Latest / What's on Your Riste? A Watch Podcast / S01E04: Why You Really Want a Submariner: The Decoy Effect, the Watch Industry's Trap, and Three Brands Operating Outside It (Yema, Horage, H. Moser)

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S01E04: Why You Really Want a Submariner: The Decoy Effect, the Watch Industry's Trap, and Three Brands Operating Outside It (Yema, Horage, H. Moser) · What's on Your Riste? A Watch Podcast

0:00
I want to start this episode today with a quick experiment.
0:03
If I asked you right now to name the two best dive watches in the
0:06
world, what's the first answer that pops into your head?
0:10
I'm going to bet it's some version of Submariner or
0:13
Seamaster or both. Stick a pin in that we're coming
0:16
back to it. You've been had.
0:18
We've all been had, and I'm going to show you how.
0:49
Welcome back to What's on your Reese day.
0:51
I'm Wachovsky. If you're catching up, Episode 3
0:53
was a heavy one. If you sat with me through that,
0:56
thank you again. Genuinely, I never take that for
0:59
granted. Today, we're picking up the
1:00
energy. We're going to do 2 things in
1:02
this episode. First, I'm going to walk you
1:04
through a piece of decision psychology that I think every
1:08
watch enthusiast needs to understand.
1:10
It explains why so many of us end up wanting the same 5
1:14
watches and why it's not actually our fault.
1:17
Mostly. 2nd, I'm going to introduce you to three brands,
1:20
in my opinion, that are operating completely outside of
1:23
that system. Brands that are doing genuinely
1:26
interesting work and aren't on most people's radar yet.
1:30
Those brands are Yama, i.e. MA.
1:32
You'll hear the French say Yama. You'll learn about horage.
1:36
HORAGE rhymes with garage. And then you're going to hear
1:41
about H Moser and C&C. It ends in CIE.
1:45
That's just French for and company.
1:47
So H Moser and company H like the letter H Moser is Moser and
1:52
that's C, So H Moser and C. But first, let's talk about how
1:55
you got tricked. So segment 1 is going to be the
1:58
decoy effect. OK, there's a famous experiment.
2:01
If you haven't heard of it, it was done by behavioral economist
2:04
Dan Ariely. He wrote in his book in the book
2:07
is fascinating. If you have time, you know,
2:09
maybe when you're done with my podcast, go take a look and see
2:12
if you can find predictably irrational.
2:14
Again, predictably irrational Ariely is a RIELY and it's based
2:19
on real world pricing examples from the economist magazine.
2:24
Now. So here's the setup.
2:25
The Economist again. You know the economist, right,
2:28
That the the finance magazine, they had subscriptions in three
2:32
tiers. They had tier one, right?
2:34
Web only. So you just get the website, get
2:36
access to all of their articles digitally, 59 bucks.
2:39
Then they had print only, so you only get a physical one in the
2:43
mail, $125.00 for that right for that subscription.
2:48
Or you could get the print and the web also for 125 bucks.
2:52
Now pause. Let's think about those 3 for a
2:55
second. Anyone hearing or reading this
2:57
sees this immediately. Option 2, the print only for 125
3:02
bucks is an insane option. Why would you pay the same price
3:07
for less when option 3 is there? Option 3 is obviously the one
3:11
that's going to crush option 2. So I really, he tested listed
3:14
this on 100 MIT students with all three options on the table,
3:18
16% of the 100 students makes it pretty easy, right?
3:22
So 16 of them selected and pick the cheapest web only option,
3:27
right? Zero of them, which is good
3:29
because they're they're MIT students.
3:31
Zero of them picked option 2. And then if you go the other
3:34
side, 84 picked the print and web bundle.
3:38
This is an expensive option, but it won by a landslide.
3:41
OK, so then again behavioral economist, they like to play
3:44
with this stuff stuff they did this research study ariely
3:46
removed the middle option again, the option that no one selected
3:51
and now there were just two options, just two choices.
3:55
The web only for 59 bucks and the print and web for 125.
4:01
And so do you think the results would be similar, right?
4:04
Nobody picked the middle option, so removing that shouldn't
4:06
matter. But it completely flipped what
4:09
occurred. So now after they removed this
4:12
erroneous option in the middle, 68% picked the cheapest option
4:17
and only, you know, 32% picked the bundle, the most expensive.
4:21
So what ended up happening was this useless middle option
4:24
wasn't useless at all. The useless middle option was
4:28
entirely the point. It was the decoy.
4:30
It was placed there specifically to make the bundle look like a
4:34
deal. And guess what?
4:35
It worked. People who would have happily
4:38
picked the cheapest option ended up spending double because of an
4:41
option they didn't even consider.
4:43
And this is what we call the decoy effect.
4:46
A fancier name is asymmetric dominance, and it's everywhere.
4:50
It's in coffee sizes. It's in movie theater popcorn.
4:53
It's in the streaming tier services that you get.
4:56
It's on the car lot a lot, and it's in watch boutiques.
5:00
And the take away from this is wild.
5:02
Now, again, we think, we think we're making rational choices
5:06
based on what we want. We're actually making relative
5:10
comparisons based on whatever options happen to be in front of
5:14
us. Now, if we change the options,
5:16
we change the choice without you or me ever noticing.
5:20
Now, why in the world am I telling you this on a watch
5:23
podcast? Let's get into segment 2.
5:25
How you got tricked, tricked into wanting a submariner.
