17:33
  been described by one writer as having like the most satisfying
• 17:36
  texture of a mechanical crunchy potato chip, which is for those
• 17:40
  of you that like to, to wind your watches, man, mechanical
• 17:43
  watches and hearing this snap, snap, snap, snap, snap.
• 17:45
  It's just a cool feature that something again, as we, we go
• 17:48
  through and we, we learn about watches, there's certain things
• 17:51
  that, that are tactile and not just the visual components, but
• 17:55
  when we interact and engage with our watches, we like to have
• 17:57
  some sort of feedback to us. And so again, the, the
• 18:00
  satisfying mechanical crunch of being able to wind your watch is
• 18:05
  pretty cool. Now the Type 2 is going to do
• 18:06
  something just a little different.
• 18:07
  It's going to add a small seconds at 9:00 and it's going
• 18:10
  to have the same proportions, the same hand engraving with the
• 18:13
  subtle dial kind of layout in the depth.
• 18:16
  There's a Type 3 that has the central seconds layout, again,
• 18:20
  similar classical feel. They also have a type 6A that
• 18:24
  was released in 2025. It's a perpetual calendar with
• 18:27
  Roman numerals on the dial, all hand engraved and the subdial
• 18:32
  indicates the year, month, day of the week and a leap year
• 18:37
  cycle and the diet. The dial material is this like
• 18:40
  Argentium silver. It's like a tarnish resistant
• 18:43
  silver. It has this alloy and it's like
• 18:46
  ¥5.3 million, which is, you know, roughly around 35 grand.
• 18:50
  OK, again, time of this recording.
• 18:52
  Don't don't hold me to this stuff when you listen to this in
• 18:54
  10 years and be like, restate your way off now.
• 18:56
  Type 7, released in 2026, was the brand's first chronograph
• 19:02
  powered by this again restored vintage Valuju caliber.
• 19:05
  I think it was the 23 and the Valuju was this legendary Swiss
• 19:10
  column wheel chronograph was produced from like 1916 onward.
• 19:15
  It was used by like Breitling, Hoyer, Gerard Pergo, Ulysses
• 19:19
  Narden, even Patek Philippe in kind of a modified form.
• 19:22
  And so he and his team, they, they restore these vintage
• 19:25
  examples and then they bring him back up to what I would consider
• 19:28
  again hot horology standards. And then they finally have this
• 19:32
  type 8 and this is also released in 2026.
• 19:36
  It's a newer one of their newest models.
• 19:38
  And this is a smallest watch in their collection.
• 19:40
  It's, you know, just 31 millimeters.
• 19:42
  It's 8.9mm thick. And it's he does homage to the
• 19:48
  vintage Petech 96 and also the brigade 3210 dress watches that
• 19:52
  were inspired by this entire aesthetic.
• 19:54
  And it's kind of like him saying it's not necessarily a thank
• 19:57
  you, but it's kind of like a tip of the hat or a nod to like, you
• 20:00
  know, this is this is my, my homage, my, my love letter back
• 20:05
  to these two watches. And production is again, it's
• 20:08
  around 15 to 20 type ones per year total annual output across
• 20:13
  the entire collection, I think is in the dozens.
• 20:15
  So he did produces and he kind of post production counts on his
• 20:19
  website annually. And it's kind of like a a public
• 20:21
  accountability that I think is pretty unusual and watchmaking
• 20:24
  to actually say like, Hey, here's how many watches we made
• 20:26
  this year. Right.
• 20:26
  Your watch if you had one, it's one of those numbers in
• 20:29
  production price ranges, they go from anywhere between 20,000 and
• 20:32
  40,000 for like the time only pieces and then the complication
• 20:35
  ones obviously are going to go much higher in auction terms.
• 20:38
  Heaters watches have been selling at Phillips since I
• 20:41
  think about 2022 and original owners include like Mark Cho of
• 20:46
  the Armory and recent auctions have resulted in ranges from
• 20:49
  anywhere between 30 to 35,000 for the time only pieces.
• 20:53
  So they're they're holding value and then some of them and what
• 20:55
  makes he does work, I think matter in a non-technical
• 20:59
  innovation. You know, the watches use
• 21:01
  modified ETA basis and so they're not in house calibers.
• 21:05
  And I think what makes this matter is taste, you know, 29
• 21:10
  years of watchmaking, working in this insider of global luxury
• 21:14
  and the watch industry and watching how this moves in the
• 21:17
  watches move in direction. I think he did not personally
• 21:20
  love the direction of what was going on with, you know, Swiss
• 21:23
  watchmaking. And so then he patiently kind of
• 21:26
  waited until he could launch a brand that produces with rigor
• 21:29
  and restraint the watches that he wished had already existed.
• 21:33
  And I think this is a very different model of independent
• 21:36
  watchmaking than Asaoko's, for example.
• 21:38
  And so they're different, but they're they're real.
• 21:41
  And so I want to get into another watchmaker now.
• 21:43
  And this is going to be segment 3.
