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- [00:06]
Mitchell Wien
Hi.
- [00:06]
Alon Joseph
Hello, watch fans, and welcome to another edition of the Real Time show with me, your friendly neighborhood jeweler, aloman Joseph and our resident provocateur, David Volshier. We're very proud to have all the way on the other side of the Atlantic, Mitchell Wien, the owner of Marathon Watch. Welcome, Mitchell.
- [00:30]
Mitchell Wien
Thanks. Thanks for having me. What time is it there?
- [00:34]
Alon Joseph
So for us, we're in central European time, so we are in the evening. Thank you so much for recording with us because we were actually planning to record this right after we met you in person in Geneva during the time to watch fair. And for me, that was an amazing experience because I've heard of Marathon. I know you guys made amazing mil spec watches, but it wasn't really on my radar. I was blown away by you, even more by your amazing team. And you guys are based in Canada, so how can you not be friendly out and about? You launched the Jeep collab, which makes total sense because you guys make amazing mil spec watches. So there's so much to unpack. Unfortunately, due to chaos in both our calendars, it took a while. But I'm so happy to have you here on the show. David, I want to ask you a question. You lived in North America. How big was Marathon for you in your perception as a consumer?
- [01:42]
David Volshier
Well, so I'll be honest, I don't own a marathon watch, and there's a reason for that, which actually I'd like to ask Mitchell about that later on. But I will say that if you read certain types of publications and you're sort of just interested in gear, generally Marathon comes up all the time. So I'm gonna plug another podcast, a very famous one, the Granado Marathon comes up often. Sites like Uncrate, sites like Gear Patrol. Marathon is a favorite and it's due to the aesthetic, which Alan, like you said, is, is milspec and of course the capabilities that go along with that. So you've got watches that are made for professionals but enjoyed by consumers. So going into this, I was very excited because Marathon is a niche brand, but also very much not if you're in the hobby.
- [02:27]
Alon Joseph
So, Mitchell, would you call Marathon and Canadian company, a Swiss company, North American, or all of the above?
- [02:36]
Mitchell Wien
Well, I always say all the above because we have teams in all those countries and we pay taxes in all those countries. We use Switzerland for production and engineering and oratory testing, as well as in Canada, which is my homeland and my parents homeland, my grandparents homeland. We're allegiant to our country and are really our king. Know we Fought for this country. And we're very happy to be Canadian. We're a Canadian company that has Canadian values. And we have a factory in Switzerland, which is Marathon Watch as well. It's our factory and we instill Canadian values. We instill our Canadian values of carbon, our carbon footprint. By keeping our carbon footprint low, we stay regional, meaning we. We try to make everything in the.
- [03:35]
David Volshier
Show font so very modern in terms of approach to certain things. But if I understand correctly, you were not the first owner in your family of Marathon. It goes way back.
- [03:46]
Mitchell Wien
Oh, my grandfather started it, started marathon watch in 1939. My grandfather worked for his brothers, his father, he had weinstram watch from 1904 on. You know, like brothers are oldest brother Alex, who ran the business and my great grandfather. They thought it was a brilliant idea to have a son in every cities in. In the major cities. My grandfather was settled in Montreal with my great grandparents who were there. And another brother, Hyman went to Chicago. They own Hampton Watch. And there was also brother in California. And we had one brother in Switzerland which arranged the manufacturing of all the watches for the Weinstream watch. And what happened was the company broke up. The company broke up for the reasons being that the brothers were great. But as they started getting married, there were other influences of team and breaking down. You know, some wives as. As the tale was told by my father, some wives were complaining that their husband wasn't making as much as his brother. And we broke up into other watches. Hyman was the first one in 1922 and he opened up Hampton Watch and Clinton Watch. And my grandfather started Marathon Watch. My other cousins in Montreal, they came and started Cardinal Watch. So a lot of watch brands were originated from the same family. I'm sorry, it's Uncle Monia who was in Geneva who was arranging all the manufacturing. Hyman was in Chicago. Just to clarify that how the brothers organized it was really brilliant. We're really like a watch group. So if Chicago needed like a thousand watches of one design, and my grandfather, who is much smaller than his Chicago Cousins, he needed 300 and Cardinal needed 200. What they would do is money obliged actually go to different factories like Basis Watch. There's quite a few watch factories in the Chaudfa who we used to buy from. And we'd order 300 with Marathon, 700 with Hampton, so on and so on. And you get the really great discounts in manufacturing because we're a part of.
