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Scottish Watches Podcast #800 : How It All Started!
00:58:49
This episode is a little different. Instead of talking about the latest releases or getting distracted by whatever shiny object has appeared this week, we’re taking a look back. How...
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the Scottish Watches podcast, a show with a difference. Because we're celebrating a big number and we like to keep the really good, big number for really special people. And Perhaps this being 800 in the UK, 800 is free. In America, I think it's 1, 800 is free. We thought we'd just freely tell you all about the past, go through the history of Scottish Watches, because there's many people that email in, meet us, message, etc. And they say, how did you guys meet? How did the podcast start? What are your favorite watches along the way? If you could go back in time and buy a watch that maybe nowadays is just impossible to get, what would that be? And what has the process been like of growing the podcast, the shows, the Instagram, the YouTube, the website over the preceding years up to episode 800? Because it is a big, big number. And we tend to forget that as we do two shows a week. We're talking about this, we're talking about that. We bring on a guest. Sometimes we actually forget just how far we have taken the show with the help of everybody that listens, everybody that follows, everybody that messages, gets in touch with us, meets us in real life, sends us watches to try out, check out, wear on the wrist for a little while, and it is absolutely bambooz. So first thing we want to do is thank everybody for accompanying us on this journey for the past probably 8ish years, I think it was back in 2018, something like that. So a good long time ago. The podcast itself has been running consistently since 2019, the start of back in January, and we've never missed an addition. We've always been late. We've always been maybe one day late, perhaps two days late during COVID Apart from that, we have consistently tried our best to get the content out to you guys, keep you informed of new releases and all the latest and greatest, and just try and deliver that in a timely fashion, because we are a watch podcast. But we've also got Dave Sharp with us because it was a long, long time ago that we met. But we'll actually tell the truthful story of the first time that we crossed paths, not crossed swords, because that's a completely different podcast. But, Dave, how are you doing?
- [01:49]
B
David's good. It's 800 episodes. That's a fair number. That has to be said. That's a lot of talking. I'm kind of glad we didn't have to record that in one go, or else that would be detrimental to one's vocal cords. But yes, yes, indeed, the thousandth episode will be on us before we know a bit like this 801 it was suddenly upon us and you know, a few weeks back we thought we really need to put some effort in to make sure we cover some interesting things, that maybe it's a little bit different. Occasionally we get on a super special guest, occasionally we do something a bit out there. But we thought, well, maybe for this one we should look back because it's been a long time, as Ricky says, and talk about, well, all the things we've been up to. But more importantly, all the people that have helped along the way and to this day are still very involved in the podcast, whether it's the website, the social media, the video editing and all the other things that go on. Many, many people whose names don't appear on any banners are, well, very important in keeping this. Well, I was going to. So I'll say show on the road. There's a word that comes before show that begins with S, but it's much more professional than that.
- [02:48]
A
Super show, super show.
- [02:50]
B
It's a bit shorter than that as well, but it's got an H in it.
- [02:52]
A
Next thing to do is to tell you to check the show notes. That's where Miz is going to have a great time with this episode, recounting 800 shows of the past. We'll try and go lightly on them, but check the show not link when you podcast player also linked in YouTube in the description itself. That'll take you to our website. On there, all the pictures, the tech spec, all the bits and bobs and as many pictures and links as possible will be included. Let's roll this back even further. Let's find out a little bit more about Dave to start with because he is slightly, just slightly. I know we take the piss a lot, but is slightly older than me. He's been around the block a few more times and he's been involved not just in the watch industry because that's where he works nowadays and people recent to the show will know that one already. But he's had a passion that has been going on for decade. I am less than a decade in the hobby, although I did buy watches when I was a kid or I was gifted them for presents for birthdays and Christmases from parents and whatnot. But let's rewind the clock. Dave, your first watch, can you remember what that was?
- [03:46]
B
I am pretty positive I can remember which one it was. Yes. I mean, before we get into that, I just wanted to say about Miziel, it's amazing, isn't it, that if you keep someone on the books long enough it's no longer classed as child labour. I came to realise this. He's old enough now, he's been there long enough that, well, he's a legitimate working adult now. The first knowing watch that I was kind of involved in buying stroke being given was over 40 years ago in fact, so it's rolling back to 1983 and it was in Switzerland of all places. I have family in Switzerland, my dad's sister, she went to traveling when she was younger.
- [04:24]
A
Is that your auntie?
- [04:25]
B
That's my auntie, yes. That's also my dad's sister. Both are accurate statements. Anyway, she lives in Switzerland along with my cousins.
- [04:31]
A
Is that your dad's sister's kids?
- [04:33]
B
That's correct. Factually correct as well. I mean, I mean, let's be honest, there's a million things we can call them. Some pleasant, some not, but no, they're very nice people moving along Switzerland, Zurich, particularly 1983 and this company decided to make a plastic watch, Swatch watch. They've kind of been around ever since and they've been up and down in fortunes and they've been all over the news more recently than not for many reasons. But yeah, 1983 it all came to the public attention when you could actually buy them. They were, I believe around 40 or 50 Swiss francs. That's what they were back in the day, which does seem quite a lot of money considering that was 40 years ago.
- [05:12]
A
What did that compare to US dollar, British pounds, ET cetera back then?
- [05:16]
B
I mean, you're asking me questions that I have absolutely no idea about. Internet is your friend on that one? We can probably look it up but on the basis that a lot of swatches what are around £100, £120 for your normal swatch watches these days. So it doesn't seem insane in the same way as certain luxury brands are now eight grand and only a handful of years ago were half that. So fair play, they've kind of held true to what they do, which is making watches accessible and yeah, that was the first one. I even managed to go and find out which one it was and dig it out. It's not in the greatest of states because, well, 40 year old plastic doesn't tend to age too well. It was a GB100, it was the classic black and white model, one of the original 12 pieces that were released to the greater public and well, there are now considerably more than 12 Swatch watches in the range and I have, well, yeah, also a lot more than 12 Swatch watches. But, yeah, that was probably the first watch that I can consciously remember. I wanted it. I was kind of saving and wanted to get it. When I was in Switzerland, my auntie was, like, excited because this was huge news in Switzerland. Of course, we were in the kind
- [06:22]
A
of post quartz crisis, post Second World War.
- [06:25]
B
Did you just say the Second World War? Okay, Mr. Professional. And yes, you know, Swiss watch industry was trying to get back on its feet and Swatch was seen as well, for all intents and purposes, the saving grace of the industry. So, yeah, that was probably it. I'm sure I did have some form of, you know, kiddie watch to learn how to tell the time. But we're going back too far into the annals of time for me to have any real recollection at all of that. But I definitely remember that because, well, it started effectively a lifelong love affair with Swatch watches, which continues to this day. So that was my first outing before I kind of, I guess, into premium watches. But, Ricky, let's keep it a bit of back and forward so we're not just diatribing nonsense to the audience. What was the first watch you can remember either buying, being bought, or even just remember wearing something and not quite knowing where it came from.
