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The Dive Watches of Ming – The Watches of Podcast – Episode 62
00:22:02
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's Gabe.
- [00:01]
B
This week we have something a little different. We just launched a new podcast called the Watches of Podcast. It's essentially an audio version of a YouTube series we recently started. Each episode looks at the watches of a different brand. We've posted three episodes so far and today we're going to share our latest episode here with you. It's on the Dive Watches of Ming. Not only did we want to share this new podcast, but this week Ming will be re releasing both the Bluefin and Dooney Dive watches for the last time. So this episode is particularly topical and if you'd like to order one of the last Bluefins or unis, Collective is of course an authorized retailer of Ming watches and you can learn more@collective horology.com Otherwise the watches of Podcast will remain separate from Openwork. If you'd like to listen or subscribe, just search for the Watches of Podcast on your podcast platform of choice. Or you can watch the video versions which feature hands on footage of the watches discussed on our YouTube channel. Just search for Collective Horology. We'll be back next week with a new episode of Openwork. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the Dive Watches of Ming. This is the Watches of Podcast from Collective Horology. On each episode we look at the history, philosophy, personalities and of course the watches of a different brand. Today's episode is also available as a video on our YouTube channel. Just search for Collective Horology. And finally, in full transparency, Collective is an authorized retailer of the brands featured on this podcast. You can learn more and find their
- [01:35]
A
watch watches@collective horology.com today it's the Dive Watches of Ming. Everything from the first concept watch back in 2019 to the Bluefin and the Ooni. And of course Ming watches are available at Collective Horology.com Asher Ming's dive watches. You know, we were going to do a Watches of Ming, but we can still do a Watches of Ming that would. It's going to be quite an undertaking. There's a lot to talk about there. I mean it's a brand that is just so prolific. Which is why you suggested doing the Dive Watches of Ming. Because just in the dive watches alone there is so much to talk about. I don't think for most people when they think about Ming, they really think about dive watches. It's not a dive watch brand. Maybe the way Doxa is or Blancpain.
- [02:23]
C
I don't know about that. I think some of the modern releases have really dominated the imagination of collectors and we'll get there when we talk about it. But yeah, I would argue that it went from kind of like a more fringy project within the larger Ming brand to being actually quite a defining element of it.
- [02:37]
A
You're right. If I think about our experience with Ming over the last year or so, retailing them, the dive watches have really dominated. And of course, there have been other massive product hits. Everything Ming does draws a lot of attention, but the dive watches remain in the picture and something that people talk to us about and ask about.
- [02:55]
C
It's also just a cultural thing. I mean, you and I are both wearing dive watches today by complete happenstance. So, you know, you have the dominant nature of it within the market and now a growing attention to that particular, particular segment within Ming.
- [03:09]
A
And Ming does dive watches really in their own way, which is something, of course, we'll talk about. But, you know, the brand was founded in 2017 by Ming Tian and a group of co founders, and it didn't take long for them to come out with their first dive watch back in 2019, which was quite. In a. Quite an unusual object, the way most Ming watches are. So tell us about the concept, diver. I believe it was called the Abyss.
- [03:34]
C
Yeah, it was an 18 series. So the 1801 abyss concept, and for who are unfamiliar with it, it was quite, I think, shocking when it first came out first because the design language was so stark. And, you know, I think when we think about, or we look back on the 1801 now, especially the Abyss, it looks. It looks quite familiar. And part of that is because, you know, Ming's design language has certainly become more pervasive and certainly more defined. We'll talk about that as it relates to. As it relates to the evolution of the line. But there weren't as many experimental, so to speak, divers out there in 2019, and there certainly weren't that many divers that were this reductive. And so much about Ming's design language is about being reductive. And this watch really did that. Thing about divers, I find kind of neat is, you know, fundamentally like they're a tool watch. Right? I mean, that's really what they're supposed to be. And they, of course, have become luxury objects. And, you know, the watch that I'm wearing right now is certainly, certainly a great example of that. You know, the planet Ocean, for example, went from being like a really kind of tough as nails, intense diver to being a much more refined, more luxe kind of object. You still dive with it, but, I
- [04:51]
A
mean, it's A luxury object. It's a luxury object.