5:28
Now this is my spicy take. OK, Submariner is an awesome
5:31
watch. I don't want to take anything
5:32
away from it. It's a it's a it's a wonderful
5:33
watch. The entire mainstream luxury
5:36
market is structurally doing this to you.
5:39
Think about it. When you started getting into
5:41
watches, when you first fell down the rabbit hole on YouTube,
5:44
when you started watching reviews, when you walk into your
5:48
first authorized dealer, what gets pushed in front of you?
5:51
Submariner, Seamaster, maybe a date just or an Aqua Terra, a
5:55
Daytona or Speedmaster, GMT Master, Black Bay GMT, maybe in
5:59
a different higher end, maybe it's something like Royal Oak or
6:02
Nautilus, right? Two options, two options being
6:05
compared. Always two from the same handful
6:08
of brands, reviewed by the same handful of Youtubers, discussed
6:11
in the same forums, posted in the same Instagram feeds.
6:15
You think you're choosing? I thought I was choosing.
6:17
We thought we were choosing, but we've been fed a curated menu.
6:21
The choices they were made before we got there.
6:24
We're just picking from was already on the table.
6:26
We're not going to restaurants folks and picking things that
6:29
are typically not on the menu right.
6:31
So we are given what our options are.
6:34
So here's the kicker. Once you've made your pick, you
6:36
become an advocate for that. You defend your choice.
6:40
We watch YouTube videos typically after we've made a
6:43
purchase to validate ourselves. We join Facebook groups to
6:48
discuss this watch and it can be where some folks will have their
6:52
identity wrapped around a watch. You might become the Submariner
6:56
guy or the Seamaster guy, right? Or a different brand, fill it
6:59
in. And in the meantime, completely
7:00
outside of this conversation, there are hundreds of incredible
7:03
watch brands that you've never been told even exist.
7:07
That's the trick. The trick isn't that the
7:09
Submariner is bad. The Submariner is fantastic.
7:12
I'm not knocking it. The trick is that you were never
7:14
given the chance to discover whether something else might
7:18
have been more yours. And that's the part that's
7:21
frustrating to me. We are told, you know, Brando
7:23
wore this watch or you know, James Bond and wore this watch,
7:27
and then we associate these identities to them.
7:30
But the question is, that's not your identity, right?
7:34
My identity might be more affiliated with that Laurier
7:39
Falcon that's connected to my daughter now, right?
7:42
And that's a story. That's my story.
7:44
That's going to be the story that gets passed down to my
7:46
daughter, right? My youngest.
7:48
That's a completely different story.
7:50
That's not going to make it on to mainstream media.
7:52
It's not going to do any kind of stuff.
7:53
It's not going, there's not going to be some film made about
7:55
that watch, right? But it's connected to me.
7:58
And my argument is going to be as we build this up, your
8:01
watches, the ones that you have identified with the the watch
8:05
that you're holding your child with in a picture, they're going
8:08
to look back and they're going to see that watch.
8:10
Now, do you want that to be someone else's watch that was
8:13
someone else's memories or do you want to be your watch with
8:15
your memories? OK, let's get into segment 3.
8:18
Let's talk about the soccer field.
8:19
I'm going to give you a metaphor that I think about this all the
8:23
time and I think about this specifically in this hobby.
8:26
Again, we talked about, you know, my family having
8:28
connections to professional sports.
8:30
Picture youth soccer specifically.
8:32
Picture like 5 year olds playing soccer.
8:35
If you've ever seen this or if you've ever coached it, you know
8:37
what happens and just Godspeed to you.
8:39
You are more patient than I am. We, we have a running joke in
8:42
our family that we never pray for patients because if we pray
8:45
for patients, God gives us opportunity to practice our
8:48
patients. So picture this soccer field.
8:50
You've got the ball in the middle of the field.
8:52
There are 40 little legs in a giant cluster around it and
8:56
they're trying to find this ball.
8:57
They're all trying to kick the ball and the ball pops out and
9:00
then the cluster, the entire cluster moves to where the ball
9:03
is now. Then the ball pops out again and
9:05
the cluster moves again and repeat this for, you know,
9:08
upwards of like an hour. That's the watchmarket.
9:11
The ball is wherever the hype flashlight is pointing.
9:14
And right now that's a steal sports watch from one of the,
9:18
you know, big three brands, right?
9:20
The cluster is everyone. The collectors, the Youtubers,
9:23
the Instagrammers, the secondary market, the boutiques, they're
9:26
all chasing the exact same thing at the exact same moment.
9:29
They are literally those five year olds around the soccer ball
9:33
moving all around, right? But here's the thing that's
9:36
interesting about good soccer players, the good ones, really
9:39
the great ones, they don't run to where the ball is.
9:43
They run to where the ball is going to be.
9:45
They read the play and they're a Step 2, three steps ahead.
9:49
They're already in the space or they're going to be in the space
9:52
while everyone else is still chasing.
9:54
And that's what good collecting to me looks like right now.
9:58
Where is the ball going? It's not going to another
10:01
Submariner reference. I think it's going to
10:03
independent watchmaking. It's going to small ateliers,
10:06
right? Just a fancy word for Workshop,
10:09
and they're doing extraordinary work.
10:10
It's going to brands like Chapek, it's going to Torsti and
10:14
Lina. It's going to Dorn Blue, that's
10:16
going to Fears. It's going to Beauvais.