- [07:16]
A
The one that sticks out to me was a gift I got, and I can't remember if it was a birthday or a Christmas. And here in the uk, we have a thing. We used to have a thing, it used to be amazing, called the Argos Catalogue. It was the book of Dreams. You would go through it and as a kid, you would highlight or use a bio or a Bic to mark out what presents, what things you would love, maybe not get, but things you would love. And hopefully Santa Claus or your parents or whoever else was in charge of the money and the presents would look through this and get you what you liked. And there was always a section within it to do with watches. And I was always drawn to that. This was kind of before video games, because the video games were kind of mid to late 80s, this was probably early 80s. And I remember looking through and it was Loris, there was Casio, there was all these different brands, some have disappeared, some are still around. And I was always drawn into the little blocks that would go beside the description for each watch. And they had a legend, a key system where it would have a picture of this. And I mean, it had a chronograph, had a picture of that, it had a light in it, it Had a picture of that, it was water resistant and I would look for the watch that had the most icons beside it, because that was going to be the best watch possible, probably the most expensive and the largest. But I didn't think about that because I was a kid at the time. The watch that I wanted, thinking ahead at that moment in time, was a calculator watch. We're talking early 80s. Can't remember when this would have been, but I'd been in primary school here in the UK and I wanted a calculator watch because in the back of my head thought, I can cheat at school. So, yes, that set me on the path forward for later life, where I continued to be a little P. But, yeah, I remember I got myself a calculator watch and the buttons were tiny, the screen was tiny. I don't even know if it was a genuine Casio model, but it worked. I wore it to school and it was immediately confiscated.
- [08:51]
B
Well, you've continued on that vein for the rest of your life, I have to say. Yes, it was the top Trumps version of playing the Argos catalog. I could remember that as well. It was like, which has got the deepest, which has got the most power, which has got this, which has got that used to play with all those little icons. The days have passed, pre Internet days, when, well, the world was a simpler place.
- [09:12]
A
It was because it was other catalogs my mum had for other items that you would buy and there was, like, pages in there that were really popular. But, Dave, you tell us next, then, your luxury watch purchase, gift, whatever it was, what was the thing that kind of propelled you forward? Because, yes, we had the LCD watches back in the early 80s. You could pick these up at the local convenience store. They had dropped dramatically from the 70s when they first came out. There were thousands, I remember hearing. And then in the 80s, there were literally a couple of bucks each, as they say. You could get them at Dollar Store at the fueling station. What was the watch that you got that was more upmarket, that took you forward from there?
- [09:46]
B
Well, certainly from there there was definitely more Swatch watches. There was, as you said, there was the Argaus catalogue and all these other places that you would go to? Lewis's. That's not John Lewis's. This was the original Lewis's department store in Glasgow. And you would get the watch counter and you would always see these, like Goldberg's.
- [10:00]
A
Remember that?
- [10:01]
B
Yeah. All these different places that just don't exist anymore. Internet, well done. But of course, eventually, at some point, you get to an age where you start these premium luxury watches, whether it was your Omegas or your Rolexes or all these other brands. And of course, you had these jewellery stores that were in the high street and you would walk past them and kind of salivate in the window at all the things you definitely couldn't afford. And maybe one day you would be lucky enough to own one of these pieces. But I was, I believe, in fact I was at university, I think I was in second year. So what does that put me at? 19, 20, something around that age. And I had been called for jury duty and it was in Glasgow and it was over the river in the big quarter. For once, I wasn't the man in the little square thing. Been told I was very naughty. I was actually sitting with, well, peers and saying, you're a very naughty boy.
- [10:47]
A
Oh, from Pinier. What was he doing there?
- [10:49]
B
Indeed, indeed. Walking home. The original mapping and web store in Glasgow, certainly original from the point that I can't remember it being anywhere else except in that location, which was beside the Arnott's. No, it wasn't Arnott's, it's the Fraser store in Glasgow. Arnott's was in Paisley. Indeed. But yes, it was when it was still very much in the heyday of department stores. And right beside it was this luxury watch door with all these watches in the window. And of course, Bond Goldeneye was in the cinemas 1995. Big cardboard cutout of the Suave Pierce Brosnan standing there as Bond, of course, with that Omega Seamaster 300M. And it was in the window and I just kept looking at it and thinking, I so want that watch. Look at that. How cool is that watch? I would just be the guy, even though absolutely would not be the guy. But in my head I was going to be the guy if I could get this watch.
- [11:41]
A
Was that guy spelt with an A?
- [11:45]
B
We'll go with that, yes. Anyway, walking past, I eventually spent a bit of time and I saw this little sign at the bottom that said, but yeah, it was either 12 or 18 months, I think it was, and it was interest free. Dave's interest was piqued, shall we say, by this. And he thought, wonder what this is all about? Of course, being a naive teen in the very, I guess, early days of retail finance, which was never really a big thing in the uk, much before that. So, well, in we go. And it was a locked door. Buzzy, buzzy, please let me in. Big bur guy behind the door thinking, who's this Idiot. On you go. Come on in then. I like this watch in the window. Tell me more about this little thing where I can pay up over time. The guy said, have a seat, sir, we can make this work for you. What do you do for a living? I'm a student. We can still make it work. Very change days, I have to say. And I remember filling in what seemed like acres of paper. It probably was acres of paper compared today, where you just click a few buttons on the Internet and Bob's your uncle. They give you money, but no, had to fill all these things in, show pieces of identification, all sorts of things. But they came back for a phone call. They had to speak to an underwriter, not an undertaker. That would come later, when my mother found out what I'd done. But yes, I got the watch and off I truddled with the watch in that original little red box. And I was the happiest guy in the world. I still have that watch to this day. It still runs very well. It's of course a quartz watch because they did an automatic, but those were the days where quartz was cool. Even the one in the film, I Believe it was a 2541.80. It was a quartz one that was worn in the film. I love that watch. It's definitely in my top three watches. It will never go. Love it. It's been through a million things with me. That's the watch that I think has more memories attached to it than any other, because for many, many years it was the only watch I wore. It was the only premium watch I owned. Probably thought it was only watch I was going to own that was worth, well, what you would regard as money. What about you? Where did it suddenly go downhill in terms of digging deep holes financially?