• 21:45
  This is the watchmaker who was a soldier and then became a
• 21:50
  watchmaker. The third watchmaker, Masahiro
• 21:53
  Kikuno, is, is fascinating. So Kikuno's origin story, if if
• 21:58
  anything, is even more unusual than what we've just talked
• 22:02
  about. You know, Asaoko was there
• 22:04
  already a designer. Kikuno started somewhere
• 22:08
  completely different. He was born in, I think he's
• 22:11
  born in February 1983, Ugawa Kaido, the northern island of
• 22:16
  Japan. And as a boy, he was, by all
• 22:18
  accounts, fascinated with mechanical things.
• 22:21
  You know, the the owner's manual of like, the family car,
• 22:25
  anything with moving parts. So after high school, Kikuno did
• 22:29
  something most people in the Japanese watchmaking industry
• 22:33
  have not done. He joined the Japanese
• 22:35
  Self-defense Force, the country's military equivalent of
• 22:38
  you know, which would be to you know, there were a variety of
• 22:41
  different jobs, but his was to repair rifles and his superiors
• 22:45
  noticed his skill and dismantling and reassembling
• 22:48
  precision mechanical objects. Rifle work, as it turns out, is
• 22:52
  an excellent preparation for watchmaking.
• 22:54
  Both require extreme position of precision and disassembling and
• 22:58
  cleaning and lubricating and then reassembly and both require
• 23:02
  a steady hand. And this sort of methodical mind
• 23:05
  things have to be done in a very specific order.
• 23:08
  And those of you that are, you know, you've worked with
• 23:11
  firearms or you shoot or whether it's just, you know, or fun or
• 23:16
  you do like any precision rifle work like I do, long range or
• 23:19
  distance shooting, you kind of understand that there is, of
• 23:22
  course, there's steady hands and methodical training, but there's
• 23:25
  also a whole lot of competence and calmness.
• 23:28
  And so during his military service, a superior officer
• 23:32
  showed him a high end mechanical watch.
• 23:34
  And guess what? Dude was hooked.
• 23:36
  He was captivated. He saw in the watch the same
• 23:39
  kind of intricate mechanical beauty he'd been working with on
• 23:43
  the rifles. But now someone had applied that
• 23:46
  same precision and beauty to time keeping.
• 23:49
  And the purposes were to keep time versus Ballistics.
• 23:54
  And so after his discharge, he enrolled in a three-year
• 23:57
  watchmaking course in in Tokyo. And this was he, he went to
• 24:03
  Japan's leading watchmaking school.
• 24:05
  And again, the, the program itself that he was with, which
• 24:09
  was in the kind of the jewelry College in Tokyo was a WASP step
• 24:12
  course. And again, remember watchmakers
• 24:14
  of Switzerland training and education program at the
• 24:17
  International standard for Watchmaking and repair.
• 24:19
  So the, the course that he took focused on watch repair, not
• 24:23
  creation in the so the students learn to like service mechanical
• 24:26
  watches. They were not learning how to
• 24:28
  design or build them from raw materials.
• 24:31
  And that distinction matters because he was trained to
• 24:33
  maintain existing watches, not to create new ones.
• 24:37
  But during his final year at the school, he found a book.
• 24:41
  Guess what book he found? He found a copy of George
• 24:44
  Daniels Watchmaking, again, the same book that Asoka had used,
• 24:48
  and decided to teach himself the parts of the craft that his
• 24:51
  school was not teaching him. So his school's grad for his
• 24:55
  school's graduation project, he, you know, what would be kind of
• 24:59
  an ordinary repair certificate for most students was a
• 25:03
  perpetual calendar turbion handmade from the ground up by a
• 25:07
  student. Let me read that again.
• 25:09
  A perpetual calendar turbion that was handmade from the
• 25:13
  ground up by a student, a student graduating from a school
• 25:16
  that was designed to give him a certificate on repairing
• 25:19
  watches. A perpetual calendar is one of
• 25:22
  the most complicated mechanisms in horology.
• 25:25
  A turbion is another one. So combining them in a single
• 25:28
  watch is considered like an apex level hot horology LG
• 25:31
  achievement. And most professional
• 25:33
  watchmakers, they spend like decades in the industry before
• 25:35
  they even attempt such a thing. And our guy here, he made one in
• 25:39
  his final year as a student. And in 2011, at age 28, Kuno
• 25:44
  launched his eponymous brand. And eponymous just meaning that
• 25:47
  it's, you know, named after himself and presented his work
• 25:50
  at Basel world. So three pieces kind of this
• 25:53
  western style temporal hour watch, a Japanese style emperor
• 25:58
  temporal watch. And then he also had one that he
• 26:00
  called the Wadoke and it was the perpetual calendar turbion.
• 26:04
  So let me explain the Wadoke because it's it's it's the most
• 26:08
  unique and it's it's easily one of the most unique Japanese
• 26:11
  concept watches I think ever produced.
• 26:14
  So pre in pre modern Japan through the Edo period until the
• 26:20
  country adopted the western 24 hour clocks in 1872, Japan used
• 26:25
  something called a temporal hour system.