- [06:30]
David Volshier
A group going back to those early days. Were they specifically for the military? How far back does the military heritage go well?
- [06:39]
Mitchell Wien
The military heritage goes back to really, I think it's 1941 when Canada entered the war. And Canada was a small country then. I remember huge, geographically the second largest country in the world. But population wise, we only had around 10 or 12 million people in those days. And the head city in Canada, the biggest city like New York was in the United States. Montreal was that in Canada. And you know, people say that things happen by oh, what a coincidence, but nothing's by coincidence. My grandfather happened to be in the Same building on 4, 7 mill. I think it was near the harbor as the war department. And you know, it's a small country and you know people. And that's what happens when you're nice to people. You get to know more people and you get more clients. And he needed watches to send to our soldiers who were based out of Italy, who were going into the war. And in those days they took what was legible. And I don't think it was as per mil spec right away because it was a sudden thing that we entered the war. But he did supply his industrial watches. My grandfather was pretty niche because in those days there was a lot of people in the watch business. And to stand out, my grandfather felt that most important thing was not to be fancy. But an everyday man should be able to afford a watch. So they were plain and simple watches. It took someone's two weeks of a salary, up to two months of a salary to afford a watch. It's like buying a computer these days. You know it's not. Or an iPhone these days. I mean you spend $2,000 for an iPhone, that's a lot of money for anyone. And that's the way a watch was. He only had one. And so my grandfather supplied very interesting enough, a lot of people in the clergy. My grandfather actually had nuns watches. They had nurses watches, marine clocks for ships, rail watches. And just special easy, legible, affordable watches which were available not in jewelry stores. He had jewelry store models. We had other trademarks. But the marathon watches were available at Woolworths and I guess it was Kresky's and were available at Birks and I think it was credit jewelers in based out of Toronto. So that's what happened. And my grandfather, they were canning the watches and the government was taking delivery. And I'm glad we had good watches and that we won the war. What can I tell you? Canadian made equipment in those days we were actually also we not all our watches. So our watches weren't made in one factory. In those days, you know, we were subcontracting different families and watches and we had assemblies. But in those days also we used to get cases from the United States, from the. My grandparents. I remember when I was a little boy, my grandparents were very good friends. These people from New Jersey owned the Liberty watch case factory and we used to socialize with them or study New Hampshire and it was all about relationships. And it still is. We used to assemble our watches in Montreal. My father and grandfather had watchmakers and the cases would come from one factory. You get the movements, the dials made in Montreal or Toronto. There's a job manufacturer in Toronto or he got the hand probably from Switzerland. But it was all organized and you know, it was giving a lot of Canadians jobs, which I'm proud my grandfather and father employed. So many people, gave jobs to so many people.
- [10:37]
David Volshier
I actually, I want to jump in because you've touched on something that I really love talking about, which is supply chain and my mind before you even mentioned some of the local Canadian production. But a lot of heritage companies that we know today that perhaps are owned by a larger conglomerate or independent that have outsourced a lot of manufacturing, made a lot of in house movements before. So going back to those early days of Marathon, were the movements being designed and manufactured in house?
- [11:08]
Mitchell Wien
No, they weren't their outsourced. A member, a big supplier. I mean we did so many stopwatches. That was an interesting story, if you wanted to talk about stopwatches. Excelsior park was a huge manufacturer of stopwatch movements and other movements. And my grandfather had a great relationship with them. So many old boxes which say Excelsior Park. We used to get the movement parts and assemble them. It's called Miz Amarche. And put them to life. We bought Ebosh and we bought parts of movements. But I know my grandfather used Inca blocks for the shock absorbers. It was just up to a few years ago we were using those movements. We were in a very old building in the Chaudfain. Our factory is in a very old building with Chaudfan. We moved around. I guess it would be around six years ago to our new building. I guess over the years people just put things in the attic. But. But I found so many old movements from Excelsior Park. But they work. All you have to do is wash them up. You have to use them. And there's. We've had movements from many families. When the Persian Gulf war happened. It was during the watch crisis and the end of the watch crisis. But we were able to pick up so many movements for nothing in those days because people thought, oh, well, mechanical movements are out. These are garbage. As a matter of fact, a lot of companies which made movements just closed down and melted down their tool because they just felt it was over, but it wasn't. The companies that were movement companies really succeeded through the Swatch Group. But it was a shame that the Swatch Group did take all these companies for themselves and became Etuba. But that's another story on its own. But there are other movement manufacturers and we are with two in Switzerland.