- [13:42]
A
Where did it start for me? Well, it started almost by accident. And the story goes, it's a whole story because I've told it many, many times in the past. It was the end of 2016, and people might remember back that 2016, apparently, according to memes, is when the world changed and everything kind of went crap afterwards. So 2016, decent enough year all round. And I came to the end of the year and I thought to myself, right, okay, I've got a couple of pennies saved, I've got a house with a mortgage, I've got a car, I've got a motorcycle. What does a guy spend his money on next? And I was thinking about it, and because it was around at Christmas time, end of the year, I remember back that Me, my mum and dad would sit down and my sister as well, we'd watch television at Christmas time. And in the uk, it was a bit of a tradition that they would rotate through all the prior Bond movies. And I remember my dad always telling me, as we watch things like Dr. No and Goldfinger and stuff like that, that the watch that James Bond was wearing, and back in the day, the original OG James Bond was obviously Scottish, like myself, like Dave. And he was wearing a Rolex. And my dad would point and say, that's a good watch, son. Rolex is a good watch. We didn't have means when we were younger. We did not go on holidays out with the country. We didn't have satellite television, we didn't have games consoles, we didn't even have a family car. We just kind of were a normal family up in Scotland, up in Glasgow, and we got on with life. So he didn't have a Rolex, couldn't afford Rolex. I didn't have a Rolex. But when I had a little bit of spare cash and some of that was actually inheritance money, that's a part of the story I probably never told to anybody that has asked me any questions. That was part of the inheritance money when my father had passed on and then my mother had passed on, and it was just about a year or two after that that obviously in the uk, the process for inheritance money to pass through the lawyers and whatnot, it had finally ended up in my bank account. And I thought, you know what? That is the thing I'm going to do. I'm going to go and get a decent watch and it'll be a good memory of the past and how things have been. It's a good memory of watching James Bond with my dad and my mum and something that a guy would get, you know, after the house, the car, the motorcycle. So I went into Glasgow and I didn't end up at Mapping and Web, the place that Dave was just speaking about there. I ended up at another emporium in Argel Arcade, at the exact opposite side of where Mapping Web is, funnily enough. And I wandered in, Won't Dox the company, because the story starts to go a little bit scary afterwards. But I went in, sat down and I'd already asked a few friends because I knew nothing about watches. I thought Rolex was like. I don't know, I thought Rolex was like Mustang. I thought it was a watch. It wasn't a brand. It had multiple watches underneath. That's how stupid I was back Then compared to how stupid I am now, I wandered into this place, armed with the knowledge, having asked a few friends on Facebook, what's the story here? What's this? What's that, what's this box and papers thing that I've read about? So I went in, sat down, and they had a watch on offer, which was a Rolex GMT Master, not a Master II, the original Master. And it was from 1999 and that was the year that my father actually passed. So I sat down, had a look at it, couldn't fathom the way that this watch was 4,600 pounds. And I knew GMT master was maybe a couple of grand or a grand more expensive, and this watch was decades old. I mean, what's going on? I mean, that wouldn't happen with anything else in life, perhaps property. But I sat down anyway, realized that was the way of the world. Paid my money, got the watch, was explained, how to look after it, you know, careful with the water resistance. It is older, you know, it is. It's a mechanical watch. You need to baby it slightly compared to a quartz watch or a digital watch. And I took it home and it was great. It worked fine. Put it down at night, picked up in the morning, looked at it, and it was about two minutes fast. So I thought to myself, okay, user error. So I reset the watch, wound it up, made sure everything was tickety, boo, wore it, put it down, woke up the next day, looked at it, it was still two, three minutes fast. And I thought, something is not quite right here. So instead of immediately going back to the store, I decided to do a little bit of research, went on the interwebs, did a search for the watch, you know, this is the problem with it. What could be the issue? And I stumbled across a place called the Rolex Forum. So I joined. Having been a purveyor of forums for many, many years, mainly in the car scene, I went in there and I read a bit stuff, immediately found the problem. Could be it's either magnetized or it needs regulated. Probably leaning more towards magnetism because it makes things run faster, because it magnetizes the springs inside, they hold closer together, therefore the beat goes quicker. Anyway, found that out and somehow stayed up until about 4am in the morning, which is not unusual for me. But staying on an Internet forum of something I know nothing about is kind of new for me. So I sat there reading and reading and a new post and a new thread and a spiderweb and it just got deeper and deeper and deeper. Got up the next day, took the watch back. They tried to force me into either getting it repaired, which I said no, or picking up something else that they had at the massive scratch across the bezel that I wasn't interested in. So I got my cash back. But instead of going, right, okay, that's cool, I tried that. It didn't work out. And then moving on to something else in life, maybe spending my money on something else, I went home and I actually continued to read more on the Rolex forum. Then I went on YouTube and I found Archie Luxury, I found TGV, I found Tommaso at what you want and all these other places. There weren't many on YouTube. I found all these places, Hodinkee, a blog to watch, Fratello, blah, blah, blah. All the blogs are still around to this day. And by accident, I had discovered a new hobby. I kept reading, I found other places on the Internet, not just to do with Rolex. And then I ended up going online, going on to ebay, finding a guy, David Khalil. Watchcollectors.co.uk, paul Thorpe was making videos. This guy was making independent videos. I was watching everything and they were kind of talking about each other. I did my research on watch collectors. I went through Companies House, pulled down the filings with the people, looked at their company history, their accounts, how long they've been in business, did everything I possibly could. And then I spent around about 5,000, I believe it was 5,000, 5,500 on a 2012 Rolex GMT Master II, which was the LN edition where it had the green GMT hand. And I bought that online, scared witless, buying something off ebay for more than 4,000, £5,000. And then that arrives. But I'm going to bounce it now back to Dave because I don't want to keep monologuing because we're going to go back and forward in this episode a little bit there. So, yeah, you go into the hobby with your Omega GoldenEye edition. Where did things move from there? Because that was way back in the past. Whereas I'm talking about 2017, you're talking about 1995. What happened after that to keep you in the hobby or progress you forward?
