Welcome to this Watch LIVE. Hi, I'm Lydia Winters.
And I'm Boo booey. Hey, Boo.
Yeah. Have you ever made a mistake?
No, I don't make mistakes. What are?
You talking? Well, I'm going to need you to
answer yes. OK, the sake of the podcast.
Let's pretend yes, I've made a mistake.
Have you ever made a mistake that turned out to be super
impressive and notable? Probably not.
Wait, yes. Wait, no, you actually have an
example. Fine, go ahead.
But it's also very stupid at the same time.
OK, I like. So I was very young, and when I
was younger I rode motorcycles. That's not the thing that's
stupid. Lots of people are riding
motorcycles, OK. My friends thought I was silly
for being like an old man because I was in my young 20s,
but I owned like a big old man bike is a is a Yamaha Venture,
which is similar to like a Honda Goldwing.
It had a CD player, right? So I like that.
Big old bike. I was, you know, it made fun of
a little for that, but I didn't care 'cause I was riding in
comfort. So friend of mine, he had just
put a bunch of money into his car and he's like, I could beat
you in a race. And I was like, look, here's the
thing. I know I have an old man bike,
but it's a bike. Yeah, it's faster.
It's faster, just period. It's faster.
Like it's got AV 6 and it's a motorcycle.
And so he's like, all right, let's race.
So we went to race. The mistake is that you were
racing. That was the stupid.
Part. OK, OK.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, no, but the mistake
is we were at a red light. Light turned green.
Yeah, we both go vroom. Yeah, I lifted the front tire
rib and did a wheelie, not intentionally.
I have never my life done a wheelie only on a bicycle and I
was never good on. An old man bike.
And had to hit the brake to get the front back down and then hit
the gas again because I'm still in a race the whole time.
Freaking out like this is one of those things where you just kind
of feel like you probably died and now you're you're dreaming.
Oh, OK. You know, just one of those.
Old things, one of those things I won the race and before I got
to say like, yeah, I know, I almost fell and died there.
Yeah. Everyone was like, that was so.
Cool. So I was like, yeah, you know, I
just thought I'd show up a little bit.
Before I won the race. Before I won the.
Race. OK, so it's a total mistake that
did end up being impressive. Well, so that leads us into
today's episode, Our friend Tom wrote in our group chat and
asked about a watch on Corona 24 that had an aerodial.
Good old aerodial. So this was a Rolex OP silver 41
millimeter and it had double indices at the 10 instead of the
nine. It was from 2021.
And his question to the group and for the podcast was like,
what do you think of this? Like would you buy an Aerodial?
And I first of all my first thought was like I have
literally never thought of this before an Aerodial.
Wait, you haven't seen these? But I never thought about
whether I wanted one or, you know, like I never even.
You've never pondered. I've never pondered it and now I
wanted to deeply ponder it deeply.
Although my answer was like similar to other people, which
is that particular 1 does not look good, so no thank you.
That's it. Looks very off.
I think an aerodial can be cool. This is not cool.
OK, double indices at 10. It just looked.
Off, yeah, but I mean that is the point of the error dial.
The not the point. So an error dial, as the name
very much describes, is a dial with an error on it.
But of course as collectors those errors sometimes become
features. So the like a bug becomes a
feature. We talk about that a lot in game
development and this, in this case, it's kind of, it makes it
more unique or special, but. It is unique because there's not
a lot of those out there. But mostly they become more
unique and legendary if there's like a few of them, a lot of
times I think or it has to be a known error because that's the
part where when we're looking at this.
We have to drum up that known this.
Rando Chrono 24 listing and they're like, hey, this is more
expensive because it's an error dial.
You're like, but who? So this is OK, This whole
concept is not new, no, right? And it's across many industries.
Yeah, yeah. When I was a kid now, and this
stuff happened from before my time.
So when I was a kid, I heard stories of things that were
before my time. I am not this old, right, But
that there were like, baseball cards that had been printed
wrong. Yeah.