- [13:08]
David Volshier
We were talking before the show. Alon mentioned that we were the black book or the Rolodex of the watch industry. So I'm wondering if you ever spoken with or met someone named Guillaume Ledet? Does that name sound familiar at all, Mitchell?
- [13:21]
Mitchell Wien
No, not at all.
- [13:22]
David Volshier
So Guillaume is. I only know him through kind of what I've seen in the media. But I know that Rob and Alon are very good friends with him and he has made a business out of reviving some of these heritage companies, one of which is Excelsior park, actually. So I'm wondering if perhaps you might consider a marathon Excelsior park collaboration in the future if you have some of those movements still lying around.
- [13:45]
Mitchell Wien
I think we even have boxes. Well, actually, you know what? Next time I'm in Switzerland, I'll check it out. And Jean Mar. I have to look, I have to ask Jean Mar. You know what? Honestly, we were trying to organize like we just started an ERP system in Switzerland. It's always in Canada. We, we're, we're the guinea pigs. So we get a new ERP system, we're testing out for a few years, and now we just put it into Switzerland. We're finding all this inventory in boxes and people saying, oh, just throw it out. Throw it out. I said, don't throw it out. So we'll see. Yeah, sure. That's interesting. I have a lot of stuff.
- [14:28]
Alon Joseph
So, Mitchell, for our dear listeners that might not know what Mil spec means or is abbreviated from bridging, also the generation. So it's a very special year for Marathon because the original family roots in the watch industry are 120 years this year. So special number we always wish one until its 120th at your birthday. And Marathon itself is celebrating its 85th anniversary. So two years after inception, you guys, as you told us, supplied the allied forces a lot. And you mentioned that they weren't middle spec yet. What are Mil Spec watches and what does Mil Spec stand for?
- [15:15]
Mitchell Wien
Well, I shouldn't have said that before because actually they did meet testing requirements. I mean, there were. It was based on our own internal quality specifications that we supplied the War Department in Canada. I mean, there has to be certain accuracies, and you. There has to be good shock absorbers and hairsprings, and accuracy and shock is very important. That's what we did supply the War Department from the beginning, and that's what the government bought. They didn't buy for my grandfather because they knew him and he was friends with the prime Minister, which he was not. The reason why they bought from him because it was local. We were assembling in Canada, and they were able to inspect our factory at any time as to which they did. And that's what part of being a military manufacturer means. So mil spec means military specification. And military specifications aren't just from the past century. They're centuries old. And in military purchasing, even 200 years ago or 300 years ago, the designs and testing of equipment, whether it be guns or anything a government buys, have to go through some testing. In Canada and the United States, amongst other countries, NATO countries, we have good systems of quality checks. There's great inspectors. A military specification for a watch. In our. In our modern history, we've gone through two military spec, two military specifications. One was baselined in the 1960s and 70s, which is the GGW113 spec issued by the General Services Administration, used by the Department of Defense in the United States as well. In Canada, we have another specifications that we are based on, the GG W113. But we did have certain specifications which were ratified under NATO designations, and they're completely Canadian, just as our jdd, which is a bilingual watch, which is not needed for a country like the United States because they only speak English. And in Canada, we have to have that two dates. So there's in the specifications, what happens in the specification. First of all, the main design purposes, the accuracy. But the accuracy during missions is very important. You have to make sure that watch will survive during a mission and keep timing. So there's test for shock, with accuracy tests being always the last water resistance. And then we have very interesting testing of high heat and low temperature. And the watch has to function during those extreme low temperatures without any damage. And it's an interesting business because when other companies spend money to sell their watches, they use advertising, you know, and they hire, you know, famous actors, which doesn't mean really anything for us. We really spend a lot of money on our quality control and testing. Equipment and calibrations and so many things involved in getting those contracts and keeping governments happy. And you know what? I don't think I know we've done a good job. We've done two major rewards awards from the US government, and that was for quality and performance. And that's for an American government. I think to give a Canadian company an award, it makes me feel very special.