- [19:59]
B
And I definitely believe that was probably going to be the only really big hitting watch that I bought. Maybe, maybe later, much later in life I might get something else. But I probably wasn't even thinking that at the time. But of course, then you move on. I graduated from university, I started to work. You start to work, you're like, oh, I've got some money. I'd actually moved into my own place during university. So I had some awareness that life wasn't, you know, a big box of nice chocolate cherries that you could just eat with all the money that you get. You have to kind of pay mortgages and rents and rates and food and all these things. So I didn't have huge swathes of disposable income when I was just into my first jobs. But slowly but surely, of course, if you do well, things work okay, work gets a little bit better, you get a little bit more money. And then suddenly other things started to be, well, possibly available to me. Something I've always been big into is space. I'm a bit of a space geek. I was the generation just after all of the Apollo and all of these things that went on. But it still, very much as I grew up, a big thing, something that people talked about. People, you know, there was articles in magazines, there was science magazines all about the fascination of the Apollo, rockets in space and astronauts and all of these things. And I began to see, oh, what's this Speedmaster thing? Omega as well, of course. And really that began still to this day, a lifelong love affair, I guess with the Speedmaster. I can remember getting my first Speedmaster that was just as nerve wracking as it was buying that very first Seamaster back in the day. But I just coveted that watch, the original, the one with the Hesselite. Nothing inverted commas fancy about it in terms of it wasn't a super limited edition, it wasn't any of these things. But again, that watch was something I had to have. And then that's when the chasm opened up. I was working, I got a bit of money, I managed to get my first Speedmaster. Absolutely adored this watch, loved it. I definitely babied it way more than that Seamaster. The Seamaster was still the watch that was my pretty much ride or die. It was the go to everyday watch. It had so many marks and bumps and scratches on it that I no longer cared about. Oh, I might mark or scratch it. But that hesi crystal in that Speedmaster was like keep it away from everything. Don't even look at it the wrong way because it'll probably mark. So that one definitely got babied. Only special occasions. And then really that's where, well, it started. Incrementally the collection grew. David being as David is, David didn't really want to get rid of anything. So David just kind of accrued more and more of these things. And really for quite a considerable period of time, it was a Omega and very specifically an Omega Speedmaster thing. And that did run for quite a number of years where I've been lucky enough to build up what you would regard as a fairly significant collection of Speedmaster watches. That was really where it went from that 95 into the kind of late 90s. And then I'd say from the early 2000s, that infamous, you know, what is it they called Millennium Bug Year through into the 2010, early 2000 and tens. It was entirely and utterly a complete story about Omega Speedmasters. So that was quite a chunk of time, probably 10, 15, verging on 20 years where it was watches. And it was definitely about watches, but it was also the alignment and the association with all things space, NASA, yada, yada, yada, that was kind of just a bit of a geek fest for me. It also involved lots of books about the topic aviation, space, the technicalities of it, the actual people involved with it, the watches. So it was a. It wasn't just purely a. I'm a horology fan and I love watches, it was a big part of it. But it was also aligned with a much wider interest in something that I had in my life and it stays with me to this day. So that really covers the first 30 years of me and watches, which was fairly linear, Swatch watches, Speedmasters, and then you entering it with that first Rolex watch. So that's where probably things start to get interesting for people listening to this, where lots of things began to escalate for both of us when it came to watches.
- [24:19]
A
So I got my LN edition 2012 GMT Master. And this is still early, early days, where a lot of things compressed into the first three months of 2017. So decided to buy a watch, bought the one that didn't really work very well, returned it, bought the second one. But something else happened along the way. While I was looking to replace the one I returned, I had phoned up local ads and there weren't that many around, although there were more Rolex ads than there currently are because of the way that the system has changed. And I phoned this place and that place, and this was at the moment in time where you couldn't just walk in and buy what you wanted. Things had moved along to kind of where they are just now. They've reverted back to roughly about the same place. And I'd phone up and say, have you got the normal GMT Master? No, we don't. Okay. And I heard about this thing called the Batman. And blue was my color. The graphics in my car back in the day were blue and white. Very patriotic, let's put it that way. Like Scotland. Not so much the way they play football, but I love it when, you know, the sun does shine for those three days per year and the place looks great. And I'd asked about this Batman because it looked pretty cool. I thought, you know, the dial and all the rest of it and most of the places, well, all the places said don't have that. There's a year's waiting list or that kind of thing. So anyway, phoned around, nobody had that, nobody had the LN Edition. That's how I ended up buying for David Kahlil watch collectors. That second hand one fully warrantied. Etc, etc. So fast forward a couple of months time and I'm getting ready because there's this massive show that I've heard about called Baselworld. And they had recently, I don't know if it was that year or the prior year, opened things up a little bit to the public. More access where you could buy a day ticket, weekend pass, that kind of jazz. And I thought, you know what, I'm going to go to this thing. I know nothing. I've not traveled out the country for car events or music events or anything like that, but I'm going to go to this thing. So I went on EasyJet, found a return ticket for about 80 bucks here in the UK. Didn't even think about getting a hotel. I thought, well, we'll just see what happens. Didn't realize that Basel Airport closed at night. So I ended up sleeping in the airport, coming back the following day after Baselworld. But that's where things took the next turn. The elevated. I like to think of my life like a video game. You go along and then you complete the level and then you go to the next level. Level and you go along and then something happens. You complete level and you go up to the next one. And this was the next stage for me. Went across the Baselworld, had no clue what's going on. Got off in the airport, decided which way I was going to go. Because one way I would end up in France if I took a left turn, I believe take a right turn, you're in Switzerland. Very odd. Got a shuttle bus from the airport to Baselworld. And the truth is, and the way I tell it is exactly how it happened. When I walked through those front entrances to Baselworld, it was like walking into your first rock concert, your first, first football game, whatever it Is you have as a passion, as a hobby, the thing you're interested in, that opening moment, the kid in the sweet shop for the first time, just seeing everything in front of you, I wandered in. You had Bulgari on one side, you had Tag Heuer on the other, you had Hublot. Then you had, oh God, it was Zenith. Then further up it was Rolex. And then the other side it was Patek. Then it was Tudor. And then Breitling was up there and Swatch was up there. So there was all these brands, a lot of which I'd actually learned who they were over the last few weeks, couple of months, because I'd stayed on the Internet, I'd been watching the videos, I'd been research and learning all the rest of it. And at that moment in time, I was doing freelance work for many different companies. I was running a media business. We were doing all kinds of stuff. It was fitness videos, music stuff, still doing a lot of weddings, still doing a lot of things to do with that. So there was wedding videos and photography. So I was on the Internet a lot, reading stuff, a lot of free time, which was really good, and went to Buzzworld. And when I was there, I wandered around and I learned more. I saw some folks from Blomp, they had a watchmaker there, working on movement, did an engraver, working on a dial. I found brands that I had no clue about, Carl F. Booker or rip. That brand's not around any longer. But I remember they had part of their facade outside their