Tag: Toys

Guns, cars, tools, knives etc.

Sufficiency

Guy Stuff, Lifestyle, Toys

I was watching this podcast, and one of the statements (made at about the 41-minute mark) resonated with me.  It was this:

“For me, cars and watches are a similar thing, because at a very early accessible price point, they both fulfill their brief.  So telling the time and getting from A to B, happens with an Apple watch and a Dacia Sandero.  If you’re concerned about the functionality of a car, anything after that is led by the heart.”  [And the ego.]

It’s been a constant struggle for me and I think, for many.

I know I’m always going on about luxury stuff, and I think almost every argument on this website has revolved around where your own limits are on the price : quality scale — because in almost every case, we’ve established the functionality of the thing early on.

Hence cars:  functionality is achieved with, say, a Honda Civic.  Then, if you want a little more speed to go with your functionality, you move on to the excellent Civic Si or even to the Civic R.  But you also have a desire for a little more luxury than a standard Honda’s offering, so you look at… an Acura Integra Model S?  (Same car as the Civic, more or less the same performance, but with a tad more luxury and a higher price point.)  But come on, you say, an Acura?  Why not (say) a Mercedes CLA 35 AMG at pretty much the same price point, but with Merc luxury (better than any Acura’s)?  (Here’s a comparison.)  And then on and on you go, until you start getting serious about all those things that make your parts tingle until you end up looking at stupid money for a product that is completely over the top by any standards (hello Ferrari or similar).  (And in SUVs, you start off with a Toyota RAV4 and end up with a Maybach 600.)

Then watches.  Functionality is simple:  Casio F91-W ($30).  Okay, you don’t want a digital watch, so a more manly Invicta Pro Diver ($60).  You all know where this is going:  up the scale with Timex, Tissot, Seiko, Grand Seiko, Longines, Omega… until you get to Rolex, Ulysse Nardin, Audemars Piguet and thence to the stratosphere where you can spend literally hundreds of thousands of dollars… on a watch that is functionally little better than that Casio, Invicta or Timex.

With watches, I have my Tissot Heritage and I really don’t feel the need for any other.  Maybe if I had some budget I’d consider a Longines Master or even an Omega Railmaster (which makes me tingle, bigly) but beyond that it’s more ego than I care to indulge myself.  Unless I went all eclectic on y’all.  As with cars with manual transmissions, my timepiece choices are somewhat narrowed by my insistence on manually-wound actions, but there ya go.

Of course, there are guns.  Confining ourselves to double-barrel over/under shotguns, we start off with Gforce (never heard of them) for under $400, and while this may be a piece of junk — not judging, just acknowledging that to produce this kind of gun at that particular price point, compromises must be made — there’s no doubt that it’s at least a Timex shotgun, so to speak.  Then I guess you’d go on to the Turkish-made CZ Drake, then up the food chain to Browning Cynergy,  Beretta Silver Pigeon, Rizzini BR110… and we all know where this ends, don’t we?

I have to confess that my mood swings wildly when it comes to this stuff.  On the one hand, I’m perfectly comfortable driving my 150,000-mile Tiguan.  But if I had to get a new car and had any kind of budget, given my circumstances, I’d probably consider that Honda Si (decent reliability, performance and above all, manual transmission).  After that, I’d need more budget, maybe a great deal more budget to get a car I’d really like to drive for pretty much the rest of my life.  While I’m not really brand-conscious (in terms of impressing others), I’d rather drive something that has some kind of heritage — but forget the boutique stuff like Ferrari, no matter how much budget I have.  And whatever, it has to have a stick shift.

I’m pretty sure you all know where I stand on guns.  I carry either Springfield or Colt 1911s, wouldn’t dream of carrying a Nighthawk or Ed Brown 1911, hate plastic guns of any caliber, and prefer shooting revolvers anyway.  And that’s just handguns.  Rifles?  I’m a Mauser man — actual Mausers as opposed to John Rigby’s exotic Mausers — and while I might be tempted on occasion to look at a custom rifle (purely based on its appearance), I’m just as happy shooting a .30-30 lever action.  And finally, when it comes to shotguns I prefer the old-fashioned — that is to say, side-by-side barrels and double triggers — and regard pump-actions as I would hammers or drills:  pure tools, nothing more.