10:18
It's going to Parmigiani, the brands that we covered in the
10:20
last couple of episodes and a bunch of others that I haven't
10:23
even mentioned yet. And so, yeah, the hype cycle, it
10:26
might catch up. Sometimes it does.
10:28
But that by the time the cluster gets there, the people who
10:31
already knew had their pick, they got there first, not
10:35
because they're smarter, because they weren't chasing the ball.
10:38
It's good segment 4, let's to figure out if you're a collector
10:41
or a speculator. I don't want this to be a
10:43
manifesto, so let's not let's not go that direction, but it
10:46
might. So just fair warning, right?
10:48
Hopefully have your snacks and your drinks.
10:50
Now I want to make a distinction that I think this whole
10:53
conversation is going to pivot on this point.
10:56
I think that there are really two types of people, two kinds
10:59
of people in this hobby. Now, again, a gross
11:01
generalizations always are horrible.
11:03
Again, as somebody who has a terminal degree, I understand
11:06
when we try to put things in boxes because it helps build
11:09
dissertations and organize things.
11:10
And we're not that we're not, we don't organize that cleanly.
11:13
But again, I'm going to try this.
11:15
I believe that there are collectors, true collectors and
11:18
their speculators. A speculator buys a watch
11:21
because they think it's going to appreciate, because their guy at
11:23
the boutique said this is a good investment, bro, because they
11:26
read on Reddit that this specific rents reference is
11:29
going to pop and because they want to flip it in two years for
11:32
a markup. Speculators are in the watch
11:35
market, but they're not really in the watch hobby.
11:38
They're going to move to the next thing.
11:39
They might be selling, you know, flipping and trading crypto
11:42
where they might be doing something else later on.
11:44
They're not, they're not in this hobby to be in this hobby.
11:46
They're in the hobby as a speculator now.
11:50
Collector, on the other hand, they buy watches because they
11:53
mean something to them, because the design spoke to them,
11:56
because the movement is interesting, because it has a
11:59
story, because they actually want to wear it, because every
12:03
time they look down at their wrist, they feel something.
12:06
And resale is not part of the calculation.
12:09
If it appreciates, cool. If it doesn't, also great.
12:12
Because you still have a watch on your wrist or in your watch
12:15
box or in your safe or that you're going to pass down that
12:18
you love. Now, I want to be really careful
12:21
here because this is going to sound harsher than I mean it.
12:24
If you're only buying watches for appreciation, you are not a
12:28
collector. You are a speculator.
12:30
And probably this isn't the podcast for you.
12:32
And that's not me being mean. That's just me being honest
12:35
about what this show is really about.
12:37
I would say culling the herd. There are great podcasts and
12:41
YouTube channels for the speculative side of this hobby.
12:44
They'll tell you what's hot and they'll tell you what's going to
12:46
spike, what to flip, what allocation to chase.
12:49
That's a a real legitimate corner of this world.
12:52
And there are people that are good at that.
12:53
This is not, and I'm going to repeat that.
12:55
This is not that show. This is show for people who are
12:58
again, here we go considered who by what is meaningful to them,
13:02
who wear watches that have a story, who want their wrist to
13:06
speak, a conversation that goes deeper than the watch that is
13:09
worth and whatever the the next quarter is going to look like on
13:13
Chrono 24. They don't care about
13:15
appreciation or decent depreciation.
13:17
What they care about is story. And so to me, what matters here
13:22
is that we're buying watches that impress us.
13:25
Not our coworkers, not the dude at the gym, not in the comments
13:28
section. US.
13:29
I will wear a panorie because I think that the one that I have
13:34
is beautiful, because it's comfortable, because it tells a
13:38
story. And here's why that matters.
13:40
Because the watches that are meaningfully going to appreciate
13:43
over the long term, we're measuring it in the wrong thing.
13:46
We're always looking at finances, but we're not
13:49
measuring them in emotions. The sense of becoming something
13:52
more valuable to you is something that you can't sell.
13:56
And they're almost never the same watches that the
13:58
speculative market are chasing. The watch that you still love in
14:02
20 years is not the one that went up 30% last year.
14:05
It's the one that you wore to your kids birthday.
14:08
It's the one your brother gave to you.
14:10
It's the one you track down because of a story that meant
14:13
something to you, nobody else. And that's the soul of this
14:17
hobby. And it lives nowhere on a price
14:19
chart. OK, so that's the end of the
14:21
sermon. I apologize.
14:23
Let's get let's talk about the three brands that I think
14:25
exemplify what this is kind of looking like when you step out
14:27
of that cluster. Let's go out of the herd out of
14:30
that, you know, 5 year old soccer game.
14:33
Let's talk about segment 5. We'll talk about Yama, the
14:35
French brand YEMA Yama, founded in 1948 by a dude named Henry
14:41
Louis Belmont. Belmont, but I think it's
14:44
pronounced right and the historical heart of French
14:48
watchmaking is where this dude was founding this whole thing.
14:51
And there's a massive, still a massive surge that's coming back
14:55
in in France in regard to independent watchmaking.
14:57
So you're going to hear about Yama.
14:58
You'll hear about other brands as well.
14:59
Piccane is one that we'll probably cover in in the future
15:02
as well. Awesome.
15:03
So here's one thing about Yama that almost no one knows.
15:05
They have one of the deepest tool watch heritages in Europe.
15:09
And we're talking like real history.