building. It was a working kind of working movement, massive life size, you know, we're talking six feet in diameter. And I was just blown away walking around, couldn't believe the things I saw. My phone almost run out of battery. Taking pictures, taking videos. And this was back in the. I think it was the iPhone 6 Plus that I had back in the day, day. And I just, I was blown away. Got back on the shuttle bus back to the airport, just trying to comprehend what was going on. And I packed my little backpack. It was a cheap stud back in the day, as much as I am just now. I had the thinnest little backpack because on EasyJet I didn't want to pay for any cabin space. And it was packed, it was bursting at the seams with catalogs, magazines, giveaways, all the stuff from all the brands. And I just, I fell asleep in the airport wearing my Batman. And I remember getting woken up, up about 3am by a rather burly Swiss guy with an automatic weapon. Gotta be careful on YouTube, what you say but off of the podcast. And he kind of nudged me and said, what you doing? Well in French probably. And I explained what I was doing, sleeping in an airport, blah blah blah. And everything was okay. But yeah, it was just, it was a, it was a very surreal experience. And then when I came back to the uk, it just made me get into the hobby even further. And then what happened after that was I continued to do this, I continued to do that. Rocks were emailing me. That is a place the uk. I think they're in Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow. They do all kinds of stuff. It's not just the really rich and expensive Hublot's. They've done things like Roger Dubuis in the past, they have done Jacob and co. Don't know if they still currently do, but they do Chopar Zenith, blah blah blah. And I got an invite to one of their events where Jean Claude Biver was coming across and this is mid to late 2017 and he was coming over to talk about the new Zenith inventor Stroke Defy Lab. This was going to be the next evolution of watch mechanisms. It was using a silicon escapement oscillator, removing lots and lots of parts inside and it was going to be beating at I believe 15 hertz. And he came over to talk about Breguet and how this stuck in my mind, how Breguet, when he was creating this, that and the other back in the day, he was using the latest, greatest cutting edge technology, material science, to create watches that were the most accurate, most economical with power delivery of its day. And we have this kind of love affair of the past thinking, oh, let's do it the way the guys did it back then. If he had done things in his day the way people had done it back in their day day, then he would have been making water clocks and sundials. So Jean Claude Bivert explained all this, laid it out in front of us and unfortunately that watch never really saw commercial success. I never got the call, I put down a deposit, never got the call to say come in and get it because it was delayed, delayed, delayed and then just disappeared completely. We found out later on the reason was this gaming technology. It was fantastic, but it was fragile, didn't really work out too great and they just didn't feel it was commercially viable at that moment in time. Who knows if they'll revisit it in the future. But that was 2017 and in the 2018 I was on the Internet on one of the forums, one of the groups, and that is where I ended up Meeting virtually online. Catelyn, who then started a podcast, who then went to Norcain and is doing something. I don't know if she's completely announced to the public at the moment, but that's where I met her for the first time. Started chatting, started chatting to people that become lifelong friends. And a guy in Glasgow, Alec, he popped up and said, who's coming to this watch meet in Glasgow? And I immediately thought what watch meet in Glasgow? I don't know anything about this, I've not seen this anywhere. So I messaged him and said, what's this all about? And he replied and went, yeah, it's a red bar meet. Do you not know what red bar is? I did not know what red bar was. So I applied, I got an email saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's cool, that's fine, come along. And I ended up at James Portenson in Glasgow in the Argyll Arcade. See how everything kind of congregates back to this Argyll Arcade place. And in there there was this guy and he was kind of floating around and he was, he was floating but quite lightly in the background there because he'd organized this whole red bar thing. Dave, what's Redbar and what was your involvement in it?
- [31:59]
B
So what is Redbar? Well, ultimately what Red Bar is is it's probably the largest global watch collective club of people who are like minded and like watches. And it is bell starting in the US and it's now all over the world and the UK is quite a significant area for it. And I have been involved with it from the early days and still am to this day of helping Redbar just do meetups and bring like minded people together, whether it's in Glasgow, Edinburgh, London and many other locations. So that's what Redbar is. You can find it really eas just stick red bar watch meetups into the Internets and it will give you all the information you need to know. If you don't know about it already, that is. Of course. So yes, we met or when we meet that first one, we were in the same room at the same time. You kind of worked out. I think he's the guy that's organized it. But that's maybe as far as it went. At that point in time there was
- [32:46]
A
something again floating in the air and it wasn't from his underpants. And we kind of saw each other. There was a bit of an acknowledgement. We carried on. I felt this was another problem I had back in the day, the day I felt as if walking into boutiques and place such as Rolex, etc. That I was outclassed, I didn't belong there and I was wasting people's time just asking questions. I since came to realize that that is not the case. Pretty much every boutique I have been to across the world since and not mentioning. I'm Ricky from Scottish Watches. I run a podcast. I'm to do with this and the other. Just walking in. I've realized that we are the lifeblood of these places. That's where they make their money, that's how they pay their bills. So don't feel as if you are putting them out by coming in. If you walk in and it' busy, maybe they'll take up as much time as you normally would. But walk in and say, my watch enthusiast, I've heard about these new releases that are out. Can you tell me more about them? Have you got them? Can I see them? And that's the impression I started to get. I felt a little bit more comfortable throughout the night, enjoyed myself, went home, had a think about things, started communicating with people on Instagram, then actually got invited through the Red Bar event to a store opening. And it was Chisholm Hunter in the Argyll Arcade. They were opening something. A good guy called Declan, who now works somewhere else in the Argyll Arcade, said, we've got this event, would you like to come along? So I decided, yeah, I love a little bit of watch content. I will go along to the store opening. Not going to buy anything, but I'll check it out anyway. So I turned up, went in and I heard this loud booming voice in the room and it wasn't me for a change. So I wandered over, saw this guy sitting down, kind of commanding the show, commanding the floor. And I thought, okay, there's only one seat left. It's next to this dude. Who cares? I'll sit down next to him. So I sat down and I listened to him talk and then I kind of had a chat with people, had a joke and a laugh with them and then he had a joke and a laugh. I had a joke and a laugh laugh. And then we started to chat a little bit. It turned out he had the same name as me and we just had a little bit of banter back and forward. And from there we started chatting on Instagram. We started messaging back forward about this, about that. And after that opening event, I actually had messaged him and said, you know what? You're kind of into watches. I'm kind of into watches. You're local, I'm local. Why do we do a podcast. I mean, that's kind of the up and coming thing. And because we're both called Richard, why don't we call. Call it Wrist Action with a Couple of Dicks. And he didn't really like that idea much because, well, it turned out he was the drummer in a Christian rock band. He didn't drink, smoke, take drugs. He did not swear at all. He was a complete polar opposite. It's like the Odd Couple. Complete polar opposite to me because I had the motorbike, I did what I wanted. I was DJing back in the day. I was DJ nightclubs all over Scotland. I was in the cars, going fast, all this kind of jazz. And he was not that man at the all. But anyway, we kept talking and it was about November time, and we were trying to come up with a name for the podcast, come up with a name for this community idea that we had for a website in Scotland, because there wasn't really anything and