Reply With QuoteYeah, Braun re-released that a few years ago and I got nostalgic and bought one. Ticking was still so loud that I had to bin it.Originally Posted by Go Big
wileeeeeey?...Surely this is a joke?Yep.
Yep Really!.....You had to ask if a "joke",sarcasm not exist in your World?.It was as plain to see had I just typed the word sarcasm over & over,in fact rather like the 100 lines we got at school!.
Last edited by P9CLY; 24th July 2020 at 12:58.
Yeah, Braun re-released that a few years ago and I got nostalgic and bought one. Ticking was still so loud that I had to bin it.
Hopefully living up to the common sobriquet
"Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action."
'Populism, the last refuge of a Tory scoundrel'.
There are two versions of their classic little alarm - a cheaper movement that ticks quite loudly, and the one marked 'Germany' on the dial indicating a German-made movement that's silent.
Brings a whole new meaning to the expression 'You've been Hodinkeed'.
Guys, I'm willing to let this one go for what it owes me, which believe me is a lot. If you have to ask you can't afford. Investment-grade piece that's value is only going to go one way. No flipping for a profit please.
^^^ Is there a special name for that font on the dial?
I think the "small number" they've managed to get hold of could be as low as two, and that's what they've sold out of.
Focus points. I never smoked but my friends did and were too cool to keep them. I saved up thousands of them thanks to them and at some point got an item worth about £25.
Yes, thanks for asking. I can't divulge the name of the celebrity typographer unfortunately, but the typeface is pretentiousmoi medium. "We're particularly proud of our 'y' which I'm sure you'll agree references back to the heyday of digital timekeeping with a cheeky nod, whilst at the same time manages to remain resolutely modern."
Last edited by gcleminson; 24th July 2020 at 13:59.
If you are an Instagram user, Horological Dicktionary has made a couple of posts on the subject, with his usual cynical and not too subtle take.
If you are not familiar with his work, it's well worth checking some of the older posts too, which are often laugh out loud funny.
Funny how that word keeps cropping up. Quote from their Wikipedia page:
No longer just perceived, but slavishly plagiarised.Clymer used Google Translate to find the most whimsical translation of "wristwatch" to deal with perceived pretension in the watch industry,
Well I much prefer mine, £20 working from a small collectibles dealer nearby.
Absolute douchebaggery.
I just love that Hodinkee have sold this on their site too...
https://shop.hodinkee.com/products/1...NXxlheClLMvXYI
Laughable
Glad it wasn't just me then!
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Their decreasing credibility is now gone
Selling the Apple Watch was a step too far - not that I dislike them at all but why would you buy one from Hodinkee?
It's a money machine now, nothing more
Clymer’’s greed has indeed reached new heights. Maybe he needs to finance another bespoke Porsche purchase?.
Most of these “Celebrity” watch sites and personalities are nothing more than charlatans that work in behalf of the dying watch industry.
Last edited by Lostintime; 24th July 2020 at 17:26.
You are surely sold out of that beauty! I am truly shocked at the quality and details of this specimen...Guys, I'm willing to let this one go for what it owes me, which believe me is a lot. If you have to ask you can't afford. Investment-grade piece that's value is only going to go one way. No flipping for a profit please.
Ben Clymer's greed or Kevin Rose's greed?
We are such snobbish snowflakes that can’t take or handle any valid criticism thrown at us!Laughable
I could help but picture myself with a mechanical wrist watch when I read this. Oh well.
I think it's the 'y' that makes it. Adds at least a grand to the price. Is that real plastic by the way?
Well I much prefer mine, £20 working from a small collectibles dealer nearby.
That's a lot nicer.
The return of the Franklin Mint. Such a comfort.
I don't get what it is and why it costs so much
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There was someone I saw of Instagram who was suggesting they'd made this thing and forgotten to fit a bell cover to the movement, and demonstrated with a similar vintage item. Without the cover you get the extended wet fart that is the Hodinkee clock, with it you get a pleasing ringing sound. So maybe they even screwed that bit up... Oh, and the typeface they witter on about is a standard off the shelf one.
But also it's pretty clear that any actual horological work on this thing is secondary to flogging lifestyle tat to people who want to role play at being sophisticated 1950s globetrotters, flying business class all over the planet for their high-powered and important job and then using the air miles to go on dream holidays every few months.