It made them worth tons of money.
So much more. In my time, there'd be comic
books where there'd be error, yeah, cover prints or something
printed backwards somewhere within it or a page missing or
the, the these little errors that there wasn't an entire
massive batch of right. Had to be rare enough.
But it had to be known special. But it had to have, like,
generated enough controversy to be known those ended up being
worth lots of money. Yeah.
And that happens now in watches.
Yeah, that happens in watches, I think.
I mean, it happens in any hobby where you're so into the
details, which obviously in watches we are, I really like.
So when I was looking this up, there's also a notable pair of
Air Jordan Ones. A customer in Italy received
them and the factory defect was an upside down Nike Swoosh logo.
This sold, they sold about six years ago for 900 times the
original retail price for $146,000.
I think The thing is so I 'cause I was like, OK, there's a lot of
things that are defective or have errors and then like they
don't become valuable. I was thinking about, you know,
the the Seikos with the bezel that doesn't align.
It's. Not just Seiko.
It's not just Seiko. But they're the ones that
everyone. They are the ones that everyone
picks on. But like there has to be a
desirability, a limited amount and then an error.
So that's why I feel that a lot of the watch errors that are
discussed are Rolex related or sometimes like the.
Tech it has to feel like that there is a that the error is
also going like the error should surprise you like what What I've
seen reading many Reddit posts about these things is just
people in disbelief what this could even or.
Like could this even be true? Number one that but I feel
there. Let let's say it's a micro brand
that does this. If you'd be like, oh, they just
made a mistake, no big deal. Right.
Yeah, exactly. Just a mistake, no big deal it
or not even a micro brand, but just other brands.
But when you're at the level of Rolex, Patek a la Unzona the and
at their price point, then you are expecting perfection and
they are known for perfection. So then when there's a mistake,
you're like, what? Impossible or or.
Did someone just fake? This, yeah.
Right, because that one where the double indices or the double
index is at 10 instead of nine. I'm like this could just be
fake. Yeah, that's the thing, It's
hard. That's what I mean about the
known. At some point there has to be a
really good confirmation of it. So it's some interesting ones.
We went through a lot of different articles.
There's a Rolex Air King 99 or 99.
Well, that one. Became famous because of Watch
Finder. And it's just that instead of
the three, because it has the 369, it's a nine instead of the.
3969. Which I'm like, you know what if
you're like area code was 969 in the US, you're like, I gotta
have it. My favorite number is 969 and.
I mean, it, it it also the that specific 9 in that specific font
looks very much like a three. There's like one tiny thing you
change and it becomes a three. Yeah.
Is it so? That's an interesting one.
Again, not sure I'd want it though.
I think that's the other part is like, do you like?
This one I'd be much more down with the 9691.
The the 9:00 but does the error like really speak to you?
I think that would be the important part of these.
So, OK, another kind of like it's not one.
It's been a series of them over the years, separated by about a
decade each, which is very. Suspicious Who has a conspiracy
theory? Daytona's without Daytona
printed on the dot. Oh, that's cool.
It's happened to multiple ones. There was one from like 1999,
there was 1 from 2000 something I I found one that they tried to
sell at Christie's last year but it looks like it didn't sell
which maybe they were asking too much.
They were, you know, whatever the minimum reserve was, might
have been too much. It did not sell.
But a few years back, one did sell at Anti Quorum in 2017.
So this was before watches became kind of like the way they
are now. And back then, it was hard to
get Rolex, Daytona's, but not the level it became, you know,
during the pandemic. This one sold for 43,000 Swiss
francs. No Daytona on the dial is a
reference 16520 from the year 2000 and it did clearly sell for
much more because of the No Daytona on it.
Yeah, I mean, there was also an example of Patek Philippe that
the the Aquanaut Travel Time Advanced Research 5650 G and it
just doesn't have an index like a 51st times.
Oh, like a. 51 minute one, Yeah. Wait, no, it's the 50. 4. 3.