• 26:29
  So the hours of the day were not equal lengths.
• 26:32
  The hours between the sunrise and sunset were divided into 6
• 26:35
  equal parts and the the hours between sunset and sunrise were
• 26:40
  divided into 6 equal parts. And so because the length of the
• 26:43
  day changes with the seasons, the actual duration of each
• 26:47
  Japanese hour changed throughout the season.
• 26:50
  So in summer, for example, like the daylight hours, they were
• 26:53
  longer than the night time hours and in the winter they were
• 26:57
  reversed. And so the traditional Japanese
• 26:59
  clocks, they kept time this way. And they, they called that what
• 27:04
  doke and it's print. It's spelled UAD, OK EI.
• 27:08
  And they were extraordinarily sophisticated mechanisms that
• 27:13
  the, these, these mechanical instruments, they, they had to
• 27:17
  automatically adjust the length of the hours as the seasons
• 27:20
  changed. And so Kikuno built wristwatches
• 27:24
  that do this, not huge clock towers wristwatches.
• 27:27
  He calls it the caliber MK15 movement.
• 27:30
  It's handmade, and it's a mechanism that automatically
• 27:33
  adjust the temporal hour markers based on the season at the
• 27:37
  where's latitude. And this is, by any reasonable
• 27:41
  measure, the most unique Japanese horological
• 27:43
  complication in modern watchmaking.
• 27:45
  It's it's nuts. In 2013, at age 30, he became
• 27:49
  the first Japanese, a full member of Ace AHCI and the
• 27:54
  youngest member in the academy's history at that time.
• 27:56
  And now the subsequent work that he's had explores further
• 27:59
  Japanese horological traditions and craft crafts.
• 28:02
  He has the Orizuru, which I think was in 2013.
• 28:07
  He has the Waikumi, which I think was in the 2014.
• 28:10
  And they have, he has this beautiful kind of ability to
• 28:14
  make metal kind of look like wood grain.
• 28:16
  And it's this, there's this metal smithing technique that
• 28:19
  again, they, they can produce wood grain patterns, but in
• 28:23
  steel. And he is hand rolling his own
• 28:26
  dials, which is just, it's just crazy.
• 28:29
  So the workshop is in his home and he's just about an outside
• 28:33
  like an hour outside of Tokyo. And then like the upstairs
• 28:36
  bedroom in his home is like his workshop and then the garage is
• 28:40
  his machine shop. And then he has a spare restroom
• 28:43
  that he's converted into his metal treatment facility.
• 28:46
  You know, I, I can visualize me telling my wife that I'm going
• 28:49
  to turn the spare bath into a do a workshop, right?
• 28:53
  Probably wouldn't go over so well in my house with with that
• 28:55
  with three kids and the And so there's this entire vertical
• 28:59
  integration of his watchmaking operation and tapping it
• 29:02
  literally inside of one house in Japan.
• 29:04
  And so between like 2012 and 2024, he's produced maybe 20
• 29:10
  watches. So 12 years of production, 20
• 29:12
  watches. And the price ranges of the
• 29:14
  watches are anywhere between like the low 30,000 up to
• 29:17
  $115,000 and they're going to go, I'm assuming that they're
• 29:20
  going to skyrocket after, you know, the, the, the world kind
• 29:24
  of figures out what he's doing now.
• 29:25
  His current production rate is pretty nuts.
• 29:28
  It's one watch per year. And his order book is closed and
• 29:32
  he stated that he will reopen or orders, but with extreme,
• 29:36
  extremely limited kind of allocations moving forward.
• 29:38
  Because again, very similar to all of these other folks, you
• 29:41
  understand, even with Reshef, for example, they're taking time
• 29:44
  on each watch. Their goal isn't to produce more
• 29:46
  watches or their goal is to impress, right, and to make
• 29:50
  beautiful pieces of art. And so you can't rush that.
• 29:54
  And so in addition to kind of his his own work, he teaches at
• 29:58
  his alma mater. He goes back one one day per
• 30:01
  week and he teaches other watchmakers and he passes this
• 30:04
  craft on. His goal is to pass on this
• 30:06
  craft to the next generation of Japanese watchmakers.
• 30:10
  Very similar to what Philippe Dufour when he mentions, you
• 30:12
  know, and and mentored Rodger Smith in the same way that
• 30:16
  George Daniels accepted Rodger Smith as his apprentice, right?
• 30:20
  And this is in line that's running from what Daniels and
• 30:23
  Smith and Asaoka and Ikuno. What they're doing is this kind
• 30:28
  of in real sense, it's this line of complete hand fabrication and
• 30:32
  watchmaking, but in a very modern era.
• 30:34
  And the fact that this new line is passing through these, these,
• 30:38
  this Japanese soldier turned watchmaker who works in his own
• 30:42
  home outside of Tokyo, I think is such an extraordinary story
• 30:46
  in modern watchmaking. And again, it's not one that
• 30:48
  you're going to hear because he's not outside with a
• 30:50
  megaphone or hiring A-Team for a social media campaign.