- [20:20]
David Volshier
That makes me think, actually when you mentioned the government awards, I know a sister brand, I say sister brand, potentially comparable brand, which is a. Hamilton was given an award, I think, for producing a million watches. And I forget the time span over which that happened.
- [20:35]
Mitchell Wien
Like, the difference between Hamilton and us is this. Okay, Hamilton was a competitor to my dad. Hamilton was an American company out of Pennsylvania, the great American company. And they lost some contracts to my dad and those days. And with the watch crisis and everything, they lost their business. But the thing is, the brand got revived from Swash Group because they were able to tell a story. You know, Hamilton was this military brand and everything. But they don't really sell to the military now because that's not in their interest. That's not their focus because there's a lot of work to sell to the military. It's the distribution on a daily basis. It's. It's the logistics of it all. And I believe that the reason why marathons so well is because we're the same family. I grew up with my grandfather and father. I mean, I was putting push pins, you know, spring bars into straps and putting on watches when I was six years old. I was always having a job. And then, you know, I got my grandfather and bought a comic book. But it's. It was a family business and I still run it as a family business. Like, my father's still alive. And actually he's quite brilliant. He read. Reads a few journals a week, definitely. He reads Barron's and the Wall Street Journal. And he always said to me, keep the company young. Always keep another generation in there. And, you know, as long as you care for the business, the business goes ahead. And with the government, my father always said, with the government, you don't have to make much margin. You see, the thing is, we work on such low margins for the reason being that we don't have to pay for advertising, but also we have to be competitive and the government pays their bills. I mean, what's good a government going to do if they can't afford to pay for certain devices or tools or watches? They're going to print the money, right? So my Father said, listen, if they can't pass, they'll print some more money. Okay, dad. But he. The nice thing about our customer base, it's not just government. I have high respect for people who work for government. That's a call of duty. And for people in the science industry and, you know, construction industry and just I like, I like, sign our watches to actual people who value the quality of a watch and the performance of a watch or a clock over what kind of box it comes in or how it looks, it has to function. And the nice thing is there's watches that are still active after 85 years of use. I mean, I have watches that still work and I took them out of the box because we had to do a photo shoot. And I had all these watches from World War II and they were working, timing was off because the oil gets gums up and has to be cleaned up, but they were working just fine. And I know that we supplied the government 20 years ago, certain search and rescue watches, and people are still using them, they're still working. And, you know, we offer, when people send in their watches to be serviced, if you want, we could reinsert a brand new turning bezel, but the people don't want it because you know what, when you're issued a watch, that watch has been on a journey with you. It's been on a journey to Afghanistan, the former Yugoslavia, you know, and, you know, I'm up the age where I had friends which were in combat and that are helping in Yugoslavia when that war was going on. And I can understand why you wouldn't give up your watch. There's a lot of memories.
- [25:21]
David Volshier
That actually brings up something that I kind of touched on earlier, which was that on one hand, people who love watches are going to get excited at the things you just pointed out because it means stories, it means adventure, but at the same time, some of it can be pretty tragic. And I think personally that's why I shy away from wearing military watches, because I just feel like I'm cosplaying to an extent and that could be a personal hang up.
- [25:47]
Mitchell Wien
What do you mean, cosplaying?
- [25:49]
David Volshier
Explain yourself in the sense that when you look at a brand like Marathon, which is so heavily entwined with the military and various militaries around the world, even though obviously it's built for a purpose, so it's not necessarily trying to think how to say this, a military aesthetic per se, it's just built to a set of specs. And even though I accept that a lot of things that we wear daily. Had military applications before. I just feel uncomfortable sometimes wearing these symbols that perhaps are associated with something I didn't do. First of all, and in the case of some of these vintage watches, getting excited over stories that may have had quite a lot of tragedy associated with them. So I'm just wondering, as you maybe move a little bit more into the consumer space, is that something you've ever heard expressed or what are your thoughts on that?
