Who Watches the Watchmen (Our Chit Chat Thread)

Hmm that's odd alright Ni. I've had a couple of these, the first I saw them was on the MWR forum. IIRC they were French navy straps originally. Any I've seen were like your black one. TBH I don't know how you could even use your grey/orange one comfortably. 🤔 Well all you could do is hook it into the buckle I suppose, but as S noted not comfortable. Though I stuck mine in a drawer as TBH even the correct ones I found uncomfortable.

Down the years I've had a couple of strap fails, including some high quality ones. EG way back I got a Jurgens of Germany G10 made from the leather from a BUND pilot's jacket(As you do. it was late, wine may have been taken. We've all been there, even the teetotalers 😂). 200 odd quid IIRC. Anyway it showed up beautifully made, minus one of the keeper rings. And was the wrong size. Now he was very quick to sort it, but it can happen.

The above said, values have softened a little with them. They were higher during the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 for example. Plus many areas of the vintage market are stagnant. Fewer being sold and fewer buyers overall.

Mick Jagger's generation were war babies and they grew up with rationing until 1954 so that would likely have had an effect. The British bands of the 1960's were pretty much all rail thin. I was watching that Beatles Get Back sessions flic recently and with some exceptions like their road manager who was a bigger built lad pretty much everyone you saw would be seen as 'skinny' today. Then again the US didn't have rationing and on average they were thinner than today too. Irish people of the same vintage were thin as well. People getting fatter seems to come in post the 1970's. Food got cheaper, more sugar got added(fat is expensive, sugar is dirt cheap), more people getting takeaways and eating out and a wider variety of once very novel foods came along.

I read an article from somewhere I can't remember that noted that outside of actually very obese people( of which there are more) those over forty haven't really gotten that much fatter over time, it's in those under forty where it's become more of a thing. Essentially it said we're getting 'middle aged spread' at younger ages. It can depend on culture too. Most of this is in the west, Asians haven't gained bulk to nearly the same degree. Even within Europe there are differences. The French buck the overall trend by being generally thinner and staying thinner throughout their lifetimes. I've read other research that shows things like oestrogens from plastics, foods etc are causing men to get fatter younger and testosterone dropping over generations is very much a thing. A 60 year old in the 1980's had a higher testosterone level than a 60 year old today. Oestrogen mimics in our environment, higher stress, crappy diets seem to be the general causes.

A new hodinkee vid showed up in my 'Tube feed last night. Minstrel Ed Sheeran being interviewed by Ben Clymer. Lots of Patek talk among other stuff, but what surprised me was an almost zero mention of Rolex. That must be a record on that channel and certainly a surprise in the current climate. I also noted they mentioned how IWC have fallen off the radar, with Clymer saying how that when he was working in the financial biz they were the 'anti Rolex' that the hipper guys would sport. That must have been in the early 00's. Back then on the forums a very regular thing to read would be "which should I buy IWC or Rolex?" The answer was usually the former. These days they're almost never mentioned in the new watch hobby, or for that matter the vintage end of things.

Going by the video it seems he went straight from a cheap fashion type watch via a Hublot that he apologised for 😁 to Pateks and Richard Mille. I think he said he has an IWC Big Pilot and buys IWC for friends and crew(as one does). He also suggested he's backed off from Mille as they're a bit too "look how much this cost" these days.