• 30:55
  He's just, he's just making watches.
• 30:57
  And, you know, there's this line in a recent profile of Kikuno
• 31:02
  that I want to quote directly where the writer said what
• 31:05
  Rodger W Smith is to Britain, Kikuno is to Japan.
• 31:10
  And that I think is accurate. It's one of the highest
• 31:12
  compliments you can get as a contemporary watchmaker.
• 31:15
  And I think that's the highest compliment you can get and and
• 31:17
  receive. Alright, let's get to Segment 4.
• 31:19
  Let's get into Corona Tokyo. And I would say that this is the
• 31:21
  accessible Asaoka O 4th. And it's really just an
• 31:25
  extension of the Asaoka story, but I'm going to call it Segment
• 31:27
  4. OK, so Corona Tokyo in 2019
• 31:31
  Asaoka Co founded what again is we tease this, the more
• 31:35
  accessible brand called Corona Tokyo and the brand was designed
• 31:38
  to bring Asaoka's aesthetic sensibilities kind of this
• 31:42
  refined Japanese watch design considered proportions, subtle
• 31:45
  dial work to collectors who could not or chose not to spend
• 31:49
  $25,000 on like a tsunami. Now that's interesting as well
• 31:52
  because the way that I've framed this is kind of a reminder to
• 31:56
  folks. Just because you have a certain
• 31:59
  amount of money to spend, it doesn't mean that you're going
• 32:01
  to choose to spend it. And what I mean by that is that
• 32:03
  just because someone may own a Beauvais, for example, they may
• 32:07
  also wear AG shock and they may also wear a Corona Tokyo.
• 32:13
  And it's not because they're in this world of, you know, they,
• 32:15
  they're choosing to, to flex, they're choosing to pick pieces
• 32:19
  that they enjoy wearing. And I think that's fascinating
• 32:22
  if you have a variety of watches in your collection and for
• 32:26
  example, you have your Rolex and you have your Submariner, but
• 32:29
  then today you want to wear your Laurier.
• 32:32
  I'm encouraging folks to wear the Laurier.
• 32:34
  And again, so when I talk about Corona Tokyo, it's not that it's
• 32:37
  a lesser brand. The brand is remarkable and
• 32:41
  they're beautifully made watches.
• 32:42
  But they don't need to cost $25,000, right?
• 32:45
  You can find them sub $3000 and you can find them pre owned for
• 32:49
  possibly a little bit less. And so Corona Tokyo watches are
• 32:52
  designed by Ahsoka and his team. Now they're not handmade by
• 32:55
  Ahsoka individually. They used, you know, third party
• 32:58
  movements predominantly and prominently they're using like a
• 33:00
  miota 9000 series and they produce they're they're produced
• 33:04
  in a series with each release kind of issued as a limited
• 33:07
  edition that typically will sell out within a couple of hours or
• 33:10
  a couple of minutes, depending on the watch when they go on
• 33:13
  sale. Now again sub $3000 Ahsoka
• 33:16
  designed watches and Corona Tokyo's lineup includes the
• 33:19
  anniversary Mori, the classic, the Toki.
• 33:22
  There's a chronograph one and two and they have a couple of
• 33:25
  other various limited editions as well.
• 33:27
  And the aesthetic again is is unmistakably Ahsoka.
• 33:29
  They're clean dials, they're restrained complications.
• 33:32
  They're deliberately Japanese design language with this kind
• 33:35
  of mid century Eastern European influence.
• 33:38
  And I think what makes Corona Tokyo notable beyond the design
• 33:42
  quality is the cultural movement that it's created.
• 33:45
  The brand launch just for COVID, the pandemic.
• 33:49
  And so during the pandemic, Corona Tokyo became one of the
• 33:52
  most watched, became the most watched accessible watch brands,
• 33:56
  I think in the world. The limited edition releases
• 33:58
  generated this kind of genuine collector frenzy.
• 34:01
  The forms exploded, resale prices on the secondary market
• 34:05
  went kind of crazy. And a Japanese accessible tier
• 34:09
  watch brand became this globally influential brand because the
• 34:12
  watches were genuinely good because Asaoka's name was
• 34:16
  attached to them. That kind of is the modern Kono
• 34:19
  Tokyo story. And it demonstrates, I think
• 34:21
  what's possible when in a master independent watchmaker decides
• 34:25
  to extend their aesthetic into accessible price tiers and has
• 34:29
  that same design eye, but at a different scale.
• 34:31
  And I think the same Japanese sensibility.
• 34:34
  And I think Kono Tokyo is kind of cooled off a little bit now.
• 34:36
  And so if you're if you've ever considered one and you're like,
• 34:39
  they were just, they got a little bit crazy and the prices
• 34:41
  were a little bit nuts. I think everything's kind of
• 34:43
  calmed down a little bit now, which is maybe that's your
• 34:45
  opportunity to take a look at them.
