Have I Become a Watch Snob?

Sometimes, people who hate Rolex are referred to as as snobs.

I've never thought of myself as a watch snob -- for example, I completely agree with a lot of both the negative AND the positive things which are said about Invicta (negative: their marketing strategy of giving their watches MSRP's 4 times what they intend to sell the watch for, and then pretending that, TODAY ONLY, they're offering an incredible deal, when it's the everyday deal; and using way too much gold plating. 

 

Positive: making some watches which actually function pretty well, and drawing the attention of a lot of first-time watch owners to a wonderful hobby)  -- but it's very hard for me to imagine myself ever wearing a Rolex. I would much rather be seen wearing the garish Invicta in that photo. 

As loyal readers of this blog know, this represents a complete change from 5 years ago, when I lusted after the platinum Rolex Daytona. What happened in those 5 years? I've learned a lot about watches. I know Rolexes are good watches, but today, they're overpriced to the point where it seems to me that you either have not know very much about watches, or ignore a lot of what you know, in order to shell out that much for a Rolex, when you can always, ALWAYS get a far superior watch for the same money. I just can't separate my reaction to the marketing and the prices from my reaction to the actual watches.

If that means I'm a watch snob, well then, I supposed I've become a watch snob. Even though my annual income is less than the average selling price for an entry-level Rolex, which is much, much higher than the MSRP for that Rolex. 

I personally don't think it's snobbery, it's actually concern about people being ripped off, and people investing in a risky bubble -- assuming that the Rolex bubble actually will burst at some point. And of course, it's POSSIBLE that it actually will NEVER burst. Financial bubbles, by defintion, are built on irrationality, and irrationality has never run to a sensible timetable.

An Open Letter to Hodinkee re: the Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical

You want me to get excited about the Hamilton Khaki Field Mechanical, a new item in your online shop.

And maybe I should be very excited about it, I don't know.

I know that the Hamilton 992b pocket watch, made from 1940 to 1969 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, was an outstanding watch in its time, maybe the one truly outstanding model made by the American company (the 992 and 992a, as well as most of the other models made by American Hamilton since the late 19th century, didn't quite get it right). But 1969 was a long time ago, and I don't know squat about the current Swiss Hamilton brand except that it's one of the many brands owned by the Swatch Group. Does it really have anything in common with the old American brand except the name and the look of the dial?

And even if it has a lot in common with the old American brand, does that mean that a new Hamilton is as good as a new watch from a quality Swiss brand? Horological technology hasn't stood still for the last 50 years. A good new watch tends to be much more durable, reliable and waterproof, to name just 3 things, than a good watch made in 1969.

If all of you watch journalists didn't tell me to get excited over each and every watch you write about -- with the lone exception, as far as I know, of the Watch Snob® at askmen, who goes perhaps too far in the other direction -- then I actually might get excited about watches even more often than I already do, which is very often.

Just not about every single watch. Your recent rave review of the new overpriced mechanical piece of crap from Timex, to name one egregious example, was not helpful in this regard. You wrote that even if it's not a great watch, hey, it's only $200. For some of us, $200 is actually a lot of money which we'd rather not throw away if we can help it, especially not when $200 will get us several perfectly good mechanical watches from Seiko. And for a watch enthusiast for whom $200 really isn't a lot, it still could be $200 toward the price of something like a nice Longines, which might cost 5 or 10 times as much as the new mechanical Timex, but will look much nicer (because it's the actual item which the Timex [American English for "fake Rolex"] is trying to resemble), keep much better time, last far longer than 10 times as long as the Timex, etc, etc.

But that's the sort of advice one never gets from watch journalists, with the exception of the Watch Snob, and for all I know, he has to remain anonymous because if any of you wrote what you really think and it were known who you were, the entire industry would banish you and you'd never be able to write about any new watch again unless you bought it, and, unfortunately, not all of you can afford to spend a million Euros a year on watches, year in and year out, because life is unfair. I realize there must be reasons for the current state of affairs, and I don't think that people who write about watches are bad people.

But until some of you buck the trend and start writing in a much more straightforward manner, how will things ever change?