Yeah, 53. I had to look at this for so
long and I was just like, I'm not good.
At this. Puzzle.
Pictures where What's different between the photos and They're
the same photo, but in this case you can see clearly the 53 index
is missing but. But then I'm also so like on the
the critical side of me, I'm like, could you imagine you have
this cool watch, but you're like, hey, hey, do you know,
like how many people do you run across that could actually
figure out what is like wrong? But that that's also fun in this
article on Sotheby's. And it was written by Stephen
Pulverit. There was an awesome quote by a
friend of ours, Michael Walhagen, working out a South of
bees for the watches. And he said, I believe we can
all appreciate a human mistake. Ultimately, that's proof of
handcraft and what watchmaking is all about.
And then I really like, I was like, oh, that makes mistakes.
So like. Yeah, robots don't make
mistakes. No, exactly.
Well, they yeah take over the. Years.
But I guess that's not a mistake then.
That's just like they're programming.
But I found that like a really romantic way of thinking about
watches. It's kind of like I said, you're
like pouring over details. You're excited by all of these
things, and then to think like a human mistake is about that
handcraft. Yeah.
And so. You've been thinking about that
a lot like as you're making things.
Yes, I made it another chair this weekend.
We have two chairs now. I have two.
Chairs, Justin. Well, OK, there are other chairs
in the house, but there are two chairs that are, and this one I
chose pieces of wood that have more what would technically be
defects in them. And I love it because it's just
more character. And I think if you're going to
sell a chair like this, like at a big store, then you'll
probably want things that are a little bit less character for
for the most part. But since I'm making these for
home, then having those defects in it, when someone sees that,
it's like, OK, that's real wood. Like someone had to make this
it. Becomes special in its own.
Right, different so. Error becomes something.
But I also have very specific experience.
Of course you do though, because I mean, you're blue.
How? Defects get out into the world.
OK, there was a time. This is like 20 years ago,
right? I managed a literal department
of people whose job it was to stop defective products from
being sold to customers. OK, Like that was their entire
job. It was called the repackaging
department, right? That I ran for a while.
I I did other things there too, but I did oversaw the
repackaging department for a while for eyewear.
OK. For Oakley.
Oh yeah. Oakley Boy.
That was all I wanted to say. Oakley Boy.
So that that repackaging department is a not very fancy
name for the department that took in returns, fix them up to
be sold as new again because these weren't worn, but they may
have been tried on. They may have been handled in a
store. Mostly they were stores would
send product back that perhaps they had overstocked and didn't
sell. We repackaged them, send them
out to different stores. That's basically how it works,
right? So we had a bunch of people,
they'd inspect the products. A very, very difficult job.
I mean, looking at for tiny scratches, right, on lenses and
little all, all different kinds of things, mainly on the lenses
and frames. I mean, that's what glasses are,
lenses and frames. And then replace anything that's
bad. If a lens is bad, you pop it
out, pop in a new one, right? Inspect, move on, right?
Put it in a new box, new label, ship them out.
But OK, sometimes you find defects.
They could be scratches, but you could even find defects in
manufacturing. OK, that should have been.
That should have been caught the first time it was sold, right?
And we use the same standard that they did for quality
control. And quality control is the
control of quality. It is a filter that your
products go through before they go out to the market and you
have to kind of make like a decision on how for the price
point, for your reputation, for the brand, for the, the, the
profit you're looking for all of these things.
And then you're like, OK, well, here is our minimum acceptable
quality, right? So defects are going to get out
there, but what you get to choose how many defects are
acceptable to you. So like you had all these people
do all this work and then it would they, they do one big a
cart of glasses, which is like 200 glasses.
Then that cart would get pushed over and a quality assurance
person would then check would then check some of them.
OK. Because yeah, you're trying to.
They're not well because that was the standard that we had
decided. So this person has already
checked every single one. Then that person will check a
percentage of them, I believe. I can't remember everything but
like this is 20 years ago, but like 20% OK and.