• 34:46
  Now. Segment 5, we're going to get
• 34:48
  into what I would consider the truly accessible Kyoto brand,
• 34:52
  which is going to be it's a brand, it's spelled KUOE, it's
• 34:57
  ku OE Kuo E. Now, we probably pronounce it in
• 35:01
  the States as Kuo, but it's Kuo EKUOE and they're a micro brand
• 35:07
  founded by Kenji Uchimura. And which Moore's origin story
• 35:11
  again is it's non traditional. I, I, I have yet to find a
• 35:15
  traditional bright story, an origin story.
• 35:18
  This guy was studying languages at university in London, not
• 35:22
  watchmaking. And while he was there, he was,
• 35:24
  he walked into what was many of these antique shops in central
• 35:28
  London and he saw a vintage Smith's field watch and the same
• 35:32
  kind of mid century British British watch that we'll be
• 35:35
  talking about next week when I get into some more British
• 35:39
  watchmaking. And he fell in love with it, but
• 35:42
  he could not afford to buy it. And we all know what that feels
• 35:45
  like. So he returned to Japan.
• 35:46
  He took a job at a local watch company in Kyoto and he'd
• 35:50
  learned the trade. And in 2020 he launched Kuo
• 35:54
  Kyoto. And he had one specific mission.
• 35:56
  His goal was to produce affordable, vintage inspired
• 35:59
  Japanese watches at a price point that an ordinary collector
• 36:03
  could actually afford. So the flagship is their Old
• 36:07
  Smith. It's a 90-001 and its successors
• 36:12
  the 90-002 and the 90-006, the Royal Smith and the rest of the
• 36:18
  kind of growing lineup. And the name Old Smith is
• 36:22
  direct. It's transparent reference to
• 36:24
  the British Smith's brand that started the Chimura's watch
• 36:29
  journey. And I think that's such a cool
• 36:31
  tip of the hat to to not only Smith's, the brand, but also to
• 36:35
  the to the guys over at time factors as well, which by the
• 36:38
  way, I've never I've never proposed anything before, but
• 36:41
  how cool would it be to have a Smith's and then a cool
• 36:45
  collaboration watch? I'm just I'm just saying, I'm
• 36:47
  just saying, if you're listening out there, Eddie and Dave, just
• 36:50
  just just know that Reese stays Reese stays interested in one.
• 36:53
  All right, let's go back to this.
• 36:54
  So now, and we talked about how this was a connect, a direct
• 36:58
  connection to transparent references and the watches look
• 37:02
  again unmistakably like vintage bid century field watches.
• 37:06
  They have applied Arabic numerals, they have rail tracks,
• 37:09
  they have off white dials, beige loom.
• 37:11
  They sometimes they can look pre aged and some of them have blued
• 37:14
  hands and steel and you can make some adjustments as well.
• 37:17
  They also have 35 and 38mm watch cases, which is fascinating
• 37:21
  because they're going in the opposite direction of what
• 37:24
  standard you know, Swiss luxury is moving right now moving are
• 37:28
  usually Miota or Seiko hand wound calibers.
• 37:31
  Occasionally you'll find them in courts as well.
• 37:33
  And then watches are hand assembled in their workshop by a
• 37:36
  very small team and the prices range from like 500 bucks and up
• 37:39
  and they have higher end ones now that are, you know, in your
• 37:42
  to get into examples of like chronographs might be in like a
• 37:45
  $2000 range again at the time of this recording, but you know, 5
• 37:49
  to 700 bucks. And these are again, hand
• 37:51
  assembled Japanese vintage inspired watches with mechanical
• 37:54
  movements in them that are produced in a small shop in
• 37:57
  Kyoto. And Uchimura has stated publicly
• 38:00
  that his long term ambition is to develop an in house hand
• 38:04
  wound caliber, but they're not there yet.
• 38:05
  And the watches currently use again, Japanese sourced third
• 38:09
  party movements. But the ambition, I think is the
• 38:11
  right ambition and the fact that he's building it kind of award
• 38:15
  this from the price point that he he's at.
• 38:18
  I think it says something about what he's actually trying to do.
• 38:20
  And this is what I love about Kuo is that, you know, the the
• 38:23
  reason it belongs in this episode rather than being
• 38:26
  relegated to like a side mention is that it was that represents a
• 38:30
  specific kind of Japanese independent watchmaking that is
• 38:32
  almost like no other. In this what we're discussing,
• 38:36
  he's talking about something that's accessible, but that's
• 38:39
  vintage inspired, hand assembled in a single workshop made by a
• 38:42
  small team that genuinely cares. And the watches sell for like
• 38:45
  500 bucks. And they feel like watches that
• 38:48
  should sell, I think for upwards of 1000 or more, maybe 2000.
• 38:52
  And if you're a listener who's been listening to this episode
• 38:54
  and I feel like, you know, everything we discuss is like
• 38:57
  out of your reach. Or I'm going I'm getting into
• 38:59
  like a Soloka $25,000 Tsunami, right?
