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Scottish Watches Podcast #771 : Watches and Wonders 2026 – Rolex, Tudor, Audemars Piguet and More – Part 1
00:57:32
Welcome to our coverage of Watches and Wonders 2026, where we’ll tell you about our hands-on experience with Rolex, Tudor, Audemars Piguet, and more! Click here to read along and...
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Scottish WATCHES podcast. We're here live in Geneva at watches wonders 2026. Dave is with me. How are you?
- [00:07]
B
Dave is good. We are trying to bring everything to you as quickly as possible this year rather than wait till the week after. So each day we're going to be recording a little segment of things that we've seen either that day or just the day before so that we can have it fresh in our memories. But remember, do check the show notes out because the actually correct information is more likely to be in the show notes.
- [00:26]
A
You're getting ahead of yourself. You're getting ahead of yourself. I don't think that's true. But yeah, look in the show notes. Anyway, Mizzelle does a fantastic of misspelling everything that we talk about. Tons to catch up on. Obviously people want to find about Rolex, Patek Tudor, but those weren't the ones that stuck out for myself and Dave. We have completed day one or half of day one by the time we actually got across to Switzerland. But Rolex was in the tip of everyone's tongue. They were the guys that released stuff a little bit early. They appeared in adverts across Facebook, Google, Instagram, YouTube. And there was a lot of things about maybe the yacht master, a new Daytona, perhaps some things had been retired from the catalog that people loved, some firm favorites from the past. But yeah, should we start then? Should we talk about the new stuff or the things that disappeared?
- [01:07]
B
Well, let's talk about things that have disappeared because I guess there's probably a lot of people out in that wide world that are waiting or hoping that they might get themselves a Pepsi orientated bezelled watch. Well, they're not going to be getting one now because 12 years after, well, the latest iteration or family of Pepsi's were introduced. That being of course, precious metal with the steel one coming in. My precious. My precious. I think five, six years ago the steel one was added to the range. Well, they're all gone now, I'm sure probably not forever. Got a feeling it will come back at some point. Who knows when. But as of now, if you're waiting for a Pepsi, the chances are, well, you're not going to get one. Think also the blue bezel. Can never remember what these are called because as people know, Rolex is not my big area of expertise. But the blue bezel one, that's gone as well. Can't remember Cookie Cookie Monster, I think that one's called. It's disappeared from the range. But there is, well, there's a New chronograph, which is a bit of a strange mix of materials, which maybe puts it in the middle of the price tier of that model.
- [02:04]
A
It's a new Daytona, obviously, Cosmograph, and that is the linchpin of the Rolex collection. Everybody looks to get that. That's the one. I was on the waiting list for so long. Finally got the call recently, thankfully, and I have got the ball. We should probably do a wrist check, even though I'm not wearing a Rolex just now, and you can go for a change.
- [02:22]
B
Well, I've got nothing on this wrist, which is the wrist. Apparently most people should wear their watches on, but I am wearing. Well, actually, I'm wearing a prototype of my latest work watch, which is the Orage Tourbillon 3. And this is in the Mint Fizz, which actually has been attracting a bit of attention in terms of the colour. People seem to like this Col. I'm sure Mazzia will put some nice pictures in the show notes because he's got access to some nice pictures of it. But, yes, wearing this one, it's a new introduction into the range. You just actually looked out your Tourbillon one out of the safe, secure storage facility that is Fort Ricky and it's back out on the wrist. Well, not today it's on the wrist, but.
- [02:56]
A
So today I'm wearing something not borrowed, but something blue and it's the Moser Streamliner Scottish watches Meme liner edition. The reason I'm wearing this is because we're going to talk about Moser. We visited them yesterday, didn't know what they were up to, perhaps thought there was an April Fool's joke that landed a little bit late, but it turned out to be true to form. So we'll pump that information out to you guys shortly. Moving back to Rolex, many different things. PVD coating, green dials. They introduced what was the puzzle collection a few years back. They have brought that back. Everyone's running around with tote bags with those images everywhere. It's been a bit of a lukewarm start. Tudor, quite lukewarm. Although they have played right into their hundred years, their heritage, the Royale stuff that they've done in the past. But let's just finish up in Rolex because, yeah, dropping the Pepsi, dropping various things, but they've done this across the range. They dropped the Batman back in 2019, waited a couple of years, brought it out, replaced the Oyster with the Jubilee, so who knows what they may get up to? Nothing groundbreaking, nothing like the last couple of years where Perhaps they brought titanium versions, they brought clear case backs. Those were things that set the world on fire. Which for Rolex, small movements its iterations. It's like the Porsche 911. It moves forward at a gradual pace because it's almost perfection. You can't really change it up too much. And when I say almost perfection, I mean that by the case that people actually put their names in waiting lists. They wait. And in the space of. We were talking about this the other day, in the space of perhaps precious metal, the Daytona, the price Delta from four years ago to just now could be as much as 15k on a watch that was around about the early 20s just a few years back. So anything else in Rolex we want to cover because we have to get through it so much in this episode?
- [04:32]
B
No, I mean obviously check the show notes out. There's some pictures will be in there. I think the most garish of the dials is this. I don't know even how to describe it. It's like a kind of collage of quite bright colors. Their bag this year, the little tote bags that they give away these kind events. It's definitely the most un Rolex bag. It looks like it's from a trendy brand, doesn't it? And I kept catching these and going oh, that's a good looking bag. And then finally discovered, oh, it's the Rolex bag which is a bit unusual. And they've got a dial that's their latest puzzle watch. It's not a puzzle watch but it's that kind of vibe and feel about it. A bit fun and friendly and a few other cool things coming. But let's have a chat about the brands that we visited over the last half day because we saw some cool stuff.
- [05:10]
A
So we came in late because of flights from Scotland are obviously terrible. You've got to pick and choose when you can come in. And we immediately ran to PAL Expo, that is the convention center where they hold watches and wonders amongst various other things. In the past it used to be sihh, which was the smaller version of along with Baselworld. And they've had the Geneva Motor show here up until it kind of fell by the wayside a couple of years ago and is no longer in Geneva but in the place itself. It was a little bit easier to get in. It's as if they have refined the entry process for the journalists, the media, the retailers. And the first port of call was to pop in and see the folks at Arminstro. Last year when we came in, we got to have a look at this purple. Well, I wouldn't say purple headed monster, but it was a monster and it was purple. We got a little comic book to go along with it. This time around it wasn't playing in the low digits price wise. This was, as we confirmed, their most expensive watch yet.