Lifestyle choices:  budgets, compromises, ego, practicality, dreams… we all have them.

My Ideal Watch Collection

Toys

…as defined by this week’s Chewsday Challenge.

The problem with limiting yourself to one brand with a price ceiling is that few watchmakers offer much in style variation.  To be frank, all Rolex watches look pretty much the same to me.  And just offering the same watch with different face colors or metals (gold, steel whatever) doesn’t really qualify as variation, as such.

Vacheron Constantin, for example, has several lovely watch types and variations, but only if you’re not averse to having your nose suddenly start bleeding.

So here’s my choice of watch brand:  Omega — specifically, these variations, all of which are available new, i.e. unworn:

I am somewhat constrained by my unshakable insistence on manual-wind operation, and it seems that for watches costing less than $25,000 (much less, in Omega’s case, bless ’em), there are precious few choices of brand.  Sure, most offer many variations, except for that manual-wind thing.

Still, the above three are nice-looking and of decent quality, and I’d be happy to wear any one of them on my wrist.

Incidentally, if I were to go for used (secondhand [sic]), there’s always Patek Philipe:

…each of which is so beautiful they make my mouth water.  I don’t even want to think what they would cost new — assuming Patek even still made them with manual-winding operation, that is.

And there you have it.  My (post-Lotto) watch collection(s).

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Consolidation

Marketing / Advertising, Retailing, Toys

According to this rather lengthy video, Rolex is dropping hundreds of smaller Rolex “dealer” outlets and instead creating Rolex megastores in “prime” locations such as London (!!!) and Manhattan (!!!).

It would appear that the main reason behind this is that Rolex wants to protect their brand by limiting the number of outlets, dropping smaller stores (regardless of relationship longevity) so that they can control the whole “Rolex buying experience” and provide their customers with the proper treatment with fine ambience, better-trained staff and so on.  Also, these larger stores can carry the extensive Rolex range that a smaller store couldn’t.

It all sounds well and good, except that the actual reason, it seems to me, is that during the sales spike caused largely by the Great Covid Panic of 2020, the people who really made money weren’t Rolex themselves but the profiteers who bought their watches and resold them on the “grey” market — and Rolex, like Ferrari, wants to keep as much of the market to themselves.  (Same tactics, different product.)

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing. As long as there are people willing to pay the inflated prices of their products, then good luck to them.

My own personal take on the thing is that I’m indifferent because (regardless of any lottery winning) I would never be a Rolex  sucker  buyer in the same way as Ferrari would forever be outside my list of automotive choices (except maybe a Dino, although given the current price list of same… nah, never mind).  Sorry, I’m no longer impressed by brand names, especially when the brand’s “value” is artificially pumped up by fools and suckers with more money than sense.  And even more so when the brand operates in a commodity category like watches.

And finally, I happen to think that those big, blocky things like the Submariner are just… ugly.  I’m not a scuba diver so I’ll never need one, and anyway, there are other watches just as good for half the price and a tenth of the Rolex attitude (once again, see:  Ferrari dealers).

A pox on all their houses.

Something Different

Toys

Even though I’ve pretty much decided that the Tissot Classic is my watch for life (background here), that doesn’t stop me looking around at other watches.  And if I’m doing the Lottery Dream stuff, I look even more.

Here’s my problem (stop me if you’ve heard this before):  my criteria are firm, and immutable.  They are:

  • manual wind only
  • as plain as possible (no silly moon phases, tourbouillons, etc.)
  • no “diver” watches
  • no steel straps
  • no gold case:  rose, yellow, white, whatever;  steel only
  • no “trendy” brands (which would include Rolex, Omega, Tudor etc.)
  • cost:  no higher than $6,000 (in the Lottery Dream category)

Then in my wanderings, I discovered Schaumburg watches, and I got excited.  From the blurb:

Schaumburg watches have been produced since 1998 in a small factory in the idyllic town of Rinteln, in the Schaumburg region of Germany. This exceptional watch brand specializes in producing mechanical watches of high quality and attractive design. Every Schaumburg watch is handmade, which is why the company’s watches are true works of art. Schaumburg watches are exceptional in every detail.