we just couldn't. We were hitting our head off a wall and we had in our head Monochrome, we had Fratello, we had Hidinki. Weird names that don't really mean much when you think about them. And we just couldn't come up with a name. Couldn't come up with a name. But we set a date in mind, right, okay, we're going to launch. We need something by this point time. And I had an Instagram page because I'd realized, keep stuff away from your normal page. It's weird. You can put a picture of your holiday, you can put a picture of your house, you can put a picture of your car on your Instagram page, and everyone's quite happy and everything's cool. If you post pictures of watches, people don't have quite as merry an outlook on things. It's almost like you're trying to show off. Whereas a house and a car and even a motorbike costs a lot more than a watch. Very odd. But I learned quick, quickly, make a separate page, keep the normies away. And I've created this page called Scottish Watches. And we just couldn't come up with an idea. Couldn't come up with an idea. I already had a few thousand followers on that page. And I said, you know what? Why don't we just take what's already working Scottish Watches, and I will rename that to something else, which I think ended up Ricky Watches, an account that I've got that I don't really use. And that moment in time will immediately re register Scottish Watches. So we can start afresh. So here you agree. And that is what we did. We launched Scottish Watches as the name for the community, the website and ultimately the podcast. The podcast came around a few months later because we had to plan it, how we're going to do this, how we're going to do that. And I was going to be going to SIHH in 2019, start of January. And this was a show that kind of then turned into Watches and Wonders. It was run by the fhh, I believe it was Richemont behind the scenes. You always used to have LVMH try and gatecrash it. They would get a massive yacht and park it nearby in and do an event there at the same time as SIH just to wind people up. But I was going to that for the second year. I'd gone the previous year, 2018, and I'd also gone back to Baselworld in 2018. But I thought, yeah, this will be a good idea. And the podcast launched January 13, 2019. And because SIHH was just around the corner, we decided in our infinite wisdom that we were going to launch two podcasts a week. And that is something we've kept right the way through to this very day. And if that idea hadn't formed in my mind back then, and it was just before SIHH when releases were coming out and we needed those two episodes, the podcast would probably be episode 400 just now, not episode 800. But it has kept the trajectory going. So, yes, we launched the podcast. It was terrible. The first X amount of episodes were terrible. The way I explain it to people is the first time you pick up a paintbrush or a crane, you're not going to create a Rembrandt. The first time you kick a football, you ain't going to be messy. So it took, well, it was certainly messy in our front. It took a long time, maybe 30, 40 episodes to get into a straight how do we do this, how do we do that? Are we going to script everything? Are we going to have a basis? And we just ended up talking about watches. He was straight laced. I was the cheeky little upstart and I would just interject with stupid things along the way, keeping it jovial and comical because it's a serious topic. And I was having fun with this hobby. I was loving traveling around and it wasn't costing a lot of money to get across to SIHH from Edinburgh again. It was like £59 for a return ticket nf entry, maybe 50 bucks. I just drank water. I didn't go for Crazy meals. So for less than the price of maybe going to a rock concert in your own city, I was going across Europe checking out this, that and the other again, picking up free magazines that were costing a lot of money, getting them for nothing and coming back to Scotland and just loving this new hobby. And I was in my 30s at the moment in time. I was, you know, I wasn't exactly a teenager, I wasn't in my 20s. And this was just fun, fun, fun for me. So I just carried on that way. Podcast launched in January 2019 and it grew from there. Then we invited Dave to come onto the podcast because we had learned about more, more about Red Bar, about what he'd done in the past, how he'd continued on with his collecting journey. And he had this fantastic array of watches, Swatch watches. He's not told you about his G Shock collection. He's not told you about some really cool crazy Speedmasters, Grand Seikos, other bits and pieces along the way that we'd seen on Floatlight's Instagram channel. So. So we thought, we'll bring him onto show. Let's see what we can do. And that one episode turned into a two parter. I think it was probably the first two part in Scottish watches because David so much to tell us. And we met up at a local Hilton. We sat down in an area that they didn't really allow us to use to record and we started the process of recording our first Floatlight episode. And as we're talking, I start to realize, because my memory had already been starting to fail me, not as much as now that I kind of knew
- [40:03]
B
who this guy was, was, you are very correct. And I came on to, well, talk nonsense about watches because, well, that's what we do. And we had that little space which we were not really meant to be using, as you mentioned, but we kind of got away with it anyway. This was also the days where we were maybe slightly less wary about, you know, security and all of these things. But anyway, we made it work. And I have to admit, at that point in time, I hadn't put two and two together. Well, I had, but I'd come up with 27 rather than four. And you, I think, began to see that penny drop of go, ah, we've actually met each other before, we've had engagement before, not of the marital kind and not even of the watch kind, but of a completely different life that, well, was quite big for us when we were younger. It still floats around in our consciousness of things that we enjoy Doing, but not to the same level. And I think that penny dropped for you, Ricky. So why don't you tell the people what that penny was?
- [40:56]
A
So it turns out in a prior life and I have done so many things, I've been extremely fortunate in life that when I've had an idea to do something, sometimes it's worked. And I've turned that into a money making endeavor, an enterprise, a career path. And when I first left school, I worked in a computer shop. And then I went to college and then I left college to start a computer business. Then I changed that into a design house. Oh God. This was back in the late 90s, so it was then Internet web design, created websites for people. Then I started a car website. And on that car website, it was the first in the country of its kind. From that created a car magazine. From the car magazine I got taken into marketing. From marketing I did this, that and the other went out my own, as I mentioned, photography. It was to do with weddings, it was to do with functions, business, corporate music, events, blah blah blah, DJ'd as well as almost a side hustle. Back in my teenage years, right the way through, left for a while, came back, was DJing in Scotland's largest zoo. We had people working with us, like Armin Van Buren came in, we had Dave Pearce, we had Sash. And as I mentioned, one of the things along the way was running a car magazine. Worked for other ones afterwards, like Max Power, did some stuff for like Banzai, Japanese Performance, Redline, blah blah blah, but had my own car magazine around about the time the Fast and the Furious came out. And things were on that up and up trajectory and we were always trying to get in touch with different people that had interesting stories. It wasn't all about, you've got a cover car, let's talk about it. Where did you buy your wheels? Why did you decide on this colour of paint? We would have in depth investigations, interviews with people. I remember jobbers, a guy from South Africa who was an absolute boffin when it came to suspension, ended up working with Whiteline from Australia. And if you're into Subarus and Evos and things especially 20 plus years ago, you may have heard that, you may have seen that on the side of a Scooby here, there and everywhere. But we would just go a little bit beyond because a little bit like the podcast where we bring on a brand to talk about, well, where did you come up with this idea? Why did you decide to make this movement with those wheel arrangements back in that day? It was all about the cars. How did this happen? How did that happen? And we came across this young whippersnapper guy who was doing a bit of rally driving. And this was the era of Colin McRae, Richard Burns, all those absolute figureheads in that industry. And this guy was called Dave Sharp and he had a little Saxo that was little on the outside but big on power. So Dave, what were you doing back then?