15:11
They have a Superman dive watch that came out in 1963.
15:14
It's earlier than most of the dive watches that you think of,
15:17
like the Classics. Their yachting graph was worn by
15:20
sailors in the whipper round of the World Race.
15:24
They have watches that were worn by French astronauts when they
15:28
flew on Soviet missions in the early 80s.
15:31
They have pilot watches, dive watches, They have chronographs.
15:34
They have GM TS. They've done it all.
15:35
And they've done this with genuine military and
15:37
professional contracts that are going to back this up for
15:40
decades. So what happened?
15:42
Where'd Yama go? Well, like most of them, the
15:44
courts crisis, it's a story you've heard a dozen times.
15:47
Yama got beaten up, changed hands a few times, faded from
15:51
the international conversation. But this is the part that kind
15:53
of matters. They're back.
15:55
And this is kind of the headline I want you to walk away with
15:58
for, you know, under 2500 bucks. And again, we know when we're
16:02
talking about watches, we kind of know, right?
16:04
You're getting into tutors that are 567 grand now for under 2500
16:09
bucks, you're going to get an in house micro rotor movement from
16:12
Yema, 70 hours of power reserve. I'm going to read that again in
16:16
in house micro rotor under 2500 bucks.
16:19
So for context for those who don't speak watch, a micro rotor
16:22
is just a small automatic winding rotor that sits inside
16:25
the movement architecture as opposed to sitting on top.
16:27
Typically, we see a rotor, it has the pivot kind of in the
16:30
center and then it rotates around the entire movement and
16:32
it makes the the movement a little bit fatter.
16:34
By having a micro rotor, it's going to allow for a thinner and
16:37
more elegant movement. You're also actually going to
16:39
see more of the movement as well.
16:40
So again, as you see more of the entire movement through the case
16:43
back instead of getting this big rotor blocking the view patch
16:47
Philly, for example, makes per rotor movements, Piaget makes
16:50
beautiful ones, Basheron makes a beautiful ones.
16:52
And you're going to see some from the voucher we talked about
16:54
Parmigiani, for example, cheapest of those are going to
16:57
start to what, fifteen, $20,000 And Yama's doing it for under
17:02
2500 bucks. And the movement again to me is
17:05
gorgeous. It's decorated, it's robust,
17:07
it's well built. The Yama calibers, the MBP 1000
17:12
family, they're produced in France and they're not just like
17:14
spec sheets. They they look the part.
17:17
They have a beautiful case back that you can see through and see
17:20
the see the movement. And here's the cherry on top.
17:22
You can option these scales bracelets on some of their
17:26
watches. Now they kind of look like
17:27
they're beads of rice, but they're flattened out and
17:30
they're cool. Like they're genuinely cool.
17:32
They have this kind of retro 70s kind of vibe to them and most
17:35
modern brands, they kind of cheap out on bracelets.
17:38
I think Yama does it right and they've gotten they're they're
17:41
stepping up the clasp and the adjustable clasp, but I think
17:43
they're kind of moving in the right direction.
17:45
And to me, the result is a watch that on risk looks like nothing
17:48
else in this price bracket. So Yama is the answer to the
17:51
question. If you're going to ask this
17:52
question, what does it look like when a real heritage brand
17:55
decides to stop chasing the cluster and make excellent
17:57
watches at fair prices? It looks like Yama.
18:00
It's affordable. It's serious again, affordable
18:02
and air quotes because 2500 bucks is not affordable in some
18:05
circles, but in the watch space, it's really I mean you're kind
18:08
of entry luxury, right? And it's not on Instagram all
18:11
day and you're going to be probably the only one at a watch
18:13
meet up that's wearing 1. So again, that's a feature and
18:16
not a bug, especially of this podcast.
18:18
Let's talk about Haraj second brand.
18:20
Haraj pronounced orage, right, kind of rhymes with garage or
18:24
poor. Some people have pronounced it
18:25
with like porridge, like Horridge, right?
18:27
I say Haraj HORAGE, right. You're going to see 2008 Andy.
18:33
And I believe it's it's it's spelled FELSL and I think it's
18:38
pronounced Felsl. And I could be wrong.
18:41
Correct me in Switzerland again, 2008 and this brand, in my
18:45
opinion, is one of the most interesting happened things
18:48
happening in modern watchmaking and almost nobody's talking
18:51
about it. And here's why.
18:52
Again, most micro and boutique brands buy their movements from
18:56
someone else. You're seeing a pattern, right?
18:57
You see me talking about Yama and they're how they have they
18:59
have a split in Yama. They have they're using some
19:02
Salida stuff and then entry level and even some court stuff
19:04
to really let people kind of open the door for a couple 100
19:07
bucks you can get into Yama with in regard to Haraj, these micro
19:11
and boutique brands. A lot of times they're buying
19:13
their movements from someone else again.
19:14
ETA Solita, Miota Seikos NH movements, for example, and
19:18
again, they're great, but they're commodity components.
19:21
You're paying for the brand and the design, not the engine
19:24
inside. Raj decided from a very early
19:27
point early, right? They're going to make their own
19:30
movements, actually make their own movements from scratch in
19:33
house and they did it. Their K1 movement is an in house
19:37
automatic with five day power reserve and that's longer than
19:40
most anything in the mainstream market.
19:42
They've made an in house Turbion their own silicon escapement
19:46
components at a level of technical capability.