• 39:02
  And heat is $30,000 type 1. And you know, Kikuno's 6 figure
• 39:08
  tour beyond. I think Kuo is not just the
• 39:10
  entry point. I think a lot of people who have
• 39:12
  sensibility and then also taste, a lot of them wear cool watches
• 39:16
  and they enjoy them because it's, you know, it's not just
• 39:19
  like this. You're not getting into this
• 39:21
  tearing system. What you're getting is Japanese
• 39:24
  sensibility, the same attention to vintage influences, hand
• 39:28
  assembly in workshops. And then you're getting
• 39:29
  something that I think is genuine, which is honesty.
• 39:32
  And again, you can own a cool today.
• 39:34
  The brand ships internationally. You'll wear a watch that's hand
• 39:37
  assembled by a small team that actually cares about what
• 39:40
  they're making. And again, I think it's one of
• 39:42
  the best $500 entries into serious watch collecting that
• 39:45
  you can make in the world right now.
• 39:47
  OK, Segment 6. Let's get into this Japanese
• 39:49
  indie tradition. And what I would consider is the
• 39:52
  explanation of the quiet thesis. So let me close this episode
• 39:56
  with kind of what I've been building towards.
• 39:59
  Japan has in the past 15 to 20 years developed a parallel
• 40:04
  tradition of independent watchmaking that's running
• 40:07
  alongside the Swiss Apex Dufor Jorn put a line in Rex Shep and.
• 40:12
  This British revival, which was like Roger W Smith, who we're
• 40:16
  going to profile in detail coming up, the Japanese
• 40:19
  tradition has four characteristics that I think
• 40:22
  distinguish it from Western counterparts.
• 40:24
  First, non traditional entry points.
• 40:28
  Ahsoka was a product designer. Hido was a luxury watch
• 40:32
  distributor. Kikuno was a military rifle
• 40:35
  technician, which Mura was a language student who walked into
• 40:39
  an antique shop in London. So none of these people came up
• 40:43
  through the conventional watch making apprenticeship pathway.
• 40:47
  And that is it's unusual. So most Swiss independent
• 40:50
  watchmakers, they're trained at Wasstapp, they worked in major
• 40:54
  manufacturers and then they went independent.
• 40:56
  The Japanese Indies come from outside the institutional system
• 41:01
  entirely. And I think that's a
• 41:02
  fascinating, but it's also probably why some folks are very
• 41:07
  drawn to their designs and other folks are not.
• 41:11
  It's because of the way that you were trained about what you
• 41:14
  should like. And so if you are, say, for
• 41:16
  example, you're looking at some of the Swiss watches and you're
• 41:18
  like, it just, it doesn't speak to me.
• 41:21
  But then you look at some of these watches and they speak to
• 41:23
  you. That's probably why.
• 41:24
  Now also, if the Japanese watches don't speak to you, the
• 41:28
  Swiss watches may speak to you. And that's where people go on
• 41:31
  Reddit and they go crazy about, you know, I think that this
• 41:33
  watch is ugly or whatever. They take a hot take on it.
• 41:36
  It's like, yeah, but you're discussing your preferences, and
• 41:40
  your preferences aren't the be all end all, what I think is
• 41:43
  beautiful or what I think is restrained luxury.
• 41:46
  Someone may say that's too simple, right?
• 41:48
  Why are you paying so much money for a watch that looks so
• 41:50
  simple, right? It's the idea of even what Yama
• 41:53
  was doing. Yama has movement calibers, for
• 41:55
  example, on the back and they're not decorated with englage and
• 42:00
  parlage and they're not overly done.
• 42:02
  And someone would say, well, it's simpler to go and have it
• 42:04
  have a texture dial, right? And then someone else, if you
• 42:07
  actually talk to a watchmaker, for example, especially one that
• 42:10
  does hand work, you can say in some instances they can say,
• 42:13
  well, in all that prolage and all this stuff, sometimes I can
• 42:16
  hide mistakes by, by running it over again, if it's a simple
• 42:20
  texture dial or if it looks very simple or if it's a very simple
• 42:23
  movement architecture, you can see the mistakes more when it's
• 42:26
  simple. And so by adding complexity, you
• 42:28
  can hide things. It's kind of like a Where's
• 42:30
  Waldo situation, right? So, so just be aware that just
• 42:33
  because someone has a reference of something doesn't mean it's
• 42:35
  the be all end all. It just means that's their
• 42:36
  reference. So let me get back to this.
• 42:38
  So we talked about first there were these non traditional entry
• 42:41
  points, now second, extreme working conditions, right?
• 42:45
  Kikuno works in his own house. Asulka works alone in a Tokyo
• 42:49
  studio. These workshops are small and
• 42:51
  the teams are tiny. The annual production numbers
• 42:54
  are minimal. Asulka makes fewer than what, 5
• 42:57
  watches per year? Kikuno makes what 1.
• 43:00
  Ida makes a few dozen. This is watchmaking at scales
• 43:05
  that would be commercially unviable in every other country.