Hublots and the People Who Hate Them

I'm still really new at being a watch fancier. But I have learned one thing: It's impossible, at least for me, to really get a sense of how a watch looks just from photographs of it, no matter how numerous and high-definition and from how many different angles the photographs may be. Photographs are not the same as having the watch in front of you, and looking at a watch in front of you is not the same as holding it, and I'm poor -- although I was able purchase a Seiko 5 --

(there are many like it, but that one is mine) -- and I imagine, although I have not tested this theory, that if I constantly went around to high-end jewelers and asked to be allowed to touch the high-end stuff, and never bought anything, that it might lead to my becoming persona non grata in those stores. I don't know. Might depend on the store.

A lot of people really despise Hublot. Which would mean, if I wore one, that judgmental douchebags would see the Hublot on my wrist and avoid me, sparing me the trouble of having to avoid them. One of the many reasons why I want an MP-05. I love to read the Watch Snob, but, unfortunately, he actually is a snob, and not just about watches, and he hates Hublots, which, as I strongly suspect, has to do not only with the watches themselves, but also with the sort of people who wear Hublots, whom the Watch Snob and his inbred acquaintances would refer to (in private, of course. Amongst themselves) as not our sort of people, and my God, snobbery is tiresome.

This is an MP-05,

a watch made by Hublot "in partnership with Ferrari." I still haven't figured out what exactly the nature of this partnership is. I'm sure that it consists almost entirely of one company giving money to the other, but I've no idea whether Hublot gives money to Ferrari or the other way around. There have been many partnerships between watchmakers and car makers, and I've found almost all of them to be very silly. They say again and again that the design of this watch in "inspired by" the design of that car or that the design othis car is "inspired by" the design of that watch, and almost always I find it all very silly, but in this case, the design of the MP-05 actually and undeniably is inspired by the design of a Ferrari V-12 engine:

I happen to think the watch looks really cool.

You know what? I have to pause now, and remember where I came in, and rephrase what I just said: I think that photos of the watch look really cool. I haven't actually seen a MP-05 yet, just pictures of them. I suppose it's possible that if I held one in my hands, I might be appalled. I might suddenly understand perfectly well why all of those people despise Hublots.

I might become one of those people. I might even suddenly despise people who wear Hublots, if not instantly upon seeing the watch itself, then upon meeting 10 Hublot owners and sensing undeniable trends in them and what they do. Who knows? Not me.

However, in the meantime, judging only from photos and realizing the limitations of that evidence, I think that the Hublot MP-05 look really cool. And besides its looks: you wind it once and it runs for 50 days. It's hard for me to imagine how even the most snobbish Hublot-hater could not find that cool, at least deep down in secret, even if he or she never admitted it. Small as a normal watch, but runs for 50 days. That's sort of like a car which you could very comfortably drive to the supermarket and back, but which can also go 500mph.

Speaking of cars, and imagining that you'd like things without having seen them or having other crucial bits of information about them: when the Bugatti automobile brand was re-introduced in the 21st century, at first, just reading about them and looking pictures of them, I was certain that I would love having one. Then, late in 2004, around the time when the first 21st-century model, the Veyron, went on sale to the public, I actually saw one in a shopping mall in Berlin. And it was so low to the ground, and I am so tall, that I found it just about impossible to believe that I could sit comfortably inside of one. (Right next to the Bugatti was a Bentley which looked much more like my sort of thing.)

Then, over the years, I learned more things which made the Veyron even less attractive to me: such as that it got 7mpg when driven gently. Such as that the tires had be replaced every 1000 miles if driven gently, and every 62.5 miles (15 minutes) if driven at 250mph. And that 4 new tires cost $30,000.

So: the previous 5 paragraphs all by way of saying that I think it's possible that I would hate Hublots if I knew more about them. Still, with what I know right now, Hublots look really cool and Hublot haters look like hateful people, often with extremely severe cases of stick-up-the-butt. The way it looks to me now is that Hublot is adventurous, and that people who only like watches which look like this --

-- are incredibly boring.

Not that I would necessarily find that particular watch to be boring, if I saw it in person and held it and put it on my wrist and wore it for a month, because I had become a well-known and respected writer on the subject of watches, so that watch manufacturers loaned me new watches for a month at a time just on the hope that I would write about them.