- [26:45]
Mitchell Wien
It's interesting you say that, so I could give you more clarification. So on a daily basis where we get orders from governments or watches and stopwatches and other timing devices such as chronometers for ships, a lot of our watches are not sold to the military. They're sold to Department of Health, the Department of Revenue, the Royal Canadian Mint. I mean, there's timing applications and everything. The thing is, like, I know that who uses our watches are the Coast Guard in Canada, it's called Search and Rescue Watch. For the reason is that's used by people to search for a capsized boat, rescue them, you know, going down in a helicopter or, you know, scuba diving and helping people during missions. So military isn't always an entity that attacks or hurts people. They're there to help people, not. Not just of their own country. I mean, we've had Portuguese and Spanish fishing trawlers off the coast of Niebsman that have been capsized. We've also had horrific weather patterns in our east coast and a lot of bad things happen. And it's our military that rescues people and get flooding in Quebec. Who was there? The military. You can't forget that even in Toronto, it was a horrible weather situation a few years ago, but it was such bad snow that nobody could actually get out of their homes. And the city was shut down and the military had to come in to rescue people. So, you know, by generalizing that there's blood for supplying the military or being part of that government structure, I think is wrong. That's just my opinion. You know what I mean?
- [29:20]
Alon Joseph
I want to jump in, if I may. It's very interesting, David, for you to raise that. I am on the other end of the spectrum. I see it as several things. It's supporting these organizations, it's reminding us what important work they're doing by wearing it. And maybe from a consumer perspective, you say, hey, this is properly built. This is quality. So I have three different views on that. So that's very interesting.
- [29:53]
Mitchell Wien
And also, you know, Marathon gives back to the community. We give back to the community and all the communities we're involved in and that that's an important thing about Marathon. You know, we also are very concerned about the environment, being Canadian and we've moved in our production. I wanted to tell you we're buying locally, we're not buying from across the world. Our cases are made in the shouldpa. Our movements are not made in Grantian or some other country. You know, our movements, with exception of one movement, are all made in the chaudfum by Selia. For us, that's mechanical. Our course movements are from, I think branch and as they're ETA movements. But that's not so far away when you talk about Swiss terms and I think, think that, you know, there are companies like us that have an age and have a history to lead the way as to what is the right thing to do. So I think because of our appreciation of law and order and government policy policies in Canada, we're, we're, we're good, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're a good company. And who's to say that people manufacture watches for, you know, perhaps entitled people who think that they're going to show off to the neighbors what makes their watches good, what do they do? So, you know, I think there could be a whole discussion about stuff like this. I guess this is an interesting podcast, isn't it guys, huh?
- [32:01]
Alon Joseph
Very much so. I wanted to ask you how difficult is it to get these government contract and how many watch producers today supply these government?