- [06:05]
B
Yes. And this was the 12:59 anytime I think his official name and it is a chiming watch for gongs. It's a titanium case and they explained that was to keep it light and wearable a little bit smaller than previously. They also I, I think the first time they did a chiming watch was maybe five or six years ago, can't remember exactly, 2018, 2019 maybe, I think they said and it was bigger. This one's come down. It's still a bigger watch but of course it's chiming. It's got four gongs in it. It's got their kind of resonance technology that you would expect to see of course in their more premium pieces. And the little trick on this one is of course when you've got that chiming watch that you can tell the hours, the quarters and the minutes, you want it to do the biggest trick it's got, which is, well, 1259 because it's got the most noise and music going on about it. But of course if you want it to do that, you have to move the hands and reset everything. And they've got a little function on the slider that lets you choose between the real time, that is whatever time it is of the day. So it might chime once if it's 1 o' clock, for example, or you can set it to 1259 with a press of a button, little red indicator on the dial which means that you can have it play that full well. 12:59 Chime whenever you want it to. So it's quite cool. A little bit different, I think around the 370,000 Swiss franc mark. So definitely in the punchier end of this wonderful world of watch collecting that we're in. They're only going to make, I think they said 25 and if I remember rightly, they suggested they could make two or three of them a year. Everything hand finished and it really is at the top end, the pinnacle of what Arb and Strom do. Of course they're based in Bilbienne in the centre of Switzerland. Cool watch. Check out the show notes to see, see pictures of that one and after there, where do we head to?
- [07:49]
A
Well, before you get ahead of yourself Dave, I will chime in again. Do you like that? Do you like that?
- [07:53]
B
That's a good one, wasn't it?
- [07:54]
A
I've been waiting that for a while.
- [07:55]
B
You just wanted to chime in.
- [07:57]
A
I did want to do that.
- [07:58]
B
Jesus.
- [07:59]
A
It was a really cool watch. I liked it. I didn't like the price point because everyone's been a little bit careful at the moment. So this was a jump for those guys. It wasn't a jumper, but it was a jump. And in a market where things are a little bit more cautious, it's a big ask. So obviously they're going to build to order. They talked about lead times of around about six months, which makes complete sense. But nowadays you can be waiting six months for something common or garden almost. So good to see them pushing forward. Well, a lot of people were pulling back a little bit this year. We did notice a bit of a regression this year obviously with people been hedging their bets a little bit, making sure that they don't put too much forward because they're maybe not selling as many things as they had done in the past. It's good to see Armin Strom pushing ahead. Whereas last year they kind of just changed the color to purple. Now where do we go from there?
- [08:43]
B
So first of all we went to see Frederic Constant and the first thing they showed us was, well, something for the ladies. This was a kind of bracelet style watch, a couple of different variations, stainless steel. You also had a kind of PVD 18 karat gold. But the one that caught my eye was one of the gold ones with a turquoise dial. Really good to kind of. I'm not usually a fan of these super yellow gold watches, but that dial really just distracted you from the yellow of the gold going on and it really did work. Nice looking watch. They range from I think around the 1500 to around the £2000 mark. Quite nice if you like that kind of jewelry style watch. Nice to see something like that being available for real reasonable money. And then they showed us, well their all new world timer and it's got a new movement. They've really upped the power reserve. I think initially they were in the 30 something hours and they're upped into the 70 hours now. They've dropped a date function to clean it up. A few different variants. Me and Ricky had different opinions. There was one that was a kind of dark blue, very conservative with a bracelet. One that had the lighter blues, dark blues and white mixed together. That was the one that caught my eye and the one that neither of us really gelled with which was the diamond bezel one, but that's a different story. Great value for a well specced in house, decent performance world timer. If I remember it was in and around the 4,500 mark, something like that. So, you know, really strong value proposition for a good in house world timer. And then we got to see the guys at Alpine.
- [10:05]
A
We did sister brand and this is part of the larger citizen group. You've got Citizen, you've got Le Joux Paris, you've got Arnold and Son, Angelus, Frederic Constadant and Alpine. There's a whole load in there and people don't really mix them together in their mind. You think of Rolex, you think of Tudor, you think of Omega Longines, et cetera, et cetera. But the Citizen group, they're doing amazing. We keep saying this, you know, Grand Seiko should be grand citizen for what they put together. And these pilot watches we got to look at, they were not crazy expensive but if you looked at them, you didn't look at the brand logo on it. You perhaps looked at a Bremont, something like that. We're looking side by side and it's less than half the price.
- [10:42]
B
Yeah, I think these were in and around the thousand pound mark. There was four different kind of colorways I suppose on them. Two of them caught my eye. You'll never guess. It was the greens and the browns. Shock horror. David Light's greens and browns. But then there was one that was more in kind of I think a black PVD case with a black dial. Not Mavi, probably more Ricky's, he likes all black. And yeah, they had a soft leather NATO strap option. They had different colors of leather straps for. I guess it's not a field watch because it is a proper pilot style watch but it did have that field watch vibe to it. So if you're in that market where there's lots of stuff like Hamilton and there's lots of options in and around that thousand mark, it's definitely something that's well worthy of a little look. And they had a big aviation theme but they also had some other themes going on. Lots of things that Ricky likes like video games and arcade games and all sorts of things.
- [11:29]
A
Well, that was around the corner where they actually had. This is weird. They invited us into one side and. And they had a good presentation at the beginning they had. It was jewelers, screwdrivers and tools. Not life size, double life size at the front. Really drew you into where they were. And that was the Rodrigue constant stuff. And you look at it. And in my mind I place them alongside the likes of Oris, Raymond Vale. They produce very, very good stuff. Pretty inexpensive price point. You get a lot of value for money. But they just, they haven't really popped yet. People don't talk about them. And it's one of those, well, that's a really nice watch. Who makes it because it's the name and the dial just doesn't stand out enough yet. But then we went around the other side where they had, as Dave mentions, it was like going back in time to a bygone era or the nostalgia you have in your mind the rose tinted viewpoint of the past where you think of something and it doesn't actually marry up with maybe the video from the 1980s where I think of arcades and stuff like that. This was the ideal version of it. You had Galaga machines. Reminded me of, I think it was one of the Avengers movies where Tony Stark says that guy in the corner is playing Galaga. They do sitting there free to play. Then they had all this cool tile pixelization. The people that were actually at the brand working the booth, they were all wearing these cool outfits. It really stood out to me. But it was almost hidden around the side, which was a real shame. And obviously a guy that likes video games. And having recently, if you're a UK person, you know, I'm about to say recently caught up with Dominic diamond of Games Master fame who set the scene, kicked things off in the 1990s here in the UK when it comes to video games on television. So it kind of brought everything full circle. They actually talking about going in a full circle. They showed us a pilot style watch that we're not really allowed to talk about for about a month. But you know, in a day and age when you're looking for something, you're looking for pub ammo, you're looking for something to talk about and everything's the same. Well, they've actually created something brand new with a watch to do with aviation and it ain't going to break the bank and it will be a fantastic pub ammo. When you go to an event, you go to a meetup or you just want to sit there and play with a fidget spinner.
- [13:27]
B
From there though, we headed off to those guys at Panerai.