Then you pick 20 because you said 20 years ago.
Maybe I did. It's possible, but they would
check, right? And if they would find a defect
out of the 20% that they checked, then they would send it
back and the whole thing would have to be gone through again.
Of course. See.
So like that we have chosen. But obviously if you're only
checking 20%, that means. They're still pretty.
Sure, defects are. And that person's also just a
human, and they could make mistakes.
Yeah. So like, obviously you just have
to choose as a business. What level of mistakes?
It's just a filter and you get to choose how dense that filter
is. With a super dense filter less
gets like the output is much slower which makes it more
expensive. So you could design A process
that really allows like almost 0 defects to get out there, but it
just would cost even more money and no one, I mean who knows,
maybe some of them are attempting that, but obviously
they haven't perfected it yet because defects still get out
there. But you said every decade or so
a Rolex Daytona get. Well, OK.
Oh yeah. I said there's a.
Weird version. Wouldn't it be fun if like they,
they actually had a perfect quality control process, but
they just every once in a while they're like, we're gonna.
Take off that Daytona logo. Put one of these little weirdos
out there and see how it goes now.
But The thing is, you actually have to do.
It's not like you can do one. No, because you need.
Because not all of them will be detected.
No. Some will just ship to an AD and
then be sold to a customer who will customer just wear it every
day for the rest of their life. Never will notice that something
is weird about. It until one of us watch nerds
is like, hey, did you notice? Excuse me?
I like your watch, man. Oh, did you notice?
It's defective? Yeah.
What a cool error. Yeah.
Yeah, highly unlikely on most errors.
And then it would just go in for service.
And then in service, it would probably be caught and then
replaced. And so, so you'd have to put out
quite a few, let's say 1A year, right?
And then once a decade you get to have this whole big story
with all this lore. And OK, this stuff interesting.
Yeah, I'm just saying. I'm just saying if I owned one
of these businesses, I might, I might, I might find fun in that.
OK. I'm going to just keep thinking
of that sort of romantic side of that, you know, that these
mistakes can be special and they're it's proof unless
they're unattractive. Like yeah of.
Course no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yes. But it just makes me think about
how we all love watches. We pour over the most minute
details. What like during watches and
wonders? It's like the smallest thing on
a new release, a re release, a running change.
I mean, all I could talk about was the different color
variation of the bezel on the green Submariner, you know, so
it to me it's really fun because it means you care about there's
a lot. Yeah, you care about the
details. One thing I will say, because
the jobs of quality control people, they're difficult, Yes,
you're often looking at the same thing.
Over and over. Yeah, and over.
And that's all day. You clock in, you look.
At the sometimes it's harder to spot the mistakes.
And not just that, I look at some of these mistakes, like a
missing Daytona or 99, and you realize many people saw that
watch before it ever shipped. Exactly.
Yeah. And then multiple people saw it
before it got into the hands of a customer.
Right. But.
Everyone's looking for specific things and you get blindness to
what you're not looking for. So if you're the person who's
there to check and see if there's dust in there, you're
not also. Looking.
To see if the three is a nine, right?
And so you get blindness to those other things because you
are there to do a certain job and you have to focus on that.
When you zoom in, then as soon as you zoom out you see other
things because. We would see that in in.
Product design. For sure, but also with the
Oakley sunglasses, you'd have someone send something through
and then it's like, wait, this has completely the wrong Oakley
logo on the glasses. But they weren't looking for
that because that was such a rare defect that you just like
wouldn't even think to look for it as a defect.
So I, I can see how these things happen.
And I don't think it's like some huge failure.
I just think it's fun. Yeah.
So our question gonna keep happening, Our question to you
is error dials true or false? No, I'm just gonna do.
True or false? I just like, are they all a lie?
No. What do you think about that?
Would you buy one? Yeah.
So interesting.
Depends on the error. Yeah, I think I'm a no though.
Bye everyone, bye.