• 43:09
  And the Japanese Indies are doing it anyway because they
• 43:12
  want to, not because it's commercially viable, not because
• 43:16
  they're going to try to sell their watches to get acquired by
• 43:19
  Swatch Group. No, they're doing it because
• 43:22
  they think it's beautiful. They have a mission and a
• 43:24
  passion to do so, and they're making something extraordinary,
• 43:28
  but they're making it because they're passionate about it, not
• 43:31
  because it's commercially viable.
• 43:33
  And I think that's fascinating. Third, I think distinctly
• 43:36
  Japanese aesthetic and technical contributions, right.
• 43:40
  Kikuno, if you're talking about these, these dials, they're
• 43:43
  clean. They're restrained mid century.
• 43:45
  They're they're kind of like this inspired classicism.
• 43:48
  If you're, if you're a humanities or history person, he
• 43:51
  does type 1 is, is gorgeous. You know, Asaoka throwing the
• 43:55
  massive and oversized free sprung balance that's visible on
• 43:59
  a dial side is is rad. But again, these are not Swiss
• 44:02
  watches made in Japan. These are Japanese watches made
• 44:06
  with their own visual and conceptual identity.
• 44:09
  And again, they may speak to you.
• 44:10
  And so that's why I'm trying to bring them up is because you may
• 44:12
  look at them on Chrono 24 or you may just go Google them and go,
• 44:15
  oh man, what have I been missing?
• 44:17
  These are these are stunning watches.
• 44:19
  Now 4th the direct lineage through George Daniels, both
• 44:23
  Asaoka and and Kikuno they they taught themselves significant
• 44:26
  portions of their craft using Daniels's book watchmaking and
• 44:31
  this is the same book that Rodger W Smith used in his
• 44:35
  Bolton garage. The line of teaching that runs
• 44:38
  from Daniels through Smith through Asaoka and Kikuno is the
• 44:43
  line the of complete hand fabrication watchmaking in the
• 44:48
  modern era. Now, unfortunately, Daniels
• 44:50
  passed away in 2011 and the book he wrote is, I think, in a real
• 44:54
  sense, a founding a foundation document in the modern indie
• 44:57
  watchmaking revival. I would love, love for that book
• 45:02
  to live on and continue to inspire new watchmakers.
• 45:05
  And this is going to be a very bold statement for me.
• 45:08
  But if you are someone who is hands on with things and you've
• 45:12
  worked on engines or cars or you like tinkering, or you were the
• 45:15
  kid that took his, you know, parents VCR apart and put it
• 45:19
  back together. I beg you to go and pick up a
• 45:22
  copy of George Daniels book watchmaking.
• 45:25
  Use this podcast as an inspiration to maybe light the
• 45:28
  fire that you could become a watchmaker and just consider
• 45:31
  just consider that maybe there's this opportunity, right?
• 45:35
  I'm going to say that you only live once.
• 45:36
  And if you have dreams and aspirations, there's there's no
• 45:39
  better place than no better time to start than now.
• 45:41
  Now, when you look at when you look at modern Japanese
• 45:44
  independent watchmaking through this lens, you see something
• 45:47
  what I see which is extraordinary.
• 45:50
  Japan has its own dufours. Japan has its own dress ships.
• 45:54
  Japan has its own Smiths. They have existed for more than
• 45:58
  a decade or more. But now Western collectors are
• 46:01
  only beginning to notice this, right?
• 46:03
  If you take one practical action from this step again, and here's
• 46:07
  my suggestion, follow what these guys are doing.
• 46:10
  Look at what Asoka is doing. Look what he is doing.
• 46:12
  Look what Kikuno is doing, try to find them on social media,
• 46:15
  read about their watches, look at the auction results and I
• 46:18
  think you'll start to recognize the work.
• 46:20
  You may never own 1 and that's that's fine.
• 46:22
  I probably won't either. But the names should be in our
• 46:26
  vocabulary as independent watch collectors or enthusiasts or
• 46:30
  hobbyists or just people that enjoy this this space.
• 46:33
  I think their work deserves to be known and I think in five,
• 46:36
  10-15 years when the names are being discussed, they should be
• 46:40
  discussed in the same breath as Dufour and Jorn.
• 46:43
  And hopefully this podcast is going to help you know them
• 46:46
  first. OK, all right, Segment 7.
• 46:48
  Let's talk about what's going to come up next in our teaser for
• 46:51
  episode 18. Oh my goodness, Episode 18.
• 46:54
  So next week we're going to go from Japan and we're going to go
• 46:56
  to Britain. If you have been paying
• 46:58
  attention, you have noticed that I've been teasing and talking
• 47:01
  about George Daniels and the appearance in the I've been
• 47:04
  doing this repeatedly for the last couple of episodes.
• 47:06
  And he was the influence behind the Credor Micro Artist Studio
• 47:11
  and the hand finishing techniques.
• 47:12
  And again, he wrote the book book that that taught Asaoka and
• 47:16
  Kikuno their crafts. And he is the central figure of
• 47:20
  the modern revival of complete hand fabrication in watchmaking.
• 47:25
  The next week we're going to get into George Daniels home
• 47:27
  country, the British watchmaking tradition and three centuries of
• 47:31
  British contributions to horology.
