Hello Team,
Hope your week is going well1.
Something a little different this week, as I continue to find my feet with this weekly newsletter/summary/blog/whatever you’d like to call it.
The first two sections will be short opinion pieces from me and the last the usual “what I read this week on ACM”.
By sharing my opinion, I hope we can share ideas so why not drop a comment at the end of this post to let me know your thoughts!
That said, let’s jump straight into 3-Watch Thursday #8 … it’s quite a long one!
Custom Watches Are Awesome – And Should No Longer Be Taboo
This piece by Nick Marino over at Hodinkee was shared a couple of weeks ago and Chris Hall over at The Fourth Wheel shared his opinion, so it’s likely you’re familiar with the article.
In short, Nick and Chris detail the current state of the market for watch customisation and speculate as to why watch companies want to stifle consumer customisation.
If you missed them, you can catch up here and here.
Both pieces are great, but I think there’s another part of the watch customisation scene that’s been missed.
User mods.
Nick touches on this in his piece with Seiko mods wherein there are communities that exist both online and in person for people to share their creations. But there’s another modding scene that doesn’t have as large a community. It’s one where a user might modify a watch themselves or with the help of a watchmaker.
I first became aware of this trend when the Tudor P01 was released. @misterenthusiast modded their P01 into the prototype that it was based on. Their process involved scratching up the case on concrete, baking the dial to make the lume all creamy and scuffing the strap so that the watch looked battle hardened.
More recently, you’re probably aware of @secondeseconde on Instagram. Their designs are super cool and they stay up to date with current watch trends, often poking fun at watch company and media. Their work has drawn attention recently and collaborations have followed with releases with both Bamford and companies such as Nivada and Sequent.
Whilst these collaborations are interesting they aren’t user customised, the buyer is buying a product with a certain design that they like. This isn’t to take away from their work as they continue to modify watches to a design they like and share them on Instagram (the focus of this piece).
Another example is @mysteryshore ‘s Speedmaster with the modded chronograph seconds hand. It’s a subtle mod and I assume a nod towards the Ultraman. It’s also a bit of an FU at the mainstream watch community who seem to get upset with non-OEM parts.
Nobody needs a watch and watches are luxury products.
Watches are also incredibly personal products, and you should be able to change and modify them to your hearts content without criticism or backlash from the “community”.
I really hope in the near future we see more people attempting their own mods of iconic watches. If anything it’ll make the subject less taboo.2
Data and Watches
A couple of weeks ago I was chatting with @edinbrughtimepieces about data in the watch space.
It’s something we both agree is untapped within the watch space with everything from tracking how manufacturing has changed over time, through to tracking the price of references with time.
Both Subdial and Chrono24 have their own in-house data teams that work on the later. I’d almost be certain that ACM, the auction houses and others have their own in-house data teams working on other problems with the data they generate, but as consumers we’re exposed to very little.
That’s something I hope will change.
As I’ve been learning more and more about data and data techniques, the projects that I’ve been applying said techniques to are about watch data.
While I’m not in the position to share the details of what I’m working on, I will when I have enough to an article about. I’ll also share my GitHub repo for anyone interested in what I’ve done.
That’s besides the point. Even though I don’t have anything to share right now, @siemswatches does.
Head over to their Instagram here and check out their posts on their blog. @siemswatches has used Chrono24 data to generate figures that show interesting trends over time for things such as dial colours and case materials in certain watches.
Their work is both interesting and inspiring.
I hope you enjoy it when you go to read it here.
The Balance of Symmetry and Asymmetry in Dial Design
It’s already been quite a long newsletter this week, so I won’t keep you for much longer.
I just wanted to share this piece by ACM that I read and enjoyed this week about symmetry in dial design.
It’s an interesting article featuring one of my favourite watches in the Lange 1.
Whilst a good read, I think there might’ve been some more scope to discuss other aesthetic compositions etc. I know through photography there are principles with composing photos in certain ways and I’d be willing to bet that there are similar underlying principles in dial design.
That said, it’s a solid read and you can find it here.
That’s all from me this week.
I hope you enjoyed the first two pieces from me!
If you’ve got any thoughts or comments, please drop them below or send a DM my way.
Other than that, have a great second half of your week and a lovely weekend.
Catch you next Thursday!
For those interested mine has been good. I’ve been able to fully throw myself into my Master’s project, but don’t worry because there’s still time to write this newsletter :))
Side note on this subject. Having seen the Baltic x ACM release I would love to see one of the normal Baltic MR01 watches where someone brushes the polished surfaces like in the collaboration. In my opinion this would look really good.
Love the idea of modded/customised/distressed watches, it’s always a positive when people take charge of their own stuff, and it brings much needed humour & variety to horology. But it also puts me in mind of tattoos-you have a great/funny idea on Monday, and wake up on Tuesday realising it’s permanent. Not maybe in the case of replacing the minute hand, but certainly when you hold your watch to the grindstone…