19:50
I believe Garage is operating in a territory that brands that are
19:53
20 times their size would envy. And I like it because I think
19:57
they do it with a little. But here's what I want to talk
19:59
about with her, Raj. And this is what I think people
20:01
are missing when they read through this spec sheet and then
20:05
they just stop. These watches are unbelievably
20:08
comfortable on wrist. Cases are thin, like stupid
20:11
thin. Genuinely, they've engineered
20:14
around a micro rotor movement specifically to keep the case
20:18
height low. And the result is that even with
20:20
their dive watches, they're again this more substantial kind
20:24
of piece. They're not wearing like that.
20:26
After a long day, most watches kind of feels like you're
20:29
wearing something heavy. Haraj just kind of disappears in
20:31
the most beautiful way. And the micro rotor movements
20:33
again, back to that micro rotor concept that I mentioned with
20:37
Yama Haraj is, are beautiful as well.
20:39
The case back, you're going to see an entire movement laid out
20:41
right in front of you, an elegant little off center rotor.
20:44
And all of this is decorated to a, to a level that I think it
20:48
kind of shows that again, it's, it's modern and it's it's a
20:51
little bit. I don't, I don't want to be
20:52
disrespectful to other brands because that's not my goal here.
20:55
But they're doing something different.
20:57
Their movements look different than than what a prototypical
20:59
movement would look like. And then there's straps.
21:01
There's two things to know. One, the rubber straps are, to
21:04
me, some of the most comfortable rubber straps I've ever owned,
21:07
period. They put real R&D to the
21:09
compound, the texture, they don't pull arm hair, they don't
21:12
get sticky in the heat. They almost feel kind of like a
21:15
fabric Y silk. Again, FKM, think of like FKM
21:18
but just more comfortable, more silky.
21:20
And the Haraj rubber straps for me, they kind of seek me out.
21:23
I, I want to take that watch on a trip or vacation if there's
21:27
water involved. Two of their bracelets.
21:29
Haraj offers bespoke bracelets with on the fly adjustments.
21:32
That means that you can adjust obviously the Class A few
21:35
millimeters to a handful of millimeters, but without tools
21:39
on your wrist, that's pretty pretty standard now for some of
21:41
these watches, once you start to get over a couple 1000 bucks and
21:44
you obviously know how nice that is, it's in the summer, your
21:46
wrist swells up. If you're like me and you're
21:48
arthritic or you have a long flight or you have a workout or
21:51
whatever, you bought this watch or you put it on and it fit
21:53
perfectly in the morning and then all of a sudden it's tight
21:55
or if it's really tight in the morning, it's really loose by
21:58
the afternoon with Haraj push of a button and then your problem
22:01
is solved. It's kind of the the feature
22:03
that these big Swiss brands have been talking about for years and
22:05
Haraj just kind of did it. Now, Haraj is not as polished
22:08
brand wise as the Swiss kind of the big Swiss names.
22:11
Their aesthetics are more technical and sometimes they can
22:13
be divisive. And I don't think that their
22:15
marketing is as slick not to say that, you know, they're not
22:18
having this, they're not handing these watches to celebrities.
22:22
They're a boutique manufacturer that's doing real engineering.
22:24
And I think the watches reflect that and they look like what
22:27
they are. And some people, they resonate
22:29
with them and some people they don't.
22:31
To me, again, these watches resonate.
22:33
Yama resonates with me. The kind of vintage feel from
22:36
Yama, the more modern side of Haraj, They they resonate with
22:39
me. For someone who actually cares
22:40
about what's inside a watch and what's against your skin all day
22:43
long, for someone who wants to wear a piece of contemporary
22:46
horological engineering instead of like a status symbol, Haraj
22:49
is to me one of the best deals in the entire market, full stop.
22:53
Now, one of the things that Parmigiani is kind of known for
22:55
is kind of hiding hands, right? There's AG, the GMT variant of
22:59
of Haraj with the K2 movement. When you talk about that, the
23:03
supersede, for example, that model, it's on a 12 hour.
23:06
So what that means that when you're not using your watch as
23:08
AGMT, you can actually, you can click your GMT hand or your
23:12
instead of it being a 12 hour like it does on a GMT Master too
23:16
where you see the the GMT hand all the time on a Haraj, you can
23:19
hide that hand underneath your regular hour hand.
23:22
And now you just have a regular 3 hander watch with the date.
23:24
Very cool. And it has a 12 hour 24 hour
23:27
indicator so it'll tell you if you're an AM or PM.
23:30
Again, pretty cool. And the watch is really thin.
23:32
So if you've ever wanted to win a watch nerd argument, ask the
23:35
other guy what Haraj is making in house this year and they
23:37
probably won't even know who Raj is, right?
23:39
They'll ask you about porridge or something.
23:41
Segment 3, let's get into H Moser and CI would say that
23:44
they're the most theatrical in the segment.
23:46
I am going to have a little bit of fun with this.
23:48
The third brand, H Moser and C, we spelled it already this one
23:51
again, H Moser is the brand that that makes me laugh probably the
23:55
most and kind of like the best possible way.
23:57
They're founded in 1828 and they were brought back into the
24:00
modern era under the leadership of Eduard Maylan MEYLAN.
24:05
Again, super charming dude. He's for me, one of the most
24:08
charismatic and outspoken CE OS in this entire industry.