- [13:31]
A
We went into the deep a little bit and we're talking deep pockets. If you want to buy some of these watches, we go around different brands. We don't speak about Panerai much on the show because they don't really communicate with us, they don't send us much. And the watches, being quite honest, a little bit like Rolex, they're a bit samey. You know, they kind of. You can tell what Panerai is by looking at Panerai. So we sat in and we wanted to be educated to learn stuff. And they had some brand new technology. They were talking about this, that and the other. I'm looking for something a little bit more maybe gets my creativity going. Because we've seen a million watches, we want to see something new. And one of the standouts thus far for me at the show itself is a Panerai that's got 31, not hours, days of power reserve.
- [14:11]
B
Yeah, they showed a few things you would probably expect from them. A couple of my highlights were they did a destro. That being the crown on the opposite side with actually a really nice blue dial. It wasn't anything that you wouldn't expect, to be honest from the brand. It certainly. It had all the DNA that you would expect from a luminor, I think it was. And great looking watch. Nice color dial. I like that kind of offhand crown. Yeah, really cool. I think it was at 8 or 9,000. Don't know if I'd want to pay or 9,000 for that watch. But nonetheless decent looking watch. And they were a little bit smaller. Leaning into some of their heritage. There are a couple of nice, definitely vintage, inspired dial colors in there. These kind of bronze. They're kind of leaning into that patinaed look and that kind of tropic patina that you get in some really old watches. They were leaning into that. But as Ricky mentioned, probably the highlight was a watch that was altogether too big, too thick, too expensive, but cool nonetheless. 31 days. I think they said it takes something like 100, 420 something full turns of the crown to wind it up, which is a lot. Let's not be. But then they pointed out you only actually need to do that 12 times a year, which kind of takes this thing out of it. And of course, you'll probably only wind it partially. You'll wind it fully up and then maybe every week you'll top it up. So you're never having to dial it in that much. Lots of skeletonizing. I think it was four barrels, if I remember rightly. You had this display in the front and the bit, the other bit.
- [15:36]
A
Oh, here we come. Dave's favorite part was there was a
- [15:39]
B
date disc on it that you can't see, but it was polarized, I believe. A bit like the old Sunglass lens technology where you had this polarized date in this little window at 3 o' clock and you could see the date perfectly there, but you couldn't see the date disc anywhere else. It was, I mean, silly, of course, not needed, not necessary. But nonetheless, it was a cool little feature to it. But I think that watch was definitely towards the punchier end of the price spectrum.
- [16:03]
A
You say that, but this was the other thing.
- [16:05]
B
Relative.
- [16:06]
A
Relative. Everything is relative. When we were sitting there, we were playing the guessing game, the how much game, and there was a watch, and it was eight grand, and then there was another watch, it was ten grand, and we couldn't really discern the differences apart from color. And then something came in and it was a collection. It was a vintage inspired collection. There's going to be 30 sets available. And it was like 140, 130,000 Swiss francs. And we're like, oh, that's punchy. So when they actually revealed the price point of the 31 day model and it was around 90,095, I think it was around about 90, 95,000 Swiss francs, that didn't seem quite as bad. But the technology was really good. And there was a couple of other parts that were built into what they were talking about. The technology they've developed for no reason other than because we can. And we've talked recently about you shouldn't do just because you can. You should do because it's wanted and needed. I liked it and Panerai has not really invigorated me any way at all in many, many years. And looking at the lattice structure, a little bit like the Raj that Dave's wearing just now, it's got a lattice structure where it's skeletonized through, but it's got this mesh net type system. It appealed to me. And Panerai have never really done that. And their display stand was fantastic. You'll see in the video on YouTube and probably on Instagram a clip of Dave almost drowning. Almost.
- [17:20]
B
Almost kind of not. But the other one we forgot to mention was they had one that had an interesting case. It was a mix of grade 2 and grade 5 titanium that they had rolled the metals together and it gave a Damascus style effect, if you know what that is, where you've kind of got these different metals folded together. So you had this wave. Yeah, yeah. It's like when you roll mix different candies together, but this kind of very fluid wave like pattern, I think they described it as. And, and I don't know if there's any real Engineering benefit to mixing grade 2 and grade 5 titanium, to be honest with you, but nonetheless cool looking case that was a little bit different, a little bit funky as well. What you need to remember is Panerai is part of a group that also has the likes of IWC in it, who are well known for their materials, technology and of course these brands. There's a little bit of cross shading goes on here as well. So Panerai is one of these brands that they don't tend to focus on what they do technically too much with materials and stuff. It's more about this whole dive and the frogman store and all of these things that they hark back to all the time. But when you look a little bit under the sheets, under the skin, there is a little bit more going on sometimes than you know, you would give it credit for. The other thing as well, you have to of course like that aesthetic because their DNA is strong. That's a good and a bad thing. If you like them, it's definitely a good thing because you know it's a Panerai from quite a long distance away. If you don't like that kind of cushion shape, well, it's probably not the brand for you, but nonetheless, yep, they brought us something that we weren't expecting, which of course is effectively a one month power reserve, which is, is pretty cool, to be honest with you.
- [18:50]
A
Before we move on, a little bit of a technical point on there and props to Panerai here. As much as we said the price point was up and down, that's completely up to them. It's prerogative to do that. They were explaining the technical details in a succinct way that even people in the room that were not technically advanced, myself and Dave included, we could follow along. They had charts, they had explanations and the presenter, although not a native English speaker, was phenomenal. And they explained with us 31 days, it's actually more like 35, 36 days. But they cut off the start of it, they cut off the end of it so that you've only got that power band in the middle where everything is accurate. It's not going to run too quick or too slow, which is a great idea. But where should we go next?
- [19:28]
B
Well, after that we headed off to, well, the brand that Ricky's wearing, that is Moser. And we went to see what they were up to because, well, they had a few things that, as Ricky mentioned, we thought could potentially have been late. April Fool's jokes and a bit of other stuff which was not expected, but I think is going to make a few people very happy. And well, we got to see a watch that we talked about, I think probably around about four to six weeks ago. We said we hadn't seen it yet and we got to see it finally in person and oh boy, it was worth the wait. So let's start with maybe the crazy April Fool's not joke.
- [20:03]
A
Let's not. Let's take the clock back a little bit further because we're walking around, we're tired, we're actually humphing our suitcases with us because we've come directly from the airport, we've not gone to the hotel to drop in. It's not changed in the toilets from my comfiest.
- [20:18]
B
Classy.
- [20:18]
A
Keeping it classy, Dave. But we bumped into second as he was roaming around and he had a quick chat with us and introduced us to the gentleman that was beside him. And this gentleman happens to be one of the movers and shakers in the sneaker industry along with various other things. And a little bit of information was divulged about this Moser collab that again, on paper, if it had come out a couple of weeks ago, we would have went, well done, Moser, you've done a great April Fool's joke. But it turns out now playing back in the past, which the guys there have done many times, not just within the Moser, but within the Hollands line, they've gone back to the mid-80s, they've gone back to the Reebok pump, the trainer, where you actually had the little basketball style pump on the tongue and you would just pump the thing up and go for it. That kind of disappeared because obviously trainer technology moved forward, but of a gimmick, it was a bit of fun again, cool things that we like to talk about. But they've incorporated a pump system into a watch.