- [04:54]
C
Whereas the path that I think Ming chose with his divers was to skew a little bit more towards an art object. And that's really what we started to see here, because to me, what was so remarkable about the 1801 abyss was that was very sculptural. Now, there were a lot of things that I think were true about this era of the brand. You know, the lugs were much more defined. You could tell that the watch was still kind of in its early stages of concept. It was still, you know, really being pulled heavily by the tropes of dive watches in general. External return. Yeah, exactly. The very deep blue that, like, very, like, intense blue is a little outside of the standard color palette from what we've seen from Ming. Not always, but a little bit more than normal from the modern era of Ming.
- [05:44]
A
But it's also a very dive watch associated color. You see a lot of blue, and, you know, the blue in this. In this dive watch kind of evokes the ocean. Yeah. Sense. It's a brooding, moody blue.
- [05:56]
C
But we also have very clear design elements that have stuck with the brand and are enduring. The shape of the hands, obviously, these things have evolved and changed, but like the shape of the hands, the use of lume, and the minute track, all of these are the crown. All of these are things that, you know, are consistent in the design language. But I mean, to the credit of the brand, this was an experimental watch.
- [06:16]
A
Yeah. Only 10 of them were made in titanium, so 40 millimeter watch kind of hits all the core dive watch specs, but very limited in its production to 10 watches. This is Ming trying to figure things out with the dive watch. It's a tough category. I mean, there are a lot of dive watches out there. It's tough to do something that's different, but it's also. Honestly, it's tough to do something that feels legitimate. And I think what Ming did here, to their credit, but they very much evolved away from this was this was a dive watch in the style of Ming.
- [06:47]
B
Yeah.
- [06:47]
A
This is Ming's take on a dive watch, which is cool. But I think we're going to see as they start to do more and more and they move away from something that was kind of an experimental test into something that is more mainstream production, they start to really find their voice or at least do something different, which is not dive watches in the style of Ming, but Ming dive watches.
- [07:11]
C
Totally. And in fact, this watch, if I'm not mistaken, shipped on a leather strap. This is Even pre skm. So, you know, you had a. The experimental nature of it was there, but it led into the next iteration of the 1801, which was called the H41, which was essentially Ming's first production diver. And this one was in 2020, so it was a year after the original experimental. And this one, to me, feels way, way more like a Ming diver. It's still an interpretation, but it's moving in that direction.
- [07:47]
A
They're having confidence here to do their own thing.
- [07:50]
C
Yeah, but there's still references to like traditional divers, like the lollipop secondhand, for example, which is, you know, very, very much in. In the design trope and like the design language of dive watches.
- [08:04]
A
But even the color palette era of dive watches. That's true. But like color palette here, you know, we talked about it in the. In the prototype or the experimental model. They're using blue. And, you know, that's a color very much associated with, you know, like the deep sea and all this kind of stuff here. They're saying, you know what? We're going to do a very monochromatic dive watch. This is like full on titanium. It's grade five titanium. If you're familiar with the more recent Ming Ghost, this is kind of like a. The Min Ghost version of a titanium dive watch. It. It doesn't look like a lot of other dive watches and even a few basic changes like the monochromatic color palette, the bracelet. This starts to look more and more like a Ming watch that happens to be a diver versus, like Ming doing their take on a dive watch.
- [08:48]
C
Yeah. And also in classic Ming fashion, it's over engineered. This watch, the H41 was water resistant to a thousand meters.
- [08:54]
A
Well, obviously.
- [08:55]
C
Yeah, clearly. Which of course, if the water pressure ain't gonna kill you, something down there will.
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A
Lure fish.