But I am fairly certain that I would still strongly object to the notion that ALL watches should look more or less like that. Which, I'm afraid, is not very far from the position taken by the Watch Snob and many other watch snobs. I still like the Watch Snob's writing very much. I'm going to decide for myself what I like and don't like, that's all.

Materials of Which Watch Cases Can Be Made

* Stainless steel. Seems that everywhere I turn, people who write about watches are writing enthusiastically about stainless steel watches. I haven't been watching the world of watches very long, and I don't know what they were writing not long ago, but I clearly gather that stainless steel is being treated as the New Cool Thing. Whether this reflects an actual change in taste among people who used to buy gold or platinum watches, and still could afford to, but now have decided that it's more tasteful to be less ostentatious in their choice of wristwear; or whether those tastes haven't changed at all among those who can afford any watches they want, and what has changed is the approach of those writing, who have decided to try to reach more readers buy writing about watches more people can afford; or if the answer is some Door #3 which hasn't occurred to me, I don't know.

On the one hand, I have a stainless steel watch:

and am therefore unintentionally stylish at the moment. On the other hand, I not only didn't intend to be trendy when I got my Seiko 5 (there are any like it, but this one is mine), I really don't care about being trendy. I refer you to Thorstein Veblen.



* Brass. Boring. And high-maintenance unless you want it to look as dull as dirt or plate it with gold or nickel or something.

* Silver. I don't know any thing interesting to tell you about silver watches cases.

* Titanium. It doesn't move me. Sorry.

* Tantalum. I wrote a whole post about that one.

* Gold. It costs about 2/3 as much per ounce as it did in 2011, and that fall in the price of the metal has definitely been accompanied by a steep drop in the prices of gold watches. Perhaps the snooty exclusive rich class really has taken a recent like to stainless steel watches, and maybe part of the reason for that is that suddenly, many more people could afford gold watches, making them suddenly much less fun for the snooty exclusive rich class.

* Platinum. Everything I just speculated about gold except more so, because in the past few years the price of the metal has fallen even more sharply than that of gold.

I wish I had a watch made of gold, or, even better and even more expensive, platinum. And I really don't care what snooty exclusive rich people think of that. And I don't care that some of them will be convinced that I'm lying when I say I don't care, and that I want a watch like that for completely other reasons than any having to do with their exclusive hamster wheels. They are hamsters, those snooty people. Hamsters on exclusive wheels. Veblen. He covered all this.

* Sapphire. Yes, sapphire. If you're like I was recently, you didn't realize that sapphires aren't always blue, and that synthetic transparent sapphire is used instead of glass these days for the crystals of high-end watches. It's much tougher than glass. At least one watch company, Hublot, has made entire cases from sapphire for certain models.

Which I happen to think is wicked cool, and I don't care if the Watch Snob thinks everything Hublot does is horribly tacky, this isn't the first thing Hublot has done which I like very, very much. (For example: the watch in that picture has a 40-day power reserve. As far as I know, that's the 2nd all-time longest power reserve for a watch, behind that other Hublot with a 50 day power reserve which is also available in a variety of case materials including sapphire.)

The Watch Snob wrote in one of his columns that he guaranteed that Hublot would be out of business by the time he turned 40, which makes me wish I knew when he wrote that and how old he was then. We'll see what we see about what kind of shape Hublot is in as a company.

* Wood. Today, not in the 16th century when one might be more inclined to forgive a watchmaker for not knowing any better, but today, some watches are made with not only their cases but also quite a few of their moving parts made from wood. This makes me feel perhaps somewhat the way the Watch Snob feels about Hublot. I feel that wooden watches are wrong. I feel that it's wrong for people to buy wooden watches, as that will only tend to encourage them to make more of them. I don't feel inclined to discuss it.

Journalism Devoted To Watches

First of all, there's the Watch Snob. Or should I say first, last and everything in between? I'm new at this, I've been really looking for quality horological journalism for a matter of mere months, and I certainly hope there are are worlds of quality writing about watches as yet unimagined by me, but at the present time, the Watch Snob is the only writer about watches I feel I can trust, because he's the only one -- the only one! -- who writes openly negative things about watches he doesn't like. The only one who has openly negative headlines on some of his columns.