- [21:12]
B
Yes, probably the collab that, well, nobody saw coming, including us. This is of course Moser X Reebok, the brand that was ultra cool in the 80s 90s, kind of fell out of trend and fashion and it's one of these brands that keeps popping its head back up a few years and then disappears again. I remember these pumps from. Well, I wanted a pair when I was in my youth. Very trendy, very expensive. Only it was basketball technology. As Ricky mentions, it'd be basketball. They only did these mids and highs and it was all about heyday, age of when all the brands were getting into, well, basketball, making themselves world famous. And they've come back and they've got this pump watch. It's a streamliner. And of course, well, both of us love streamliners. Many people love the streamliner. There's a white one and a black one and we thought initially, oh, there's one ceramic. The white one we thought was maybe ceramic. The black one we thought was carbon. Turns out we were both wrong. They are neither or none. And we got into the presentation and what we've actually got is a forge quartz. Both of them are forged quartz. It's got an effect of carbon but you can well color it. And the white one, it looks like white ceramic until you get up close and then you can see this textural pattern in it. The black one, the texture is much more obvious. I would say from a distance it does definitely looks like carbon. You've got the black dial on the black case, you've got the white dial on the white case. And down at 8 o', clock, I think it is, there's this little sticking out pump and it says pump on it, same font, Reebok, etc. And. And that's how you wind the watch up. It's weird. It works. It's tactile. You push it. It's got a nice feel to it and you can hear it as you push it. You can hear the winding going on. It still has a crown at 3 o', clock, of course, that's so that you can set the time on the watch. And you've got a little curved power reserve again just on the dial at 8 o' clock as well. So as you pump it up, this little orange power reserve fills up the watch. It's very much Streamliner Other than that, 40 millimeters. So it's that classic size, the same as the one Ricky's wearing. It doesn't come in a bracelet. This comes either in a white or a black rubber str, which I think gives it that sportier vibe and feel. And it comes along with a limited edition pair of, well, Reebok pumps. They did point out it's the first time they've ever done a Reebok pump in a low shoe. So a regular trainer, I guess for most people there's a white pair and a black pair. You get a matching set to go along with your watch. You get to choose your size, etc. And it's got the Mozart kind of embossed logo on the heel. The inside of the shoe bed has got lots of Moser stuff going on in there and watch movements. And I think there's also a little Moser Logo on the side. Check out the show notes because we did manage to get our hands on a pair and get some pictures of it. Lots of pictures of the watch in real life as well. Really, really cool. You're going to love it or hate it to be honest with you. Some folk are going to go, oh, it's a bit, you know, same as people don't like Snoopies and people don't like cartoon characters and watches. If you're not into that whole kitsch thing, you're probably not going to like it. But personally I thought this was just epic. Can't decide between the black and the white to be honest. They've both got highs and low, but great looking watch. Anything like saying that before we go into the more regular things that you would maybe expect from Moser?
- [24:14]
A
I do. And we've got to give props to Moser because in previous iterations of Watches and Wonders they sat within an independence hall where they had a smaller scale booth. I would call it a large booth but still smaller scale. This time around they had taken up one of the larger areas and we're talking large in the size of maybe Mont Blanc in the past or one of these really high faluting part of a conglomerate where they've got bags and bags of cash. It was not a cheap exercise. We do not know how much it cost, but it looked fantastic, it was glamorous, it was glorious. And the way they had their booth set out, there was only one problem with it. They had these things hanging down like hot air balloons and you could easily walk into them. Thankfully not done that yet. But the booth was great. And so far, swag wise they have given the best swag. Usually we get tote bags or many tote bags kicking around. This was an inflatable bag based again on the pump system. And when we went into the presentation room and we're speaking to Claire and we're speaking to Natalya and everybody that was there, they're just on it with everything they do. And there wasn't a single question because me and Dave like to throw out the oddball questions. There wasn't a single thing that we asked that they couldn't answer there then. And the presentation flowed. They passed the watches round, then they passed these sneakers round and like you mentioned, inside we spotted right down where the toes go inside the shoe. You could see the movement had been printed inside. It's the attention to detail on the outside heel of the shoe at the top part and not really up on sneaker terminology. They had The Moser. But again, like the watches, they ghosted it. They didn't have it inked, they had it embossed so you could barely just see it. Everything about it was great. And then a little bit like we talked about Frederic Constant a minute ago, they decided to lower the size of things. And Claire was quicken to point out this is the first time they've managed to advertise their streamliners on a woman's wrist. Now I know a lot of women that love the streamliner. They try and wear it as much as possible when they can. But there are other people out there that maybe have got thinner wrists or they like the classic stuff. We are big proponents of wear what you like. Don't try and force somebody to wear a particular size of watch or stellar watch. If a woman wants to wear something that's pinked and shrinked cool, that's fine. If it's my wife, she'll wear a 42 mil Nobel with a different outfit. It doesn't matter. Plus she's got some dinky one. We also got cool longines and whatnot. So to see Moser having everything from the streamliners that they brought out just now with the Reebok stuff right the way down to what Dave's about to talk about.
- [26:37]
B
Yes indeed. When the streamliner first came out, it was a chronograph and that was in the bigger 42, 43 millimeter size. They then of course brought out the time only in that 40 mm. And I think the small seconds version is even fractionally smaller, 39 point something. But they've now brought out definitively smaller models. A 34mm which I think is going to appeal to. To more guys than probably you think a lot of people with smaller wrists maybe is the best way to describe who are going to like that 34, really nice size and a 28 which is. I think they're definitely aiming at a more feminine market. That's not to say you couldn't wear it as a guy. You could because it looks like just a small streamliner, to be honest with you. And both of those had very cool dials. One was a kind of silvery titaniumy type textured pattern on the dial with a Fumi effect. And one was, I don't know how you describe it, purpley raspberry. I don't quite know exactly how you describe it, but a kind of nice warm dark fruits color. Let's call it that. They've got an official name for it, I'm sure, but check the show Notes out and mizy. L will actually give you the proper name of the color. Really good looking, fully automatic movements in these mohs are in house. Automatic movements, not. Oh, it's small. We can only put a quartz in it. None of that nonsense. It's a proper full scale streamliner, full bracelet. Everything about it is what you expect from streamliner. Just shrunk down a little bit. And they were super cool. And then we got to see the one that we did talk about. Oh, my goodness. The full black ceramic on a full black ceramic streamliner bracelet.
- [28:07]
A
Ah. They call it anthracite.
- [28:09]
B
They call it anthracite. It's definitely. I mean, anthracite is one of those colors that some brands define as greyish and some are much more towards black. I think it's just one or two notes. Beyond dark blacks, I guess the exclusion of all light.