- [09:02]
C
What? You've seen a lure fish? No, I used to have to look that up. Anyway, in fairness, I think those are way lower. A thousand meters. But anyway, more fish. Okay.
- [09:13]
A
Thought you were talking about the seafood place down the street.
- [09:16]
C
No, no, they're horrifying. Look it up.
- [09:18]
A
Okay, there's. These are like deep sea monsters.
- [09:20]
C
Deep sea monsters. Exactly. But anyway, point being, a thousand meters, you're long dead before the watch is dead. Yep. Is the way I tend to interpret that sort of thing. And you know, but you still have. You still. To your point, when it's the, you know, the Ming interpretation, you still have the external 60 click bezel, unidirectional 60 click bezel, things like that, that really are very Much part of what makes a traditional dive watch a diver.
- [09:46]
A
And now this watch came out in 2020. So we have 2019, the experimental sort of the concept version, in 10. The next year, in 2020, our first production diver, then Ming takes a beat, and it's not until 2024 that they come back with another dive watch. And this is very, very different. And I think this is an example of them taking their time to out to do things right and to do things that feel really and truly not just differentiated, but more truly Ming creating a Ming dive watch. A dive watch that nobody other than Ming could create. And that goes more than skin deep. It's more about kind of the aesthetics and the case design and the handset and things like that. But there are a number of things. And of course, what we're talking about is the Bluefin. There are a number of things with the Bluefin that are fundamentally different from any other dive. Watch out there goes on to win in the sports watch category in 2024 at the GPHG. And I have to be honest, before I spent much time with this watch, I was kind of scratching my head at that, trying to understand, like, well, it's a dive watch, and it's a Ming watch, and that's cool. But, like, why exactly is this winning at the the gphe? It was up against some tough competition in that category, specifically it of other dive watches. So.
- [11:05]
B
Like the.
- [11:06]
A
The singer dive track, which is a horological tour de force and a very cool dive watch.
- [11:12]
C
Yeah.
- [11:13]
A
And one that goes to 11, so to speak, was in that category. And this beat it. And I think the reason why is there are a lot of details in here that are extremely meaningful, that come together in a. In a product that is not just fundamentally Ming, but is fundamentally different from what's offered out there. So what makes this watch just so different?
- [11:36]
C
Well, for one thing, it's 38 millimeters. It's significantly smaller, which makes it, I think, a lot more wearable for most people who are interested in divers, but generally are looking at, like, the smaller size, you know, so. And you're limited by that. You know, I mean, there's not a lot of divers out there that are. They're sub. Sub 40 millimeter.
- [11:54]
B
That's true.
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C
You know, there's a 37. I don't even know if it's still in production, but there was a 37 millimeter yacht master at one point. So there's that. You know, there are Black Bay.
- [12:03]
A
Is it the 54?
- [12:05]
C
Yes, of course, the Black Bay 54, the Black Bay 58.
- [12:07]
B
But these aren't.
- [12:08]
A
Those aren't flagship products. Like, there's the Planet Ocean and the previous generation in 38 millimeters. But like, for all those watches, like, the flagship product is always around 40 millimeters, give or take a millimeter. And here, the flagship dive watch. The dive watch is in 38 millimeters.
- [12:26]
C
Yeah. And that's not all. It's very wearable. It's 44 and a half millimeters lug to lug, and it's just a little bit over 12. I think it's a 12.8 millimeters thick.
- [12:35]
A
Yeah, that sounds about right.
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C
The reason why that's a notable.
- [12:37]
A
That's exactly right.
- [12:38]
C
There you go. The reason why that's a notable measurement is because there are some ingenious approaches to classical problems here. So, for example, when I look at a traditional dive watch, a unidirectional bezel, a timing bezel is a critical feature. And if you want to even be ISO certified, for example, you need to have these critical features. So this watch, for example, has a traditional unidirectional bezel that is external. That external bezel adds to the thickness of the watch because the bezel itself has a thickness. The way that Ming decided to approach that problem was by making an internal rotating bezel. Okay. But going a little bit further than that and actually saving a fair amount of space by making the dial itself. The rotating bezel.