24:11
And the watches that they put out are extraordinary fume
24:14
dials. Again, fume just means French
24:17
for smoked is a fade from the center color to a darker color,
24:20
typically to the edge. And it's just kind of beautiful
24:23
gradient way. And and Moser does dials that
24:25
they they do them in a way that even though other folks are
24:28
trying to copy them, when you see them in person, you kind of
24:30
just get it pictures even in the the best, most perfect lighting,
24:34
the second you get a watch on hand, if you're not seeing it
24:36
actually dancing around. I mean, they're just they just
24:39
do something completely different.
24:40
They're they're beautifully gradient in some instances, but
24:44
they're also really strange because they have these
24:47
minimalist designs at times. They often have no logo on their
24:51
dials and they have in house movement movements with
24:54
traditional finishing. And to me, they are the quietest
24:58
loud brand in watchmaking. They have some of the best hot
25:02
horology in the world. But what to me makes Moser Moser
25:06
is that they refuse to take this industry seriously.
25:10
In 2017, for example, the Swiss label, the brand the way you
25:15
could put Swiss made on your watch got revised.
25:18
And the new rule said that to qualify for Swiss made, a watch
25:22
needed to only be 65% where its value was coming from
25:26
Switzerland. So what that means is that you
25:27
could actually go get an entire, and I'm using air quotes, a
25:31
Swiss movement built in China and then shipped over to
25:35
Switzerland and it could be assembled by a Swiss watchmaker.
25:39
Or you could have an entire movement in that was Asian moved
25:44
and shipped over to Switzerland and then cased in Switzerland.
25:47
And you could count that as part of the 65 and Moser.
25:51
Again, they looked at this and they're over 95% Swiss across
25:55
their entire collection. They looked at this and said
25:57
this is a joke. This label is meaningless.
26:00
Anyone can claim Swiss made on their watch.
26:03
So what did these guys do? They made a watch out of cheese.
26:06
Not joking. They made a one off concept
26:08
called the Swiss mad watch AD get it mad as in not made it's
26:13
in a Swiss mad watch instead of a Swiss made watch, a 42mm case.
26:17
It was made out of actual Swiss cheese specifically as a cheese.
26:21
I'm going to I'm going to butcher this because I'm not
26:23
French. I was in France for a little
26:25
while playing soccer when I was in my teens.
26:27
But I'm going to do my best here.
26:29
So do not do not get mad at me. OK, Bashran Modor, Bashran
26:35
modore my Bashran model I I'll do my best.
26:38
It was mixed with a composite resin so the cheese could be
26:40
machined and polished. Had a red fume dial like the
26:44
Swiss flag. See what they did there?
26:46
A strap made out of Swiss cowhide.
26:48
They unfortunately for a cow, it didn't make it.
26:50
And the price tag. You're going to love this
26:52
1,081,200 91 Swiss Franks. Why that exact number?
27:00
Because 1291 is the year Switzerland was founded.
27:03
See what they did there? The whole thing was glorious.
27:05
It was brilliant, completely unhinged, and genuinely a middle
27:08
finger to the entire Swiss watch industry.
27:11
And to make sure the message landed, Moser announced they
27:14
would stop putting Swiss made on their watches entirely, even
27:18
though they qualified by miles, because the label had become
27:21
meaningless to them. Now here's where this gets
27:24
really fun. Because they pulled Swiss made
27:27
off the dial in 2017, that means that Moser watches before 2017,
27:32
the ones from kind of the modern revival era, specifically the
27:36
Endeavour Lions, ENDEA VOUR and the Venturer VENTURER line.
27:44
The early pioneer pieces to me still have those Swiss made
27:48
markers on the dial. And once you know this piece of
27:51
history, that little Swiss made inscription on the dial becomes
27:55
this incredible inside joke. You're wearing a watch from a
27:58
brand that ultimately said this label is meaningless by having
28:01
this watch on your wrist. That's from Moser that are
28:05
typically less expensive, right? And it's almost like this
28:07
protest. It's a horologic artifacts to me
28:11
from the moment that Moser became Moser.
28:13
And that brings me to the actual tip I want to give you from this
28:16
band. Again, I don't talk about
28:18
speculation and all that kind of stuff, but the pre market or the
28:22
pre pre owned market for late Moser endeavors and ventures.
28:26
Again, it's one of the great open secrets in this hobby.
28:30
I think right now again talking about pieces from like the late
28:32
2000s to the mid 2000 and 10s Endeavour center seconds
28:36
Endeavour small seconds the endeavour perpetual calendars
28:40
the venturer small seconds the venturer big date.
28:43
These watches brand new today retail somewhere between 25,000
28:50
and well into 6 figure territory 102 hundred $300,000 depending
28:55
on the complication on the pre owned market.
28:57
You can get one that says Swiss made on the bottom of it you can
29:00
find one in pristine condition. Examples of these late model
29:04
endeavors and adventurers in full blown 18 karat white gold.
29:07
For example, someone in the neighborhood of like 1/5 of what
29:11
Moser is going for right now. 1/5 No, we're we're still
29:14
talking big money, right? We're still talking between like
29:16
could be 7 to $15,000, right? We're talking about some of
29:20
those watches and 18 karat white gold in house movements, fume
29:24
dials, Swiss made on the dial, real hot horology for the price
29:28
in this hobby. That's honestly reasonable for
29:30
what you're getting. Again, I get how ridiculous that
29:32
statement is. Now the Endeavour specifically
29:34
has a monster power reserve depending on the variant that
29:37
you get, some of the endeavor can run for a full week or more
29:41
and that's wild. A normal mechanical watch
29:43
typically will run for 40 hours to 72 hours or so 70 hours.