- [28:24]
A
I would call it a charcoal because it's a matte black. If it was glossy, if it was vantablack, it would be deep, deep, deep. But the fact that it doesn't have any, it absorbs the light and kind of scatters a little bit, which gives it the grayness. But anthracite, talking about cars and things like that, we know what anthracite is. Gunmetal gray things of that ilk. This is really pushing into the blacks. But again, we got to have a look at this. Play with this. So they did ask us to wear a glove. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't. But this was the one that we talked about in the show where we're talking black. We're talking with a red fumei dial that they explained how they. Again, they explained how they produced this, how they melted it. They waited with the set, then they remelted it to make the fume just gradually move out as more of a gradient. And it was like the Terminator's eye. I'm not sure if it's my favorite favorite. I thought in the press pictures it would take center stage. It would be my favorite, obviously, apart from the meme liner. But I'm not too sure because seeing it in real life, it was really good. But then they had these pump watches, so they just confuse everything. You know, they bring out too many good things. But give us your quick thoughts on the ceramic because we need to finish up this part of the episode.
- [29:31]
B
That one was, in my opinion, super cool. I'm not a big fan. Typically these really dark watches that are all blacks or really dark greys, but this black poppy red dial, it's a tourbillon as well. It's got a hole in it. David is changing. He's don't know what's happened to David. He's beginning to like tourbillons. I wonder why that happened. But yeah, it just, it was a punchy watch. And yes, it's expensive. I think it's in and around the 90,000 mark, something like that. Which of course is a huge amount of money.
- [29:56]
A
Oh stop. We should tell you the pump watches were about 31,000 including the sneakers. And they will get your size. And I think we overheard, they were saying, said if you book it, if you order it then they will make the size or they make the sizes in and around just to make sure that you have got the perfect size sneaker. Anyway, back to this.
- [30:13]
B
Yeah. And if I remember rightly, we forgot about the prices of the smaller streamliners. I think they're all roughly the same price, 21 ish thousand, something like that. So I think all streamliners regardless of size are give or take the same price, which is a good thing as well. I think Mozart continue to provide. Yeah, they are premium priced watches but, but just fantastic rare. When they use the phrase in their whole marketing campaign you don't see many of them in the wild. And you get an amazing quality watch. You're getting a feature packed, highly technical, amazing product for fair prices. Not always cheap prices, but a fair price for sure. And then we saw a couple of other pieces. I think one of their most technically accomplished watches ever. It was a multi axis tourbillon skeletonised watch.
- [30:58]
A
Made a noise.
- [30:59]
B
It was also a chiming watch. Right.
- [31:01]
A
And it was cheaper than the other arm and strom.
- [31:03]
B
We're still in the three hundreds but it was a, let's just say quite a nice motorbike or car difference in price. Let me put it like that. This was a pretty cool watch, you
- [31:12]
A
know, with the added tourbillon.
- [31:13]
B
Yeah, it was a tour, but of course it was a tourbillon as well. Although you've got that technology, the resonance technology and the Armin Strom. I think when you're into that world, you're into rarefied air. You get to choose what you want.
- [31:23]
A
Can I not just be a Moser fanboy?
- [31:24]
B
If you wish. Anyway, lots of other things. We saw some pioneers I think in there as well. There's so many watches you get, get blinded a little bit because you get into these sessions that last circa 15, 20 minutes and it's like boom, boom, boom, boom. And you maybe get hit with anything from one watch when you're at Armin Strom to I think it was 10 maybe watches we saw at Moser. It varies very much, but shownotes are always your friend because. Well, of course you might also be watching this on YouTube and if you are, various images will be flashing in front of your eyes where you can see some of these watches. And of course that doesn't even stop you from referring to the show notes if you wish, but then that will. Well, that was the formal part of the day. The meetings done, we had to go into a couple of other things before the day rounded out.
- [32:05]
A
So we went to see some of our friends. We bumped into lots of people day one and it was quickly like ships passing in the night because everyone's so busy. These people have got actual jobs to do, they've got blogs to write, articles to produce, they have good content to get out there to the world. We like to distill things. Usually we like to go back to home turf, digest, percolate, bring our thoughts to the fore and then record a couple of shows. This is new for us, we're doing it on the hop and what we're trying to do is record a little segment one day, a little segment the next, combine them together, release an episode and then move forward. So at the end of yesterday, we caught up with the folks down at the Zenith booth. We couldn't even get in, it was so busy. They had one of the head honchos from lvmh, one of the sons was there, so it was very, very busy. But we popped into the team from lm, who are obviously our conduit within the UK for all things watches and wonders. So it was Lara, it was Anna, it was Lauren, it was. The full team were amassed. We had a quick chat with them. John Davis from Esquire, he was there. Great little newsletter that you need to check out if you're not already subscribed to that and various other people that we can't even remember. Tracey Llewellyn was around. And then we headed to meet Raphael and Marcus from Formex, along with Barbara Plumbo for a quick bite to eat before we had to head back to the hotel rooms because we'd been up since 4 in the morning. We had traveled, we had carted our stuff around and one shout out to a gentleman whose details we'll talk about in a future episode. An Argentinian gentleman who saw I was struggling with the world's largest hill and two massive 25 kilogram suitcases and he said, do you need a hand? And I Said, no, no, it's fine, it's fine. He went, I will give you a hand. He picked up on the suitcases, marched up all the steps for us. Couldn't believe it being glass region. I thought he was going to disappear with all my stuff. No, he did not. And then he says, are you here for Watches and Wonders? We said, yes, we are. And he went, oh, I am too. I work in this place in Argentina. We do this, that and the other. And I do work for Constantine. Chaikin shows us a minion watch. So we got his business card and we will talk about him in the next episode because I can't remember too much about it, but a big thank you to the unknown gentleman from across the water. So here we are at the end of day two. Thanks to the magic of editing, we're going to be recapping what we did today. And it was interesting because we met some people we have known for a long time, but in a different setting. For instance, first place we ended up was at Coram. We used to love going to Geneva, watch days, not watching wonders and catching up with the team there because they always did something new, something invigorating, just. It caught us unawares every single time. But there has been some kind of change. A buyout, a takeover, something like that. And things are a little bit bland.
- [34:34]
B
Well, yeah, they're back in Swiss ownership now. They are all reformed, however we want to describe it. Reorganized as a company. And yeah, we were always a bit excited to go and see them. They were kind of engaging. They were always wanted to talk to show us some cool things. The Bubble, the Admiral, A whole lot of those classic models that people associate with that brand and don't know Ericky, but it just felt a little lackluster.
- [34:56]
A
They gave no F. That's the bottom line. We went to the booth. Now we tell it like it is. That's what we do on the show. We don't sugarcoat anything and we're quite excited to see what's happening because when a brand is taken over or it's been bought out, whatever it may be. For instance, Yolis, Nadan and GP did their own thing. They had a management buyout and then they went crazy. It was fantastic and it still is with these guys. We really hoped that would be the case and they ignored us. We turned up at the booth, we get taken to one of the press rooms and we walked in. Nobody spoke to us. There was a whole load of watches lying around. All looked pretty insignificant. Duplicates of things that perhaps are out there from Bon Mercier or Maurice Lacroix. And then there was the standard. Is it the Golden Bridge, something like that, where it had all the movement parts down the centre. But it's stuff we'd seen before. Nothing invigorating, nothing captivating. Nobody spoke to us at all. We kind of just looked at the stuff, shook our head and wandered out.