- [32:14]
Mitchell Wien
It depends on the government and it depends on what kind of watch. With every single contract, it's open bidding, but you have to be qualified. Of course. You can't just bid with any watch. You have to qualify and you have to build the watches and you have to actually test. We're just discussing this about. It costs a lot of money. There's solicitations or requests for a proposal. Depends on what the government calls it and what the value is and whether contracts are fixed quantities or estimated quantities. Some of our government contracts, gee, some of our government contracts are at least 80 pages long. There's a lot of agreements that we have to make and qualifications and they're complicated, but we're so used to doing things they're not so complicated. And it's always open to the public. I don't got burning course, but it's in North America. All contracts are open, open to public scrutiny. And that's a very important thing because you know what, I'm a good government contractor, but I think sometimes that Big government, in a way, is better in certain departments. And I would say that things, you know, there's a lot of people which would sell something to the government that's not made, let's say, in a qualified country or not made to spec or not tested. And they say they are. I was reading. I used to go to a lot of conferences. Richmond, Virginia, a defense logistics agency. And there's always such interesting things to learn about government policy and working with the government because they do. They're good people. And I remember attending a class on the government has to be aware of. You know, when you're buying bolts for school on an aircraft, you better make sure that the metal content is verified and the heat. And heat resistance on bolt on an aircraft is there. You can't just take people's words for things. There's a huge contract controversy here during COVID years in Canada. A lot of the. And it's funny, it's not discussed much, but I think it's an interesting thing. The Canadian government gave out these green boxes of COVID tests to everybody. And, you know, we were really locked up. And it was a very hard time, of course, for the world. But I felt that Canadian government really overstepped. I shouldn't say that, but I am saying it. And these green boxes were giving people false negatives, not false positives, false negatives. So people had a cough or a sore throat and would take this test, would show that they don't have Covid or they're not positive for Covid, but naturally a lot of them did. These test kits weren't tested themselves. They should have been really checked. And that's what I expect from any government. Please check the things that you purchase. I think it's an important thing to do. And that's. I, you know, it's. I'm not political. I actually am not, but I just, you know, the world's a changing place. And in the olden days, we start pen and paper and things that are based in computers now. But it's important to make sure that when you buy something and there's a warranty, make sure it's really working. That's the best way any company should work.
- [37:03]
Alon Joseph
So, Mitchell, you mentioned that some mil spec products have 80 pages in a.
- [37:11]
Mitchell Wien
Contract, like the mil spec that we use now. Well, we have our testing protocols in accordance with the mil spec. When I was younger, I used to be writing those so you could read a mil spec and say, okay, this is the mil spec. These are the things we have to meet how are you going to test for them and what tests are going to be done at the same time together and what has to be done separately and how much time do you need for the testing? Because so many tests can't be run at the same time. You have to actually allow 24 hours for one test another three, six for another. And there's one test that takes three days and you have to put all that into consideration and write a process so that after manufacturing you have time to do all the testing and recall and check. And there's another spec you refer to just for the. So, so we, we, we test in accordance with the. A statistical mil spec of. It's called the 1189 I think it is. And for if you have your lot number, let's say there's 1201 watches. You have to test a certain amount of watches and there's major failures and minor failures. A minor failure might be the case gets scratched, you know what I mean? Or there's a cosmetic thing on the watch. A major failure is the watch stops or it doesn't keep time, it's out of its. The seconds per 20 per hour allowable period. So that, that's. There's a lot going on, a lot of moving parts that.
- [39:15]
Alon Joseph
So the most known mil spec thing in the watch industry is the NATO G10 watch strap. Because I've understood that the specs were 10 pages long for the strap. Is that A correct And B is it still valid or has it been updated?
- [39:35]
Mitchell Wien
Do you know what? I don't know about that. I couldn't answer you. All I know is that we have def stance straps and those are based on a British military specification. It was for a quick release system and I think that was. That came from the 1940s. And we also for our straps, our one piece nylon straps that comes from a US government specification which the Canadians have adopted. They didn't write the same spec and that is I think 463. I'm not sure about the number on it but it's a military standard. So there's this different types of specs, there's performance backs, standard specs and just plain military specs. I don't know anything about that NATO spec. I know that there's a company that I states that registered the NATO trademark and they call their straps NATO straps. But other than that I don't know other than what we're using and doing.
- [40:56]
Alon Joseph
Probably the most famous American milspec watch is nowadays called a Benris case. If I look at Marathon, I guess it's the 41 pilot's watch. Is that one produced to the same specs?