Everybody else I've encountered so far -- everybody! -- seems to me like a more or less obvious part of the advertising branch of the watch industry. Websites such as WatchTime and Hodinkee are interesting, but I can't recall a single article on either site which was even faintly negative, overall, about any watch. And those two sites are interesting in part because they're not nearly as obvious about it as a lot of other sites claiming to be magazines. All of these sites have big, expensive-looking ads on them, and it seems that they are competing for watchmakers' ad revenue by flattering them, as opposed to giving the reader some usefully unfiltered opinions.

I don't agree with the Watch Snob about everything -- if when I get rich I'm going to get the watches I want to have, and not spoil my own enjoyment by worrying about whether the Watch Snob approves or rolls his eyes or openly ridicules me or whatever -- and he actually is quite a snob in general, not just about watches, and that certainly is a bore -- but unless I'm drastically mistaken, he is actually quite honest and unabashedly frank in his columns, and that is a service to the reader. For just one example, in his latest column, a report from Baselworld 2017, he states that Cartier, which has been making jewelry for a long time and watches for a short time, is "still struggling" to gain credibility as a watchmaker.

Up until I read that column today, I was under the impression -- the surprising impression, to me -- that Cartier had been generally accepted as one of the world's finest watchmakers, because up until today, that had been the tone of absolutely everything I had read about their watches from absolutely everyone whom I suspected of possibly being some sort of expert. Thank you, Watch Snob!

Besides what we generally think of as journalists (including bloggers), there is one major online source of information about watches, and it is a source which is in no way lacking in negative reactions to this or that watch. I'm talking about online forums where watch enthusiasts gather to talk about watches. The biggest such gathering place of which I currently know is at the website Watchuseek. But I'm not sure what to make of the information I get from such forums. A lot of the participants there seem to be biased in favor of a particular brand or model which they happen to own -- I've been guilty of the very same sort of biased writing on this very blog. By the way, this is my Seiko 5:

There are many like it, but this one is mine -- or against some brand with which they seem to have had some completely atypical bad luck: for example, they may have owned a particular model which kept terrible time and broke down very soon after they got it, when the model in general is famous for its precision and reliability.

I hear that in some such cases, the person writing about such bad experience actually has had no such experience with the brand or model in question, but happens to own a store which sells a brand or model which competes in the marketplace which the one they're denigrating. I hear that in some cases, manufacturers actually encourage their employees go online and slander the competition.

I repeat: I HEAR such things, I have no idea how often they actually happen.

Maybe if I spent a huge amount of time in such forums, I would gradually get a sense for which of the participants was knowledgeable and frank, and start to be able to sift the signal from the noise. Maybe. It seems like a huge investment to make, for a questionable possibility of an eventual payoff of unknown proportions.

In the meantime, other then the Watch Snob, where are the honest horological writers at the world's magazines and newspapers? Are there any? Does the Watch Snob publish under a pseudonym because the entire watch industry would snub him if they knew who he was, making it difficult or impossible for him to do his job?

A Newbie In The World Of Watches

If you comment on the ads on Facebook which are called "suggested posts," Facebook will show you similar stuff. If you click on the links, Facebook will show you a lot of similar stuff.

It's too bad that 2 of the links to watch sellers or watchmakers which looked more interesting led to websites where you have to register before you can browse. PITA, later, bye, Touch of Modern, which sells various high-end brands, and Minus-8, a somewhat affordable brand.

Minus-8 says they're from San Francisco. Can it be that some interesting-looking mechanical watches are actually Amurrkin?! I surfed around some watch forums and watch-review sites, and by God, yes! Minus-8 makes automatic watches! With Seiko NH35A automatic movements. And the watches are actually assembled in China. (Seiko is a Japanese company, but some of their movements are actually made in places like Malaysia.)

And speaking of sites which review watches: other than the legendary Watch Snob®, I'm not sure whether I've seen anyone yet who is more interested in uncompromising critical evaluation of timepieces than in having a place on the Web where a lot of watchmakers will advertise. I may have come across a couple such. I'm just not sure yet. I did a Google search for best watch reviewers, and literally all that got me was some remarks on several different sites about how they were the best watch reviewers. So, I'll keep looking. This is all still very new to me.