• 47:33
  Harrison and the marine chronometer.
• 47:35
  Oh, you know, I love a chronometer.
• 47:37
  Love. I know, I know, I love those
• 47:38
  marine chronometers. Give me a small seconds, right.
• 47:41
  We're talking about much in this, the lever escapement and
• 47:44
  then Daniels and the coaxial escapement.
• 47:45
  I mean, if you hear coaxial and you don't think about, you know,
• 47:48
  George Daniels and you know, I think about Omega Omega, right?
• 47:52
  And we're in talk about the British watchmaking, the
• 47:53
  industry that nearly died across the 20th century and how this
• 47:57
  modern revival is being a LED again by a small group of
• 48:01
  watchmakers that includes Daniels's apprentice, right,
• 48:03
  Rodger W Smith on the Isle of Man, whom we've been promising
• 48:07
  for a couple of episodes. And now I'm finally going to
• 48:09
  deliver. Plus, we're going to get into
• 48:11
  some more modern accessible brands I'm going to talk about,
• 48:13
  but Christopher Ward. Finally, I'm going to get a
• 48:16
  little bit deeper into Fears and Garrick and the legitimate
• 48:20
  British military watch suppliers.
• 48:22
  And again, I have already talked about CWC as well.
• 48:25
  So British watchmaking next week.
• 48:27
  Don't miss it. All right, folks, that is
• 48:29
  episode 17 of what's on your rest day to Asoka for teaching
• 48:34
  yourself watchmaking with the George Daniels book and machines
• 48:38
  from eBay and for surprising your fellow watchmakers in
• 48:41
  Switzerland and for proving that the conventional path to hot
• 48:45
  horology is not the only path. You're awesome Tahita for
• 48:49
  waiting 29 years inside the luxury watch business until you
• 48:53
  could launch your own brand that produced watches the way that
• 48:56
  you wanted to wear. We are in awe and inspired to
• 48:59
  Kikuno from going from rifle repair in the Japanese
• 49:03
  Self-defense Force to becoming the first Japanese full member
• 49:07
  of the AHCI for keeping the tradition alive in watchmaking.
• 49:12
  Thank you. And to Corona Tokyo for proving
• 49:15
  that Ahsoka's design eye can scale.
• 49:18
  Thank you for that gift. And then finally from the to the
• 49:21
  team at Kuo for building this Kyoto workshop that produces
• 49:25
  $500 watches that feel like they should cost $2000.
• 49:29
  And for keeping the dream alive at an accessible level of this
• 49:31
  hobby is richer because all of you exist.
• 49:34
  Thank you for listening to this episode.
• 49:36
  If you're you know, if you were introduced to anyone in this
• 49:39
  this list that you'd never heard of before, I hope this episode
• 49:43
  did its job. Go look them up, take a look at
• 49:45
  their watches and then come back and tell me what you think.
• 49:47
  I'm watch. Obviously, take care of
• 49:48
  yourselves and wear something good.
• 49:50
  Maybe it's going to be from Japan.
• 50:08
  In a small room in Kyoto lands a moaning on your hands.
• 50:15
  You turn the wheels so gently, like you're teaching time to
• 50:21
  stand. Tiny screws, tiny wonders under
• 50:27
  1 low wooden beam. You build a heart that takes a
• 50:32
  load from your father's old Daydream.
• 50:38
  Curate so clean. 1 by 1 you shape the world Sakai.
• 50:42
  It leans till the 2nd finds it's curl.
• 50:47
  One watch, one soul made by hand.
• 50:51
  One watch, one soul in your palm.
• 50:54
  No factory line can steal that glow.
• 50:58
  One watch, one soul, let it go, let it go, let it go.
• 51:09
  Paper plans beside the rice bowl.
• 51:12
  Steel dust on the tide. Tommy, you file the edge, you
• 51:18
  chase the beat till the gears can sing in harmony.
• 51:24
  Every face in every window gets a different shade of time.
• 51:31
  Yours don't shout from glass and go bull, they just walk a
• 51:36
  straight. Line.
• 51:39
  Curate so clean, 1 by 1 you shape the world.
• 51:43
  Sit Kai it leans till the 2nd finds it's curve.
• 51:48
  One watch, one soul made by hand.
• 51:52
  One watch, one soul in your palm.
• 51:55
  No factory line can't steal that long Watch one soul.
• 52:02
  Let it go, let it go, let it go. From the hammer to the hush,
• 52:19
  from the rain to lack of the wood.
• 52:21
  You keep the old flame breathing and you make it better.
• 52:24
  Good Out of sleep, out of steal, out of loving little scars.
• 52:29
  You pull the universe together in a room smaller than a * One
• 52:40
  watch, one soul made by hand. One watch, one soul in your
• 52:46
  palm. No factory line can steal that
• 52:50
  glow. One watch, one soul.
• 52:54
  Let it go, let it go. One soul made by hand, one wash,
• 53:03
  one soul for the world unseen on earth still that shows.
• 53:09
  One wash, one soul, let it go.