So, to recap:

  • New company (!)
  • German
  • hand-made
  • reasonably priced (for a hand-made watch)
  • high quality
  • interesting designs — different, even eccentric, but not self-consciously so)
  • hand-wound (also automatics, but no interest in those, of course).

Try these two.  First, the Unique 30:

…and the Unique 33:

I like that Industrial Revolution look, very much.  Had they been around back then, I feel that Isambard Brunel would have worn one, without question.  (They make IWC’s Engineer line look quite fussy, even effeminate.)

And each Unique is under the magic $6,000 mark.

Now… where did I put that lottery ticket?

Back Story & The Brand

Toys

After I talked about my favorite watch of all time — Tissot Heritage — a couple of people wrote to me to ask about the brand.  (I’m astonished that people had never heard of the amazing company, which sells more watches than any other Swiss brand, period.)

Here’s Teddy Baldassarre’s take on the whole thing, and like his other discourses, it’s excellent.  For those with a limited budget but are interested in a super-accurate chronometer, by the way, it’s worth noting that Tissot makes the cheapest such in the whole market, and its performance equals many of the (very) spendy models like Rolex.


(They typically cost between $800 to $2,000 depending on the model — but the chronometer’s action is automatic, and therefore of no interest to me, a self-winder devotee.)

Yer welcome.

Not Interested

Guy Stuff, Toys

Never having had the financial wherewithal to buy any upper-end watches, I’ve never let that stop me from looking at the market — just as not ever having had the money to buy a Ferrari hasn’t stopped me from looking at expensive sports cars and that market.

Yet even if I had the funds, I’d never buy a Rolex watch.

I know, Rolexes are (generally speaking) well-made timepieces and may be worth the moolah necessary for their acquisition.  All the cool kids wear them — which is actually a negative for me, of course — but besides that, if you want to get a watch that will essentially last your entire life, the Rolex is a good bet.  And of course, if your hobbies take you underwater, then Rolex reigns supreme.  (If like me you’re unwilling to venture into an unfamiliar medium filled with things with teeth and murderous intent, then obviously this would not be a factor.)

But the reason that I’d never buy a Rolex is that they’re big, chunky and bulky, and while that may be the current fashion (another reason for my unwillingness), I’m more of the dress watch persuasion.

And of course, because I prefer a manual-wind over automatic- and quartz (battery-powered) watches is yet another reason.  (Of digital watches we shall not speak:  in other words, if you want to extol all the virtues of your $25 Casio-type watch, please restrain yourself because that just irritates me.)

Here’s a typical Rolex (I say “typical” because like members of certain ethnic groups, they all look the same to me):

Oh, and did I mention that I can’t wear metal bracelet straps because I have hairy arms, and the stupid things catch on and tug at the hairs until I rip the thing off and throw it across the room?  (I know, the Rolex might survive such an action, but whatever.)  It’s pretty much leather for me, in other words, and Rolex doesn’t like their watches to be thus equipped, so screw ’em.

Finally, like the aforementioned Ferrari, Rolex also plays reindeer games with potential customers, restricting access to certain models, thereby driving up the price and thus making them all the more “exclusive” (i.e. only available to the gullible and status-hungry). I’m not going to play that game, ever, in any market.

And for those who want something of quality like a Rolex but of sane pricing, here are some alternatives across all five popular Rolex models:  Submariner, Datejust, GMT, Explorer and Daytona.  I’m not in the market for any of the alternatives, of course, because they’re all still chunky and use metal bracelets straps.  For the watch geeks on the same topic, there’s always Teddy Baldassarre.

My biggest fear is that my beloved Tissot Heritage model may one day break irretrievably, and I won’t be able to find a replacement.  #Discontinued #OldSpiceFreshRedux


(yeah, that’s my hairy wrist)