Like Seiko, Casio was a brand name I'd heard forever without realizing that they make some stuff which some people get really enthusiastic about. I've got a couple of pocket calculators on the table here next to my computer, and one of them ... *checking* ... hey lookit that, actually both of them are made by Casio. I bought them both back in the early 1990's, I rarely use either of them or give them much thought, I bought the SL-100B, which folds in half and has large keys, much more for the physical design --

-- than for any other reason, although the physical design is very important, I think. Using the SL-100B is a pleasant experience for me -- and the other one has many more functions, not all of which I know what they are. They both run on indoor lighting, never had to get a battery for either of them or recharge them or do any other sort of maintenance on them. They both still work just fine, is that remarkable for pocket calculators made in the early 1990's? I don't know.

The reason I mentioned Casio is because they make a watch called the G-Shock, which is renowned for its unbreakability. I went through a number of sites dedicated to the G-Shock looking for info about the movement, about whether there were any G Shocks with mechanical movements. I found only references to quartz movements in G-Shocks. On one G-Shock fan page a G-Shock fan patiently tried to explain how all watch movements should be quartz, basically because they're much, much more unbreakable. Whaddygonnado, quartz is quartz and mechanical is mechanical and never the twain shall meet. There are those Casio G-Shock fans over there, and there are us Seiko 5 fans over here, and perhaps most of the people in one group will never understand what the other group is so excited about.

This is my Seiko 5, by the way:

There are many others like it, but this one is mine.

Fun Facts About This Blog

1) I published my first post about Michael Paulkovich on the 29th of September, 2014, and my first post about Justin Bieber on the 19th of March, 2015. In the first 48 hours after they were published, the post on Michael Paulkovich received more than 100 times as many pageviews as the post on Justin Bieber.

2) On the 28th of March, 2011, I made an experiment to see if I could get more traffic on the blog by pandering to mass tastes than by doing what I usually do, with a post entitled Cute Baby Animal Pictures! whose texts begins: "In this post I'm going to pander to mass tastes." and after that consists mostly of baby-talk, like: "Widgiewidgiewidgiewidgie! Who's a pwecious liddle fing? Who's my liddle pwecious?" interspersed among 6 photos of baby animals, 4 of which have disappeared. The photos were linked from the web rather than uploaded by me.

"Cute Baby Animal Pictures!" has received about 40 times as many pageviews as the average Wrong Monkey post, second all-time on this blog only to my aforementioned first post on Michael Paulkovich. It continues to be one of The Wrong Monkey's most popular posts week-in and week-out, despite the missing photos. But it was the only such attempt I have made to pander to mass tastes. This blog's lowered potential commercial success has been literature's gain -- or it has been literature's loss if you prefer to look at it that way. I'm just glad you're reading my blog, I'm not going to try to tell you what to think of it.

3) One of The Wrong Monkey's all-time most popular posts has been the ironically-entitled Why I Stopped Reading The Watch Snob, and I have no idea why so many people have viewed it. Nobody has commented on it, so I've gotten no clues that way about what's aroused people's interest. I haven't been able to find it linked anywhere. I repeat, this post is ironically-titled. I haven't stopped reading The Watch Snob, I think it's a good column, I actually learn things by reading it. Also, it's witty. Also, as I've mentioned on that post, The Watch Snob and The Wrong Monkey sound like a pair of super-villains teamed up to thwart Batman & Robin.

But I don't know why people are reading that post. For all I know, the Watch Snob's online presence might be popular beyond my wildest imagination, and people find my post just by mistake. For all I know, people who dislike the Watch Snob surf to my post thinking I'm a kindred spirit. Sorry about that, if that's the case.

4) I'd very much like it if each and every one of you would talk me up for the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature. That's a stone-cold fact: I'd appreciate it very much indeed! Especially if you happen to know -- or be -- extremely-influential people in the worlds of publishing and literature. I want that Prize, I want it bad. That's a fact. You know how Roger Daltrey sings on "Magic Bus," "I waaaant it, I waaaant it, I waaaant it[...]" That's how I feel, it's how I am all the time. Fame? I waaaant it. Fortune? I waaaaant it. That Prize? I waaaaant it. A date with Reese Witherspoon, if she's single? I waaaaant it. A platinum Daytona with an ice-blue dial? Why yes, thank you, in fact I'll take two of those! Yeah. Yeah! I want a whole bunch of all of that! Desire makes me strong and improves my posture.