- [35:49]
B
That was pretty much how it went. We went in, as you said, had a sniff. We're generally unimpressed. Or we had seen it before. Nothing new, nothing fresh, nothing to set the world alight. And there's a lot of product out there that. Well, it was very familiar, shall we say, this new stainless steel model they have. I think we've seen that before at a significantly different price point.
- [36:09]
A
Point.
- [36:09]
B
And maybe a more attractive price point than what's been offered from these guys. Sad to see. Hopefully. Hopefully it's early teething troubles, who knows? But it didn't leave a particularly nice taste in the mouth for a first outing after they've been bought over. But hey, you can't win them all.
- [36:23]
A
Wasted opportunity, massive expense to be at Watch and Wonders. We're talking significant outlay compared to what they did previously at Geneva Watch Days where they had a boutique or it was something they owned, where they were showcasing to the world. This cost a lot of pennies and it was just wasted. But then we moved on to something pretty cool.
- [36:39]
B
Yes, indeed. And then we went to, well, brand that's got a big brother called Rolex. And of course, who we're talking about is Tudor. And we went in, I think, to be fair, knowing it was going to be Tudor. Good quality watches, good value for money, good offering, much more generally accessible than many Rolexes. And we thought, well, we've seen some pictures, we've seen little sneak peeks. Are we that excited? Not sure. Let's wait and see. And actually, to be fair, we were more blown away than we thought we were going to be. There was a couple of things that we thought, thought, this is very good, the ceramic one. I knew certain aspects of this black ceramic watch. This is the new ceramic bracelet they brought out. We're going to float Ricky's book because as we know, he likes wearing black things, but it was much better in real life than either of us thought, both in feel, touch, build, quality, everything about it. A lot of Watch for the Money
- [37:24]
A
looked plastic in the images and we thought with the might of Rolex behind the scenes paying, what would be the outlay for the marketing, the development, the Rendering the photography, if that's what they were showing, it was going to be either as good as that maximum or it was going to be lesser. But when we went through the standard rigmarole process of watching a presentation on their big screen, which hasn't really changed much in the last few years, I thought, okay, I'm preparing myself to be whelmed. Then they passed the watches out, and there was a blue watch. It was a smaller dial, it was a smaller case, but it didn't appear that small. Then we got a hold of the ceramic number. And obviously I have one of the original OG ceramic numbers from Judo Fast Rider chronograph. But this one, it was. Everything about it worked. I thought it looked plastic in images. In real life, it didn't. The dial worked. It looked as if it was a monocoque, as if it was just one piece of material and everything carved out. And obviously the dial is not ceramic. It's made of some other material. But it all came together. And this clasp, this tiny little clasp on the back that is almost milled out of the bracelet, then the bracelet itself, everything worked well. I was actually overwhelmed.
- [38:28]
B
Yeah, it was a really good watch. I'm not the biggest fan of all this kind of black watch thing going on, but. But. And it was definitely black. We're not talking anthracite, we're not talking gray. Black bracelet, black case. But the dial had this weird hue to it. It kind of caught the light. And I think it just for want of a strange thing to say about a black watch, it lightened the watch up a little bit. It wasn't just like midnight black, sunray black. Yeah, it was weird. You have to see it in real life. I don't think any picture from anyone's ever going to do justice to this watch. It feels great in the hand. I mean, it doesn't feel like ceramic, but it also doesn't feel like metal, and it definitely doesn't feel like plastic. It's a really nice watch. Really, really good watch. And the blue, black bay. Think it might have been a Black Bay. 58 might be wrong there, but it was a smaller of the black bays. Little bit of a rework, slightly thinner in the case. And the blue was. It's a blue that will punch you in the face. There was no subtlety about the blue, but it was really good bezel and the dialga on there. Great looking blue. And they've kind of refreshed. I think all of the royalty range. Can't remember all the names. What is it the Royales, they've now, I think possibly got all their manufacturer movements, meta certification. They've kind of upped the game just in terms of the internal spec levels of all these watches. Really good looking range of watches there. Some of it for sure is more just iterative. That's kind of what you expect from Tudor and Rolex. They're not known for their grandiose fluctuation. But then where did we get off to after that? After we'd seen Tudor, we went to visit.
- [39:53]
A
It turned out to be Raymond Vale. They are celebrating half a century century, 50 years in business. And it's a brand that we've talked about, we have spoken to. I bought one of their watches and I never buy any watches because we get them for free to play with and then send back. But I bought one of their Freelancer Pop editions a couple of years ago, Titanium turquoise, as they would call it. Put it on an aftermarket strap. Everyone hates it. But they had some cool stuff last year. It was the Takata range. We got some of them to have a look at, did a review, talked about them in the show and yeah, they've been in touch ever since. And they really were keen to see us today. We couldn't get them in the morning because we got held up somewhere else. But by the time we made it back into PAL Expo to watch Wonders itself, we managed to rearrange a few things and we got to see them. And I'm so glad we did. Even though it was a bit of a truncated timetable, we only had about 15 minutes instead of the usual half hour. We got to see an extremely special edition that we probably shouldn't talk about because it's already gone.
- [40:47]
B
Well, we shouldn't. And before we go on, we should clarify, when Ricky says everyone hates it, they don't mean the watch, they mean the aftermath market strap that he's put on it just to clarify things. But yeah, it's their 50th anniversary. Bit of a sobering thought for me that I'm actually older than that whole brand is. But that kind of was something that drove home when I got to find out that they are younger than I am. But that was depressing. But yes, they brought out an anniversary piece. They're a brand that's known for great value product. At the end of the day, you know, they're delivering predominantly in the, let's say 5,600Euros into the 3,3000ish Euro category. That's their main playground. Some really great looking dressy watches, a Few sportier numbers. But they brought out this anniversary. I think they call it the 50 because, well, it's the 50th anniversary and they found some vintage. I think it's Valjoux calibres. They completely renovated them. It's a column wheel, chronograph. Amazing sector, ish dial with lots of different layers and kind of textures going on. Classy, super classy looking watch. They made very few of them and they well informed us. Sadly they had sold out almost instantly and we thought, well, this is a lot going on here because it was a stainless steel case but if I remember rightly, I can't remember if it was white gold or platinum. White gold bezel on it. So nice smooth bezel, very subtly done, not kind of in your face. Lots of watch. And I was thinking I think this is going to be probably pushing five figures, maybe just over that. But no, I think it was around the 7,8000 Euro mark. So no wonder they all went because let's just say there's a few other chronographs out there that could have learned a lesson by what this was offering in terms of value for money. Whoever got those watches, I'm a little bit jealous because it's a great looking watch and we saw, yeah, a few of the other.