29:48
Some Moser endeavor with the right caliber can go for seven
29:51
days without without needing a wind.
29:54
Now the ones when they say that they say 7 days to guarantee
29:58
their accuracy, but there are reports of these endeavors,
30:01
especially these ones that are you know, Swiss made on the dial
30:04
that go from 9 to 12 days. They just don't advertise that,
30:08
but you could put your watch down and almost 2 weeks later,
30:11
your mechanical watch that you hand wound 12 days ago might
30:14
still be running. Now the accuracy is going to
30:16
taper off obviously, as the the amplitude in those, those power
30:19
reserves are going to kind of taper off as well.
30:22
But again, to see your hand moving after 10 or 12 days is
30:25
just, it's nuts. And again, you're going to get
30:27
that in a 18 karat gold case, right?
30:30
With the level of finishing. That's nuts.
30:32
And it's kind of, to me, it's still one of these great
30:34
anomalies in the market. Now the standard caveat is going
30:36
to apply. You got to buy from trusted
30:38
sources. You got to get services service
30:40
on a Moser is not cheap. Make sure that you know, boxes
30:43
and papers and all that kind of stuff is there if you can find
30:45
them with a if you're getting white gold watches, for example,
30:47
make sure that the pin buckle is also matching and it's white
30:50
gold because some people will take those and that's an extra
30:52
1000 bucks or so that they will go meltdown and you want your
30:55
pin buckle. So if you ever wanted to own a
30:57
piece of genuine hot horology without paying these crazy hot
31:00
horology prices, late model pre owned Moser to me is where it's
31:04
at. I think it's one of the better
31:06
plays in the market right now if you wanted to own a Moser.
31:09
Now, with that said, some people are going to be looking at these
31:12
other Mosers that are brand new and shiny and that's cool too.
31:15
I just, I don't know, something about me likes the history and
31:18
the old stuff and I like the story behind it.
31:19
And so again, that's that's who Moser is past.
31:23
And I guess as we get into kind of the present now, they've also
31:25
released watches that were taking shots at like the
31:28
smartwatch industry, for example, they have a watch that
31:30
literally looks like an Apple Watch.
31:31
It looks like it's loading, but it's mechanical watches that
31:34
have no markers at all. And they have, again, I told you
31:36
that they have watches that look like an Apple Watch, again,
31:39
mostly mechanical. And their CEO Elon goes on
31:42
record criticizing the entire industry.
31:45
And they're loud and they are, you know, they're the most to
31:49
me, the most submersive or sub subversive, unapologetic,
31:53
unapologetic brand in hot horology.
31:55
And they back it up with watches again to me, when you actually
31:58
examine them are genuinely among some of the best watches made
32:02
today. So if you want to watch this
32:03
says something like I'm not playing the Submariner Seamaster
32:06
game it the Moser says that pretty loudly.
32:09
The Streamliner, the Pioneer, the Endeavor, the Venturer, all
32:12
watches with attitude that have opinions, but do so with, I
32:16
think this really calm kind of almost smirk to them.
32:20
And I think that's kind of fun as well.
32:21
So if you're interested in Moser is kind of a fun brand.
32:23
Now let's bring it all together. 3 brands, 3 completely different
32:27
parts of the spectrum again, Yama you can go on online and
32:29
you can find quartz variants of some of their watches for a
32:32
couple 100 bucks and they typically will ship them duties
32:35
paid. So you'll get your you know
32:37
you'll get your French watch with a quartz movement typically
32:40
for a couple 100 bucks and then you can go all the way up their
32:43
range and get an in house micro rotor diver or integrated
32:47
bracelet watch for you know, under under 3 grand landed right
32:50
2500 landed garage. We talked about a Swiss
32:53
technical in house powerhouse right there, thin, they're
32:56
comfortable, best rubber straps. I think some of them best in the
32:59
business on the fly bracelets are awesome as well.
33:01
And I think the rest of the industry really is kind of
33:03
implementing what Haraj is kind of pushing now.
33:06
Moser, I just talked about them. They're provocative, they're
33:08
beautiful, they're loud and right now I think a pre owned
33:10
market for them is kind of the the best steel in hot horology.
33:14
It won't be like that forever. It's similar to Parmigiani when
33:17
the Tonda PF came out the 40mm Tondas that with the small
33:22
seconds those watches were going for two to $5000.
33:26
Now I don't think you can find them for under 8 and I think
33:29
it's going to continue to move up similar with the Parmigiani
33:31
chronographs, right? The chronographs are crazy
33:34
comfortable and nobody was looking at them.
33:36
And now all of a sudden people are realizing like this is an
33:38
awesome watch. It's finished.
33:39
Well, some folks are they kind of get turned off because it's
33:42
not necessarily a completely in house built movement or they see
33:46
it as the architecture has a module on top and then other
33:49
folks go no, no, I exactly that's exactly what I want.
33:52
I want a module on top that they can they can repair just some
33:54
sections of it at a time as opposed to this is some of the
33:57
entire movement. So then all of a sudden, these
33:59
movements that have modules become, you know, the metro
34:03
graph, for example, becomes a killer because people realize,
34:06
oh, I can get a 40mm chronograph that's designed and built by
34:10
Parmigiani, and they're way comfortable and they're
34:12
beautiful and no one talks about them.