5) In "Him With His Foot In His Mouth" by Saul Bellow, the title character and narrator, who realizes that on many occasions in his life he has been more candid than was either prudent or kind, says to one character whom he hopes will give his university a grant, who at a banquet has been telling him for hours on end about all of the money she has given to artists and other deserving people, when she mentions that she plans to write her memoirs, asks her: "Do you plan to use a typewriter or an adding machine?" and says to a family member attempting to involve him in a court case which he regards as nothing better than rank extortion, and who says to him, the narrator, the artsy, literate one in the rough-and-tumble family: "You're the one with the words" -- Ah say Ah say this one wit his foot in his mout, this artsy one, he replies: "And you're the whore with nine cunts!" But it's a fact that Bellow wrote this high-minded piece of frankness after he'd published several huge bestsellers AND won that great big Nobel Prize -- the very same one. That's a fact. So if his ghost or his fans want to look down their noses at me for wanting a whole bunch of stuff they can, pardon my French but they can all go sit on it!!! That's a fact, that's exactly what they can do! ("Him With His Foot In His Mouth" is a great story, the title story of a great volume of stories. I don't know what to do with the fact that such a beautiful writer let himself be politically seduced by the neocon Mephistofeles.)

Why I Stopped Reading The Watch Snob

Don't get me wrong: the Watch Snob may be the perfect column for you. The guy is witty, there's no denying it, and he knows a lot about watches. It's just that we don't all want the same thing. I recently read a Watch Snob column in which he asserted that a small watch does not look ridiculous on a large wrist, whereas a large watch looks ridiculous on any wrist.

And that's why I'm wishing the Watch Snob bon voyage and happy horology. I'm not into this small-watch deal. I realize that many of the most expert watchmakers on Earth have expended their careers on smallness. I know that many, maybe most watch connoisseurs see a watch which is much thinner than a wafer, and have big watchgasms. And I'm not knocking that. It's pleasure, and it's not hurting anybody. Wristwatch size is not all about me.

Luckily, when it comes to watches, I am not under any pressure from peer pressure. (I was about to write that I was not under pressure from peer pressure, period, not just when it came to watches, but I'll have to get back to you about that after a few more therapy sessions.) Those people who are considered (by whom, again?) to be the cool kids will laugh at you for liking the wrong kind of watch, and I don't care, and I don't care if they (who, again?) think I'm cool. Ironically, to judge from his column on pocket watches, the Watch Snob may actually think I'm sorta cool for not caring about his opinion of me. Which actually wouldn't be so strange: I have mixed, by no means entirely negative feelings about the Watch Snob, and in my experience feelings very often turn out to be mutual.

The thing is, again, judging from his column on pocket watches, the Watch Snob doesn't know a lot about pocket watches. In fact, there's nothing in that column which I didn't already know. Which makes it the first Watch Snob column I've read which didn't contain significant new information about watches for me.

Which means, Watch Snob, (I wipe away one manly tear) that you and I've opened us two differnt cans a peaches. I must go my own way now, and yes, yes, it almost certainly means that when and if I get stinking rich I will buy a wristwatch or two which deeply offend you. I wish it were differnt, Budro, but this is how it is.

PS, 31. July 2014: It turns out that I actually still read a Watch Snob column now and then. They're informative and funny, and I like someone with their own opinions, not borrowed ones. Also: close your eyes and say to yourself, "The Wrong Monkey and the Watch Snob." You immediately pictured two super-villains teaming up to fight Batman in Gotham City, didn't you? How cool is that? Now, whoever is running the Ask Men website: would it kill you to put dates on the Watch Snob columns so that we can tell when he said what? It would be very helpful, kthnx. For one thing, the Watch Snob's opinions actually change now and then, as happens with anyone who's really thinking, and for another, he very often refers to current situations and upcoming events in the horological industry. So get your shit together and put dates on his columns before he moves to some other publication that has their shit together or just opens his own website.