- [42:30]
A
But there's more, as Billy Mays might say because although that was sold out and that was shown first, they should have kept that one. They showed us the rest of the range, new things and we've got to be super careful because some of this was embargoed and they only told us at the very end. So yeah, let's not shoot our load a little bit, bit too soon here. But if it's not already out just now, some of the stuff that's coming out in the next couple of months will blow your socks off. Talking about great value for money. Something that wasn't to do with watch and wonders. But somebody we met was Jake, who works for lots of different brands. Can't remember them all but the one he came to see us today about was Nodis. So there's a watch that we have that we were going to be checking out, showcasing on the show shortly. So stay tuned for that because it's a titanium number with Cerakote, different colors on the top, a fantastic strap app and it's about 600 bucks USD.
- [43:13]
B
Yeah. And it's also a little reminder that we should probably always just look what's actually in front of us because me and Ricky were going, what's this Is it steel, is it titanium? We're not entirely sure. Tapping it, trying to read the very small print on the case back without actually realising that there's a huge word that said titanium in the middle of the dial in the front of it. But anyway it's a titanium watch. That's for the future. Great looking watch. So after that we went to visit, well, someone that we visited and got a good kind of lowdown on first time properly looking at them was over at Dubai Watch Week. But we went to visit the guys at Cross Studio and there's a bit of change of foot. Well there is and isn't change of foot. The name that will appear in the dial will change over time. Still doing what they do but there's a couple of anniversaries coming up. They do some pretty innovative things, let me put it like that. There's not a lot regular and normal about these watches other than they're round and they tell the time of course. But yeah, pretty cool watches and I know. So there's a few collaborations. They've done that well, you know, they were pretty cool to be honest.
- [44:12]
A
It's a strange one because the name Cross Studio doesn't mean much to me. They appeared out of nowhere in my eyes a couple of years ago and they just, they started 50 yards down the road compared to everybody else because they were doing collaborations with the likes of Harry Potter, different studios, Star Wars, Mandalorian, they had all these things and I'm thinking, have I missed something here? Because I don't remember them existing and suddenly they've got some of the biggest Disney, they've got some of the biggest players involved with them and they were creating these works of art, miniature sculptures on a dial Central tourbillons, all kinds of stuff. And we grabbed a hold them at Dubai Watch Week and we had a real in depth chat and we were going to be doing a show with them and producing some content with them and they said some changes are afoot so let's just put a pin in that And I'm glad because they have now taken the main man and put his name on the dial because the people were buying the watches, the collectors, they knew him from working on various different projects with various different houses over the past X amount of decades and I think you mentioned an anniversary there. So it's 20 years of him creating a certain type of movement that they're going to be bringing back. Refreshing. So no, really, really good what they're doing. They gave us a bit of a lowdown. They Showed us some stuff and then they told us the price. And price has been one of the key points that we've been talking about at the show. Because some brands are like, yeah, 130,000 Swiss francs. Ye. 370,000 Swiss francs. These guys were doing these crazy tourbillons, super limited edition, the best of the best quality. And I think one that was encrusted with diamonds was about 90,000 and the normal one wasn't, it was cheaper.
- [45:47]
B
And let's be straight, it's all relative that we're talking about here. These are still huge sums of money for the vast majority of people. But it just strikes me that this year more than ever, the prices are all over the place. Like you're hearing a number and maybe in your head we're going, it's probably going to have this, this and this. And you go, oh, it doesn't. Or they tell you what the spec is and you go, it's going to be insane money. And it's high, but not as insane as you might think it would be. And I think a point that was made by them, well was these are very small production pieces. Yes. You're paying because it's low volume, high artisanal workloads. And let's say there's a few brands that, that are less artisanal that maybe have some punchy price points. It's a bit all over the place. I think that's one of our takeaways from it. You know, we've been looking for innovation brands doing things that are a bit different, trying to move things forward or are trying to bring better value. And some are doing it much better than others. Maybe that's one way to put it. You know, you can't have the. You win all the ways. But yeah, yeah, let's see. Anyway, great to see what they were doing. Some really cool things for features for me. You know, there's no crown on these watches. There's a kind of little fidgety spinner on the back that you turn to wind the watch up and there's a little smooth finished, almost hidden, concealed button on the case. You press it and then you go into time setting mode. Only really resonce is the other brand that's got something kind of similar.
- [47:15]
A
Are you sure you're not being a bit freaky here?
- [47:17]
B
Freaky. That's a good point, actually. Yep, that's a very good point. The freak's got that on its own, but it's definitely one of the less lesser seen ways of manipulating time and Winding the watches up, although we're now seeing something that you pump like a sneaker that we talked about that you can. Anyway, moving along, we went from there. I think we've covered them because check out probably towards the back end of the year when hopefully we get a fuller story from them. Hopefully we're lining up to get them onto the show to tell us actually the whole story because I think it's worth telling. And as I know a lot, you enjoy listening to people with their terrible. Not just here's a product, it's this size, buy it, the actual tale about it and this guy's got stories to tell. He's got a long storied history with brands. But anyway, moving along from that, we then went to visit, well, a newcomer to this show. We have seen them a lot. They're one of the biggest brands in the world and AP have graced watches wonders with their presence and they have brought along well what they usually do. They tend to not really do product focus. They tend to do brand storytelling, narrative telling. If you listen to any of our episodes about Dubai Watch Week, they had a fairly significant pavilion. I think that would be one way to describe it. It was definitely not a small facility and it was a big museum. That's really what it was. It was telling the story of the brand, what they've done. You got to see lots of historical pieces from early on and lots of things that aren't just what everyone remembers. Oh, it's a royal oak, all the other stuff they talk about. And they definitely had that there as well. But of course it is watches and wonderful. And as well as being a show where the public can of course attend and press and media can attend, but also it is a. It's a retailer show. Retailers go to see the new product that they're going to be selling over the coming year. So we got to see some product and they're always a brand that's much more approachable and friendly than I think people maybe give them credit for.
- [49:04]
A
They sit in my head as unobtainium, which is really odd considering the privileged position that we find ourselves in through the podcast and the access that we have to brands, CEOs, creators, developers, founders, etc. But when we went to see them in Dubai, they were open armed. When we saw them today, it was the same person that we spoke to. We went in and I don't know what was wrong. I think I was either tired, I was too caffeinated because I definitely hadn't had any alcohol at that point. But we went in and the room had all these watchmakers down one side with a bench and then there was this gap on the other side. And instead of going in and saying, hello, how are things going? I just went a bit crazy and I just ran down, I said, everybody high five. And everybody put their hand out. And I just ran down and went,
- [49:48]
B
do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
- [49:49]
A
Then all the other journalists came in behind me and they all did the same thing. So it reinvigorated the day. It got people a bit more hyped up because we started to dip. These big expos. They're a little bit like going to Las Vegas, going to a casino. There are no windows, there are no clocks. Everyone's got a watch at least, or two, but I don't know, maybe pumped in oxygen. So you don't know what the time is, you don't know what day it is. You don't know if there's daylight outside. This kind of pumped us back up and it just set the rapport for speaking to these people, finding out more about them and looking at these crazy complications. They had, like, perpetual calendars. They had the new code 1159, they had all these intricate dials. Then they had the offshore divers, then they had the ceramic numbers. So we got a good index depth, I don't know, broad spectrum. Look at what AP are up to. And there's a lot of the same. Then a little bit like Rolex, they do drip feed in little changes and little upgrades here, there, that we're quite keen to point out.