- [13:21]
A
Yes. And the reason they're able to do that is because not only does the dial rotate, so it's got a kind of like this compressor style case, and then the crown down here at about 4 o' clock will rotate the dial. The full dial. Not just. Not just a ring that sits above the dial, but the full dial itself. The reason they're able to do that is because they've loomed the sapphire itself. So you've got your hours and minutes and your time telling etched into the sapphire and then infilled with lume on the. On the backside of the sapphire there, which also creates this cool parallax effect where it casts a shadow on the dial. But that means that you're then able to rotate the dial almost as a bezel, which is just so freaking cool.
- [14:05]
C
100%.
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A
Have we seen that before?
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C
Not that I can think of. I mean, it's a very. It's a. It's one of those. It's one of those solutions that's like kind of so obvious you'd imagine somebody would do it. But of course nobody has, which is what makes a really good idea a good idea. Now, what I also find fascinating is that this also shows the flexibility of this particular case series. This is part of the 37 series. There are tons of watches right now in the 37 series, from the Ghost to the Minimalist to the, the Bluefin and subsequent divers that we're going to talk about in a moment. But it really shows the flexibility of that particular case geometry, which has worked really, really, really well here. Obviously this is slightly different, it's got a higher bezel to account for some of the mechanics that are in this watch. But all things being equal, it's still a 37 series watch from Ming, but
- [14:53]
A
it does something really cool, which is. So this is a 37 series case and you've got everything. You're right. From a minimalist to a starlight to whatever else is in the 37 series. A lot of watches in that. This one uses the sapphire and the case construction to deliver 600 meters of water resistance.
- [15:15]
C
So no lure fish?
- [15:16]
A
Yeah, no, you can't get that. You can't get that far. I mean, I'm, I'm wearing another dive watch here, a submariner. That's 300 meters of water resistance. What's your planet ocean there? Probably something comparable to this.
- [15:28]
C
800 meters.
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A
800 meters, but that is a beast,
- [15:32]
C
you know, and this, reading this correctly, my eyes are.
- [15:35]
A
Who knows, your eyesight's terrible. But this, this compared to those other two watches is to your point, a 38 millimeter watch, it's 44 millimeters lug to lug, 12.8 millimeters thick and it delivers 600 meters of water resistance. Well, how do they do it? It's not just the case construction, it's also the use of the crystals, the sapphire crystals. You'll notice if you look at them closely on both the top and on the case back of the watch have a curvature to them. And that curvature actually adds strength to the and pressure resistance to the sapphire. Sapphire is an incredibly pressure resistant material in terms of its ability to take top down or bottom up force. It's not super resilient. Side to side, sure. But top down, bottom up, it's extremely resistant to pressure and force. And so the curvature of that crystal is what actually enables them to get to 600 meters of water resistance on a watch of these proportions. So every little detail is thought through and comes together here to deliver a watch that's very distinctive looking. It's clearly a Ming, but it looks and works like no other dive. Watch out.
- [16:48]
C
And I'M glad you mentioned the works part, because there's another critical difference between this and the 18 series divers, which is that those were running on ETA 28, 24 calibers. This runs on the unique variant of
- [17:01]
A
the SW300 caliber from SW300M1, I think.
- [17:05]
C
There you go. That is available exclusively for Ming watches and features those beautiful DLC bridges as well as some skeletonization. It's a really attractive movement and a very interesting take on what is arguably very common movement, but with a significant amount of work that isn't just a custom rotor, this, that, or the other. I mean, it is a unique version of that movement.
- [17:31]
A
Just for me, it is one thing I love. So one thing we hear all the time is, oh, well, that whatever watch it is this watch, that watch or whatever, that's just got a Solita movement.