- [41:15]
Mitchell Wien
Ah, so let me tell you what that is. So Ben Russ is actually not. The original owners don't own Ben Russ now. And I know that they're very good at advertising and stuff. But there's a specification that was built in the 1960s for a flight watch and it was an uneven case. What happened was Ben Ross had the Vietnam War. And I don't know if my cousins own Ben Russ in those days. I think it was Ben Lazarus who started Ben Russ and he sold business, I think to my cousin Joe's dad Sonny in Chicago for the reason being that his wife, I think of a clothing company called Ann Kleinen. The watch business is much harder than selling clothes. Again, he didn't want to be in the business anymore because he just wasn't. I guess the Vietnam war was over. But when my father was asked by Kelly Air Force Base to develop an electrical watch with which was the first quartz movement, he what happened was they gave him the design that he should have been. And that. That isn't a Ben Rust design, that's a design. I think that the design comes from the case design comes from either Picatinny Arsenals or Richmond, Virginia. They had a big engineering department so no one can claim ownership to that design. We're known for that design because it was pre Persian Gulf war, it was 1980s. We were doing this for Kelly. Kelly asked us to do it. And I remember my dad was excited as they're coming up to Canada and from Ottawa, we're coming down from the US Government to discuss about doing an electrical watch. And we did it. And it was a navigator. And that's what we called it, that's what the US government called it. And they bought thousands of them. And it was really to basically the same design as called by the specification. I'm trying to remember the specification number, but I can't remember everything. I do know the present day spec which incorporated that navigator Spec was the 467 Military Bill Mil Performance Spec. Now 46374 and we're on version G. I remember they incorporated the navigator watch only when they got to a version I think it was E or F. They took it out of being a separate specification. You do that to clean things up. So what they had was what the US government did with the the engineering department in Picnic Arsenal and Richmond, Virginia was they streamlined the wristwatch specifications. And instead of having a navigation spec and a regular general purpose Spec they sorted out different watches by calling them different types. So in the CD and ESPAC they had type one through five and then they added type six to be the navigation style case. And the type one and type two watches were mechanical general purpose field watches. Type three which was brought in the 1980s was the new quartz watch. And type four was also quartz watch, general purpose field watch. And I think type 5, I'm not sure right now. I think it comes without the batteries, quartz watch without the battering. Those are used for bomb shelters and the batteries are packed separately. And type six was the navigator watch. And since then it's been kept to the same assortment of classifications through streamlining it again to be a Class 1, Class 2 or Class 3 watch. And that's the purposes of the watch. So what happens is the navigator watch is not just used for flight, it's called an abdicated watch traditionally because it has its origins in that. But when, when you work for a government or you work for an international company such as Citibank or what could I tell you, an international company like Nestle and you have offices all over the world, it's good to have a navigation watch because it's a dual time zone. And so I am always in Switzerland which is 6 hours difference than Canada eastern time zone. I always have my training Basel pushed to the 6th so my home time is always the main dial and then I look at the outside dots see what time is it? It's listen, did everybody leave the office yet or could I ask them a question before they close up? It's always like that. And that thing about the navigation launch we which is great. I use it also as a tool to time things. If I have a meeting in three hours or I'm doing something that needs some timing, I'll turn that timing bezel, the triangle to the minute to the minute hand and then I could see when I started timing. But you do that and what I do that with is I do that when I'm cooking or I'm participating in a game or something like that, you know what I mean? Where there's periods so it origins from the military and the reason why the government did chose that off center design which Ben Russ used and we used is because it's a good guard against the crown because you can have big shocks to the, to a crown.
- [48:51]
David Volshier
So one of the other and I'm probably out of my depth the military watches but I do know that the other famous Spec is the mod spec during World War II that the British Government issued, which led to, I think it was the Dirty Dozen. Hopefully no one's going to get too mad at me in the comments. But what's striking is that they all end up looking at a glance pretty, pretty similar actually. And so my question to you is, do you ever find it stifling from a design point of view perhaps that you have these limitations set forth by the contract or with experience? Have you found that you can be a little original within the bounds of these constraints?