- [50:42]
B
Yeah, they had their jumping hour model that we talked about possibly a couple of months ago when they'd first released it. That was there. Really nice to get to see that in hand. I mean, AP know how to do finishing. And that watch is beautifully finished. No two ways about it. Probably the most APs of the most current releases that you're going to find in any one place in that room. And they were free and easy. Try them on, handle them. None of this. Oh, you need to wear gloves and please be careful. It was. Yeah. Do you want to see it? I'll go grab it. Let me grab it for you. Let you try it on. Put it on your wrist. What do you think? And actually, really nice to see them engaging with. What are you wearing? Oh, can I have a look at that?
- [51:16]
A
Dave was teaching. This is terrible. The watchmakers from AP are all crowded around and they said to Dave, oh, what's that you've got there? What's that on the wrist. And Dave says, this is a tourbillon.
- [51:28]
B
It was good, it was a moment in time, but yes, we had to do it and, well, you know, and they actually said, oh, can we look at it? And they were. And it wasn't cursory. They were genuinely engaged. People really enjoy seeing these guys every time. And as you said, the lady that actually had taken us round the tour in Dubai, she was there as well and she recognized us immediately and she's like, hi, how you doing? Good to see you. Some of this stuff's the same, some's different. Let me just take you to stuff that's different. You know, just being efficient, being good at what they do. So, yeah, always great to see what they do. But reinforce one thing for me, that code 1159, it's a great watch. It got a hard time when they launched it, but genuinely, it's a great watch, especially in those smaller sizes. Anyway.
- [52:06]
A
Oh, oh, oh. Shout out time. So when we were in ap, we went through their little Hansel and Gretel style wonderland. I would call it Fantasyland, where they had the bank vault, where they had the old styley trees, greenery, the family tree, hence why it's green, duh. So it was all that stuff. Then we bumped into Andrew Morgan along with one of the guys from Armin Strom, can never remember his name. There's two of them. Apologies. And we met them, we had a chat with them, we had a joke and a laugh. Then we met Cat Shoulders from One Wound, previously of the Ten two podcast, Back in the Day with Catelyn. And we just kept bumping into this part. Neil Duckworth was there. He was absolutely brimming with information about his new watch, which I don't know if it's released yet, but he says that it's just around the corner and he's got some minor tweaks to it. So we're going to be bringing him onto the show because he's not been on for over a year and he's going to tell you about what he's been up to and just everyone was so excited. Elated co op with RJ and the team from Fratello Watches again. They're all super nice people. We've met him, Adrian, and he's super nice.
- [53:14]
B
Ah, yes, Mr. Barker doing his roving reporting about there as well. Yeah, well, we will have forgotten people that we definitely met and said hello to. Apologies because it's late and we're tired and we're trying to get this content out as freshly as possible. Andrew from WatchPro, we met him as well. Andrew from Watch Pro was there and a load of pretty much all of the content creators that you can imagine whether on Instagram, YouTube, all the places, they're all there in some form and it's amazing. Kathleen from redbar, we bumped into her again. We actually got to say hello to her to today. Still haven't actually managed to bump into Adam. He's here somewhere. I think we've seen him at a distance. Lots of people here. That's one of the nice things about these shows is it's sometimes the only chance you get to see these people all year. Anyway. Then we had. Well, something interesting.
- [53:55]
A
Yeah, we had been approached by the guys at Moser and it's weird because we had asked this question of them a year ago and they said no chance. Then they emailed us and said, would you like to interview? Here's Gasly, Formula one driver for Alpine.
- [54:10]
B
Well, BWT Alpine, such and such because none of the teams are just one name, they've got God knows how many sponsors. But yes, Alpine I think is better known because most of them identify by their car brands and they're having, well, best season ever, I think for those guys. I think he's been, I think he's seventh possibly at the moment now and he's been getting some real good grid placings. So those guys really coming up and he's. We've met him once before kind of on the offing over at Silverstone a couple of years ago. I think it was roughly two years ago. We were there and we got, we got a hi, how you doing? Nice, you know, but we actually got to spend a little bit of time with him. In fact, we got enough time with him which means you need to stay tuned because although that happened on the day we're talking about now, we're rapidly running out of time for this episode. But there's a follow up episode because we've got more days to cover and there will be, well, what Piers Gasly had to say about his journey with watches and Moser and he had some interesting things to say.
- [55:01]
A
He was cool because we thought we were going to go in and I remember him being on press conferences. I remember us posing questions to him when he was at team headquarters. We were at Silverstone and it was through a video link and I remember him being really good. He knew what he was talking about. But now we are nearly two years down the road. He has created his own watch. He has been across the Moser manufacturer many times and asked him some questions, hoping that he would be media savvy enough to answer them. And he blew me away because he's actually a genuine enthusiast. He's not just somebody that wears a watch, gets the press pictures, takes it off and puts his Nautilus on. He's not like that. And when I asked him what's it like going around the paddock, you're on the starting grid, and all these other guys, it's Richard Mille this, it's Tag that, it's Rolex, the other. What's it like being with Moser? Because they're the unknowns and he just gave us all the information that we needed. So we'll keep that one up our sleeve for the next episode. But that is pretty much the first couple of days of the show, as we saw. Yeah, we haven't covered Vacheron yet. We haven't covered jlc. See, we haven't seen them yet. We wanted to give you the boots on the ground. What has been happening? Can you hear Dave sniffing?
- [56:06]
B
Dave's getting a cold stroke. Hay fever. Stroke being inside.
- [56:09]
A
Hopefully a stroke as well. They won't have to put up with me any longer. But anyway, that is the end of this episode. Check the show notes if you're watching this on YouTube. Links in the description. If you listen to the podcast, it's in your podcast player. Have a look at the Instagram. I'm pretty sure Simona, yes, Simona is helping out now and Mziel and the rest of the team. I can't even name them all. I am too tired. But the entire Scottish Watches team are busy beavering away and we're not talking about Nico Leonard this time. And that is pretty much it.
- [56:35]
B
Well, yes. So. Well, talking of that, we'll get beavering away to get ready for the next two days, which involves us eating some food and going to sleep. So thanks for tuning in. Thanks for listening.
- [56:46]
A
You tell Dave doesn't do the outro. Do you want me to step in? Dave? Here's how we do the outro. Thank you for listening and we'll catch you again soon.