- [17:39]
C
Why would I pay that much for a watch with a Solita movement?
- [17:41]
A
One of my favorite things to do, and we'll do it now, is to show sort of like the. The before and after. So we'll show you what a standard SW300 movement looks like. Here you go. We're very familiar with this. And now here's the Ming version of the SW300. You can see just how far they've taken this thing and just how far
- [17:59]
C
they've pushed it 100%.
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A
We've talked a lot about the Bluefin because the Bluefin is really the basis of the modern dive watches. But then again, Last year in 2025, Ming introduced a new variant of the 3709, and that was the Ooni.
- [18:14]
C
Yes. Which is, for all intents and purposes, from a technical standpoint, basically identical. Where we see significant differentiation is in the aesthetic. And the colorway is, of course, inspired by. By sea urchin uni. And it has that sort of, you know, recognizable orangey yellow color. It's a DLC case. So you have orange, black, and white all coming together to make. I don't know if I'd call it like a more tactical, but definitely like a way, way more modernist feel.
- [18:44]
A
Yeah, it's a totally different vibe.
- [18:46]
C
Totally.
- [18:47]
A
And, you know, Ming usually will do some DLC version of their watches. They'll black them out. What I love, though, is, like, this isn't just a blacked out version of the. The Bluefin. The hour and minute track on the crystal are totally different completely, and that lends to its vibe. So Ming isn't just cranking them out in different colorways. They're really thinking for each watch here, you know, this this watch, in the darker color way, has a vibe. How do we design different elements of the watch around that and lend to it and accentuate it so you can see side by side. Very similar, obviously in case dimensions, but the look and feel of these two watches, it's very different. Both very cool.
- [19:25]
C
Yeah. The only distinction I would put into in terms of wearability is that the Bluefin is compatible with the 20 millimeter stainless steel universal bracelet.
- [19:33]
A
Good point.
- [19:34]
C
And a lot of people wear it on that bracelet.
- [19:35]
A
Looks great.
- [19:36]
C
The Ooni, on the other hand, because it is dlc, is limited to straps
- [19:40]
A
at this point, but again, looks great on a NATO.
- [19:42]
C
Yeah, but this is the thing. It's a vibe choice. You know, that both will do the same. The same thing. It's a matter of what speaks to you.
- [19:49]
A
Yeah. And Ming continued to iterate on this formula. So later this year in 2025, we got the 3711 Odyssey, which is sort of what they call a GMT diver. Doesn't actually have a ton of dive watch functionality. The. The rotating dial becomes a rotating 24 hour disc instead of like a rotating bezel for. For diving. But it's in that family. It's got the water resistance. It's. It's got the same case architecture. Essentially, it's rendered in this case in titanium. So it's a member of this family. I wouldn't say it's a true dive watch on the level that these other four dive watches are, but it shows as a platform that Ming is able to take this architecture from the Bluefin and do other interesting things with it. So the Odyssey, also a really cool watch. So we'll see where things go. Now, if I understand correctly, about the time we're releasing this video, Ming is re releasing both the Bluefin and the. And the Ooni, and it will be the last call for these watches. So this is a platform that obviously we expect them to take in different directions and probably do different dive watches and maybe other complications like they did with the Odyssey gmt. But as far as the Bluefin and the Ooni themselves, it's the end of the line for these two watches. So if you're into them, strike while the iron's hot.
- [21:08]
C
Right on.
- [21:09]
A
Should we leave it there?
- [21:10]
C
Let's leave it there.
- [21:11]
A
All right. Well, if you are into Ming watches, if you're into the Bluefin, the Ooni, or really anything else they make, you can, of course, find everything@collective horology.com Feel free to get in touch or comment below with your thoughts and questions. And while you're at it, subscribe to this channel to stay up to date on all things independent. Watches
- [21:33]
B
thanks for listening. The Watches of Podcast is a production of Collective Horology. You can find us along with the watches from Today's episode@collective horology.com.