- [43:22]
B
Now you're really getting me to scratch the memory chip of ancient lore. But yes, I dabbled a little bit with motorsports, a bit like yourself. We were both of an age where while playing with cars was good fun, it was allowed and the cars were able to be well messed around with, unlike today's modern cars, which take, well, a degree in computer science to actually make it do anything else and it doesn't like it and just stops working. Back in those days, well, you could mess around to your heart's content with them as long as you, well, wanted to spend some money and accepted that occasionally it would go pop and you would have to rebuild the engine. But all that was part of the good fun of what it was. And whereas you were more involved in the, I guess, aesthetic side of can we make cars look really cool? And yeah, a bit of power and all these things as well. Mine was more lent towards the motorsport side of things, rally to be particularly accurate. And Saxos and Citroen's were, well, the big brand of the moment round about that era where, well, we had, we had the drivers winning world championships like they were going out of fashion and they were the brand to be. The days of the Subarus and the Imprezas were slowly beginning to come to an end and be superseded by the latest generation which was either the Peugeots or the Citroens and some of the other brands. Ford, of course, making a big inroads as well. And well, I was into French cars and the Saxo kit cars, the Junior World Rallies and the S16 classes were, well, something that I was very much into. And yes, I built a Saxo rally car from a shell and it was for me it was for fun, it was for doing a bit of rallying. And yeah, you reached out to say, well, can we do something with you with regards to the car?
- [44:58]
A
So we ended up, and I don't remember the exact details but we have since found those magazine editions and we have looked through them and the pictures and I think we, we talked about Kames, which was a tiny little racetrack in Scotland that we had some photographs of Dave Careering his little saxo around those corners. But we decided to meet up at Strathly park, another part of my life from way, way back in the past. It's weird how these things converge together. It's a little bit back to future where everything is related around going back to 1955. There's a couple of themes that seem to weave their way in with all the stories I tell throughout my life. But we met up at Strathlide park at the moment in time. I had a 1994 imported Toyota Mr.2 Turbo. It was a revision three, the GTS model. And I had played around with it a little bit, not personally, but other people had. It had a whiteline suspension kit, the meerkat downpipe, snakehead design. It had the cats and exhaust system ripped out at the Das Tech Uni chip inside it at the 100, shot in nitrous, blah, blah, blah. Lots of cool stuff. Probably not as safe as I thought back in the day, but hey, that's how the cookie crumbles. And after speaking to Dave, taking my notes, the photographer and myself getting all the pictures we needed down at Strathclyde park, we decided to have a hypothetical race. From Motherwell at the traffic lights to Hamilton at the round about in his little jazzed up, I don't even know what you would call it, roller skate that weighed nothing and had less power than me. And me with my Japanese hairdresser car. Bit odd for me, but yeah, hairdresser car. And we set off and there was nothing in it. I think maybe I crept across the line slightly quicker because I had much more horsepower, but that was something that happened. And a little bit like Fast and Furious where Paul Walker kind of goes off to the side. I went one way, he went the other. Never to speak out again for 15 years until we were back round the corner from Strathlight park recording a podcast for Scottish watches. And that is where we caught up in real life and had that proper chat. Two part episode, I believe back in the day. May still be on the website. Doubt it's anywhere else, because podcast platforms only show you roughly the previous 500 episodes. So you really have to know how to work the interwebs to find out a little bit more. But we may actually try and find those MP3 files and link them. But that was the first time me Dave caught up really properly and we realized that we'd already known each other and we kept in touch because Rick was obviously co hosting the podcast. That was 2019 into 2020. And then things Kind of went weird with the world. We're cutting out a lot of bits and bobs because we're nearly at the end of this episode and I think we're going to have to keep the next sort of stage of development of the podcast. This has been more about how we get into watches, how the podcast starts. Started, but things went a little bit awry around about 2020. You may know why if you can remember people being ill around the planet. But there were other things happening here in the uk. We had that Brexit thing that had been rearing its ugly head. It was about to appear. It wasn't about to appear. And every so often, Rick would disappear because he was running his family business and that was taking up all his time. Obviously, this was just a giggle, it was a laugh. It wasn't a job or a career for anybody involved in it. And Dave was getting more involved. He was coming on board, he was helping out. Rick can't make it to this. Dave, can you step in? Dave obliged. He was doing things we might talk about in the next episode, what he was doing career wise. He wasn't in the watch industry per se, but he would step in. And then towards late point 2020, yeah, that's the moment when Rick decided he just had to pretty much down tools and leave. Because his family life, what he was doing in the private life, his business life, live, everything was starting to really get on top. And with two podcasts a week, plus all the research, we do a little bit of research, plus all the research, all the bits and bobs that was required behind the scenes. It was a big ask. And that is pretty much when Dave can't remember the exact dates for the next episode. We talk about this. Don't worry, it won't be another hundred. We'll probably do it midpoint. That's when Dave came on full time. Not full time as in 24, seven or seven days a week. But he came on to do the podcast because Rick just had to leave. And there's been lots of talk behind the scenes. People have asked us at different events, what is the truthful story? How did this happen? How did that happen? That's pretty much it. Rick couldn't afford to do two podcasts a week. He moved on. He did other things. He got in touch with other podcasters, tried to make things work with various people along the way. Wrist enthusiasts, watches and profits, I think it was. And then ended up working with Ariel Adams. So that's how Dave came to be part of the permanent Fixtures and fittings and furniture of Scottish watches at Scottish Watches Tower. But the whole podcast story doesn't end there. It was 2019 into 2020. The pandemic was happening. People were at home. People had more free cash. The watch industry seemed to be on an upward trajectory because of all this furlough schemes and things around the world. And podcasts really took off, not just with watches, but with everything. And that's when suddenly we got messages from people. We got emails from the New York Times, we got messages from this, that, and the other ebay got in touch to say, hey, guys, it'd be good if we could have a chat about doing some things and partnering up and telling about this and the other. So the world started to open up for Scottish watches as much as it started to close down for everybody else. And that is where the next part of the story, which we're going to keep on ice and we will bring out and roll out to you guys less than 100 episodes from now. Don't worry about it. We won't put you in a holding pattern for that amount of time. But before we do end up ending this show and putting this one to bed, I just want to say, and I'm pretty sure Dave will step in and he'll do his part, I want to thank everybody, everybody who has gotten touch, who has walked up to us at an event, walking around Geneva, being stopped by people, to us who are strangers, who have listened to the show for weeks, months, if not years, and have now become friends. It is grounding, absolutely grounding. I don't have much hair in my body, but I'm getting goosebumps just actually thinking about how much this has changed my life. Chance meetings, chance encounters to where things are just now. And these people that I met back in 2017, 2018, 2019, they have remained friends. I got a message from a guy who I met and took across to SIHH in 2019. At the beginning of the podcast, he messaged to say, hey, I'll come up for a coffee next week. It's just the way things have worked out. And as a hobby, where it doesn't matter if you've got the cheapest G Shock or the cheapest Casio or Swatch or whatever it is on your wrist, or the most expensive Patek minute repeater or perpetual calendar, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Those people can communicate, talk together. They wouldn't mix in circles. Normally, we can't think of anything else where you would mix those types of people together, but they do, because this is a common ground that brings people together. And for everybody that has emailed in, and I'm the world's worst. And I apologize to anybody that's pissed off with me because I've not got back to their emails. Sorry, I am terrible. This has just been a fantastic journey and it hasn't ended yet and it ain't ending anytime soon. I thought about this a lot in the past. The watches industry has survived from the 1700s to today. World wars, pandemics, plagues, nuclear annihilation. Nothing has managed to curb the enthusiasm of people who like watches collecting them and wearing them. So I'm pretty sure it's going to be here for many years to come. And it keeps expanding and changing and moving in different directions and hopefully we can ride that wave with our horological surfboards. But, Dave, this is the end of the show. Let's finish out with what you're thinking. Thoughts are.