34:14
Awesome, right? When we get back to Moser, what
34:17
was what a Yama Haraj and Moser have in common?
34:20
None of them are running where the ball is.
34:23
They're all running to where the ball I think is going to be.
34:26
They're not on the curated menu of boutiques that get put in
34:29
front of you. They're not the two option
34:31
comparison videos. They're not the answer to the
34:33
Submariner, the Seamaster. And not coincidentally, when you
34:37
wear one, the conversations you have are different.
34:41
People who recognize Yama Haraj Moser are people who know they
34:45
instantly skip past the small talk.
34:47
You're already kind of in the deep end together, right?
34:49
You you know that this dude can swim and you're jumping in the
34:52
pool already, right? You're not double checking to
34:53
make sure that the water temperature is good or you know
34:55
how that this, this person knows how to swim.
34:57
That's the kind of conversations I think are worth having.
35:00
So the hobby again, is bigger than the cluster.
35:02
It's way, way bigger. And once you see the cluster for
35:05
what it is, once you see the decoy, the curated menu, the two
35:09
option trap, you can't Unsee it. And you start to look around and
35:13
notice that this incredible work is happening in spaces that
35:16
nobody is looking at. And that's the whole game.
35:20
That's why we do this. All right, so segment 9, let's
35:23
close this thing out. So after, I think after the
35:25
heaviness of episode 3, after all of this see through the
35:29
matrix stuff that we've been doing today, I think we need
35:33
something fun, pure, maybe a little unfiltered joy.
35:37
So the next episode we're going to be talking about 3 brands
35:40
that I genuinely believe are making the most fun watches in
35:43
the watch world right now. We're going to talk about Mr.
35:45
Jones watches, a london-based brand making watches that are
35:48
essentially tiny pieces of conceptual art.
35:51
Watches that don't just tell time in the regular way.
35:54
Watches with skulls and Latin inscriptions and little little
35:58
ducks floating around in pools. They're going to be like nothing
36:01
you've ever seen before. They're brilliant, they're
36:03
joyful, they're genuinely original and they're very
36:06
affordable like under 300 bucks under 400.
36:09
We're going to talk about studio underdog yes, with a zero in the
36:13
middle of dog. It's UND and then the #0 and
36:17
then G you'll get used to it. It's another British watch micro
36:20
brand. They have watercolor dials.
36:22
They're basically taking a fun and take on this whole thing.
36:25
They have a watch that looks like a watermelon, a pizza, a
36:27
cherry pie, avocados, guacamole, right?
36:30
They have full color loom on some watches and it just looks
36:33
like a kid drew it and they sell out in seconds and minutes.
36:36
And we're going to talk about why this is interesting.
36:38
And then finally then they were going to close out next week
36:41
with zealous, a Singapore based, a maker of some of the wildest
36:45
material experiments in the micro brand land bronze cases,
36:49
Damascus steel, forged carbon meteorite, some of the wildest
36:53
micro adjustment systems in the market for the price watches
36:56
that you can get anywhere from 300 bucks up to a couple
36:59
thousand. And I don't I think that they
37:01
purposefully dare buyers not to buy their stuff.
37:04
They are a little wild and their prices I think are delightful. 3
37:07
brands, 3 completely different vibes, all of them proving what
37:10
watches can be in the next episode.
37:13
OK, so that's episode 4 of what's on your Rest a quick
37:16
favor. If any part of this episode
37:17
resonated with you, share it. The decoy stuff, the soccer
37:20
metaphor, the collector versus spay speculator distinction.
37:24
If any of that landed, send this episode to one of your friends.
37:27
Make sure that they hear it. And that's is how this is going
37:29
to grow. One person at a time.
37:30
If you've got a brand outside the cluster that you love and
37:33
think more people should know about, message me.
37:36
I want to hear about it. The whole point of this show is
37:38
that we expand the conversation station beyond past the same 3
37:41
to 5 watches. So help me do that.
37:43
And until next week, I'm Wachovski.
37:45
Take care of yourselves and wear something good you.
37:58
Call it rare. I call it sweat of the rope on a
38:01
factory set. Same case, same crowd, same
38:03
Polish shine, just a longer line for the same design.
38:06
You bust away like it's the crown, but every wrist in town
38:11
knows the clown. You want my eye?
38:13
You want my nut? It's damped up dealing the
38:15
mocking guy. Roll the bezel, chase the shade.
38:19
Same old flakes in a new parade. Keep your list, keep your pose.
38:24
We all know how to run away. Touch you with your eyes.
38:32
Exhibition old, less still You tell those lies. 2 million a
38:36
year. 2 million a year. You still have so many. 2
38:43
million a year. 2 million a year may shine in a showroom case.
38:58
You guard it like a holy place, but the hands all move the same
39:02
damn way. At noon at night on a Tuesday.
39:05
You learned in that chain insight.
39:12
Wear the same old panic every new drop night.
39:15
Roll the bezel. Chase the shape.
39:17
Same old flex in a new parade. Keep your list.
39:21
Keep your paws. We all know, the story goes.
39:40
2 million a year. Put the number on the box.
39:52
Put the mess in your sock. You bought a ticket to a mess,
39:57
now you're married to the trick. 2 million a year. 2 million a
40:23
year. 2 million a year. Oh, still excellent.