- [49:27]
Mitchell Wien
Well, there are tolerances in any spec. A specification without tolerance is just no spec at all. You have to be able to do an experiment plus or minus 3 degrees. You have to, you have to. You can control all environmental conditions by that. I say with dialogue, if you notice that all military, not government, military, most military watches have black dials with white print. There's a reason for that. Because it's easy to read in the dark, white on black as opposed to black on white. Daytime, it's easier to see black, black on white. As a matter of fact, even if you have the same font, the same size letters or numbers on a dial and it's black on white as opposed to white on black in the daytime, those numbers seem bigger, but it's an optical illusion. So what we've done is we study, we actually study numbers and we've studied it with our creative department and actually made samples and we try to make our numbers as visible as possible. There may be a test involved from a naked eye, 2020 vision and no, in dim lighting you have to be able to read the time on a watch. That's important. Could we do it 30 inches? Could you do it 3ft away? Sure, we could, but we have to adjust those numbers. But it's not just the number size, it's the style of the number. And remember, we also have to take into consideration whether we're measuring 1/5 of a second and if we're measuring with 24 hour a secondary timing meaning 13 to 24 hours. So it isn't just a 12 hour dial, it's a 24 hour dial. So not all dials are the same. And they are interesting with our watches. It depends on where they're being used. Sometimes they will be used used on uniforms that are not black or they won't be a flight uniform. They'll be in CAD pat, which is Canadian pattern camouflage or US Camouflage. Whether it be in desert color, desert tan or in Canada we have a slightly different green to be American. So it doesn't depending on we have things like that with our company, though we have been very privileged to go out of the ordinary with such collaborations with the Jeep motor car company. And I think that allowed our creative team to really come out of its shell. Our officers watch is a salute to what we produced in 1941 for Canada. We took the best out of those dials and looked at Jeep, how the Jeep gridometers were, and did a tribute to Jeep using our mutual respect as well as our mutual commencement in making general purpose vehicles, which the name Jeep comes from GP and our general purpose watches. So that was really actually a lot of fun. And we were using a leather band which is never used in a military application, but in those days it was. There's canvas and leather bands. And we also took our search and rescue watch and were able to do great homage to the Jeep brand. We were able to engrave the crowns and that was difficult. We have great engravers. We have a lot of great things in Le Chaudfons, Switzerland, which is where our factory is, but we have a lot of good engravers and we've got an engraving company to engrave those crowns with the cheap star emblem. We also were able to engrave the side of the search and Rescue watch with the Jeep grill. We also work with a factory in Le Chaudfu that makes rubber straps for the industry. And they're very specialized. They're owned by a big Geneva company, but they are a Le Chaudfon company and also employ a lot of people. Le Chaudfon, when you're in a small town like Le Chaudfon, you know, you try to. You work together as community. So we got a special green rubber strap that we only do black for the military, but we did a special green one for our homage to the Jeep green that was used in World War II. And the dial looks like an odometer, a gauge. And we used. We even had fun with the tins that we pack our watches with and put Jeep brand on it, with Jeep wrapping on it. And you know, when you collect something, when you're a Jeep enthusiast or an enthusiast about everything, you like to get things that are quality, that have to do with the brand you love, like Jeep. I know when I went to university, I still have my University of Toronto clipboard. I have. I still have it. I can't believe I still use it. It works well. And getting all, you know, your lab books with the university name on it and the mugs and stuff. And so I think it was a nice thing to do with Jeep and I know that people who love their Jeeps do love our watches, and we even have a Jeep duck. And that's another story. But we'll bet that'll be where our next year should be.
- [56:50]
Alon Joseph
Okay, guys, that's my cue when you say another story. Mitchell, this was the easiest recording because you hardly made us work. Thank you. Thank you so much. We did not unpack everything, so I hope you'll come back on the show in the near future.
- [57:09]
Mitchell Wien
So you have to come visit us in Geneva this year, please. The Geneva shows at a new location. It's in an old mansion, which should be very interesting. I also was just in Dusseldorf. I don't know if you guys were in Dusseldorf, but a great thing about traveling and meeting people like you is meeting other people like you. We met so many of our German customers and Dutch customers and the Dusseldorf show. And finally, people who you know, from different groups came to touch our watches and feel them for the first time. So I'm very privileged to have met the two of you and your group. And I want to thank you for having us.
- [58:03]
Alon Joseph
Thank you so much, Mitchell. And thank you, dear listeners, for taking the time to listen to this episode. You can find all our previous episodes on our official website, www.therealtimeshow and on Instagram viaaltimeshow. If you want to support the show, please subscribe, like, rate and share it with your friends. If you have any questions, feedback and or criticism, please do send us a message. You can also DM us if you want to join the TRTS community. You can reach David via Instagram, Rob via obnudds, and me via my handle. And if you prefer to send us an email, you can just add our first name to, like our IG handle. Stay sane and keep on ticking.