- [52:15]
B
Yeah, I have to say, it's been fantastic. We're ultimately a couple of Scottish guys talking nonsense about watches and the amount of trust that's been put in us by brands, by people that represent the brands, by collectors who have, you know, impressive collections that are worth many multitudes of pounds more than either of us could afford to buy. And they trust us with it, to talk about it, to talk with them, to engage with them. And of course, most of the importantly, the people who actually listen to the podcast. Frankly, if no one listened to the podcast, none of these people would reach out to us because they want to engage with the audience, the greater audience of watch lovers, which is ultimately all of you guys. There is no other hobby really like this. People will say, cars, yeah, lots of people go and look at cars, but most of the people going along don't own the crazy cars or collectible cars. Watches can be collectible from very low value to insanely high value. And the number of events I've been at where I've seen someone wearing just something absolutely insanely expensive, take it off quickly, hand it to the person and say, can I see your watch of a much lower value? Because they're just as excited by it because, well, watches are cool and it brings, as Ricky said, people from all ages, all backgrounds, all jobs, all education levels, everything you can possibly imagine in together in the same room. And they're all on a level with each other. So thanks very much for continuing to listen and putting up with our nonsense twice a week. We try to bring it, we try to make it real. We've got folk like Mizzy out there to bring the show notes. Well, with the more accurate information and a bit of fact checking, if only he could learn to spell check, things would be perfect. And of course all the guys behind the scenes, the website, the social media, just the multitude of people that will come together and some of them come and go, some of them only pop up once in a blue moon to do something. Some of them are there day after day putting in the hard work at the coal face. Thanks to everyone and well, yeah, we will carry on this story. The next episode, of course, is in a couple of days where we'll be back to relatively normal separately service. But over the coming weeks and months we will consider when we can bring, I guess, part two of the Genesis of Scottish Watches to a finale, shall we say, or a finale as up to date as we are at this point in time.
- [54:24]
A
The story so far, but anyway, Dave, what are you wearing on the wrist today?
- [54:26]
B
What's David wearing? The wrist today? David's wearing the grand sum of nothing except a Fitbit Air because he has a watch and he was going to wear it, but it's the first new watch that he has bought and has been delivered in a little while and it's going to make an appearance as the wrist check on the next episode. So what you should be doing is tuning in on Thursday, the next episode after this one too. Well, find out what David has managed to get himself a watch that took his fancy for a little while and he eventually went, screw it, let's get it. Which is not something he's done so often over the last couple of years, to be honest. So. Well, stay tuned for what that is.
- [55:03]
A
Screw it, let's do it. I think that was the name of Richard Branson book that I listened to a while back. Well, I wore a watch today and it is so far down the podcasting runtime that I'm just going to squeeze in at the very, very end a watch that stuck in my mind from being a child watching the Secret Life of machines on Channel 4 here in the UK as a kiddie again with my father. And Tim Hunkin was the presenter along with Rex Garrett. And I believe Tim is still around. I hope he's still around. And recently he put new episodes on YouTube continuing the progression from this 1990s fantastic series, multiple series where he would die, dissect the dishwasher, the washing machine, the vacuum cleaner, the television, the radio and the watch. Called it the Quartz Watch. But he went right the way back to Stone Stonehenge. Water clocks, all kinds of stuff, sundials. And he carried the lineage all the way through. And you got to bear in mind this was recorded late 80s, probably, and he had adverts from Pulsar, adverts from Rotary, and he talked about a watch called an Accutron, and it was the world's first commercially successful watch, not the first electronic watch. I believe Hamilton did one before. It didn't quite work out. It was a cross between a normal escapement with a quartz module, but this one doesn't even have any quartz in it. This is the Accutron SpaceView 214M7 from 1967. And this runs on a tuning fork. It is extremely reliable. It has got a deviation of one to two seconds per day. The one that I own, I bought for around about £600 from eBay. In fantastic condition, Fantastic original bracelet, Bulova branded all the way through. And it's difficult to get them to run properly. This one has been recoiled because current battery technology is different from what it was back in the day. The voltages and the amperage is slightly different, so it has to be retooled inside and there's even a sleeve so you can put new batteries in there and they fit properly. But this has got the tuning fork arrangement, couple of coils at the top and it hums. I don't Remember if it's 340 or 360Hz, but if you hold it to your ear, you can actually hear hear this thing hum. And it has got the most perfect sweep, just like a Grand Seiko with its spring drive on the dial. And the way I love it is because it looks so futuristic in space age, but it came from the 1960s. And this is a watch I saw on television as a kid with my dad. And I thought to myself, that is cool. And it has remained cool to the point where Bulova re released one that looks almost the same as this, the 314, and it is commanding a bullet leave around about 4 or 5,000 pounds when you can get one of these OGs for around about 5, 600 pounds on eBay. So that's what I'm wearing today. That is my wrist check. That is the end of a show. Thank you so much for joining us for this quick retrospective of how we get into the hobby, how the collecting journey started and has never ended for Dave Sharp and myself. So thank you for joining us and continuing to follow along on our horological journey. We're going to keep doing this as long as we possibly can as long as you guys are getting in touch and as long as you keep listening to the show, watching the show on YouTube and obviously following us on Instagram. So that is a wrap. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching, and we'll catch you again soon.
- [58:08]
B
Take care,
- [58:30]
A
Sam.