I forget who it was but I saw someone comment that there's two groups in the world of watches - watch collectors and prestige collectors. A lot of people, probably the majority, do it for their love of the subject, but there's a bunch who are only in it to stroke their egos by buying exclusive, expensive items that the average person can't get hold of. And it certainly seems like Hodinkee are trying to sell prestige these days.
PS: For $6,000 buy a JLC Atmos and use your phone as an alarm clock!
Ben Clymer has been amazingly successful at building the Hodinkee brand and monetising it. It’s been a long time since the site had anything of interest to me, and the clock is a pretty good example of how to part fools and their money.
They should be more careful, as their value as a business is linked to their reputation as being arbiters of cool.
I do like the font though!
Dave
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It’s very hard to convince someone who is raking it in that something is a bad idea.
I’ve worked with a lot of brands. This is an interesting product as an observer. The volume is low enough that there are probably enough people willing to buy that they’ll sell out. They’ll chalk it up as a success as a result, but that’s a risk on a sample size of 96 wealthy people. They may have planted a seed of doubt in the minds of a lot of their broader base that is hard to spot - although if you read Instagram it’s not THAT hard.
Time will tell. I’m curious to see what they do next. Perhaps they’ll double down and release a rose gold and peccary leather version...
Jaeger le coultre original? Thinking same with prices from £100-200.Sent from my SM-A505FN using TZ-UK mobile app
Thanks for the link to perezcope, they are getting killed on Instagram on the $6k travel clock, thoroughly deserve a good kicking. Some close up of the non existing finishing and the very poor case work.
Another image showing the "amazing" finish to the case...
Remember their hourglass rip off? This outdoes that one.
I would have thought Hodinkee will come out with a bog-standard response that there were "a few QC issues" which will be addressed, despite the fact that the thing is utter tat.
Nah it's artisinal - all part of the charm.
It's very clumsy - the numeral font isn't quite right, the proportion of the hands is all wrong, the case is a bloated parody, and the less said about the quality the better. I can see what they're trying to do, and I rather like the concept - a modern twist on the Art Deco travel clock - but the execution of that concept leaves a lot to be desired.
Original JLC travel clocks from the 30s/50s are much more elegant, and can be had for a fraction of the price. Now, if Hodinkee and JLC had reissued something along the lines of the following, I can't help thinking they'd do very well indeed:
Just had an entertaining read of comments section of the Hodinkee instagram page - literally every subsequent post is being hi-jacked by travel clock comments. Wonder if they’ll have the guts to address the fiasco directly, or just hope they’ll fade away over time (which doesn’t look like it’s going to happen quickly)!
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Wow, this has turned into a car crash of epic proportions. At first reading the Instagram comments was hilarious but after a while I started to feel almost sorry for them, seeing the crowd turn like that. Then again, TRAVEL CLOCK.
Complete own goal by surpressing comments on the travel clock post. It's just meant the comments have spread like wildfire across the whole of their instagram.
It really is. I mean, I can actually distinguish between the hour and minute hands for starters.
Given that I've started to see Instagram posts suggesting the "vintage" movements in the clock are actually from no earlier than the 1980s and possibly as new as the 2000s, I think they're in for a rough ride. Couldn't tell you how true that accusation is, I don't know the area well enough.
The Hoodwink team have only got themselves to blame on this and certainly no one is feeling sorry for them for what they have tried to pull here regards this LE.
Hodinkee might have started out with the intention of Horological education for the in crowd but with Clymer coming from a Finance background it would certainly not be long with the growing popularity that the Hodinkee team looked to make it a money maker.
With the greater influence of the big brands and no doubt a lucrative brown envelope pushed into the Hodinkee office from them, Hodinkee has become nothing more than a shop window influencer for the big manufacturers and Clymer has been very happy to fill his pockets.
Once Hodinkee started to diverge from the Horological and into the lifestyle features, it was time to leave. They started to believe the hype that they were the arbiters of cool and could pretty much sell snow to the Eskimos. There is nothing cool about Clymer and the other beards at Hodinkee and they should remember that talking or writing about a cool subject does not make you it.
It's almost as making money was bad.
Someone who lies about the little things will lie about the big things too.
Tbh I quite like a lot of Hodinkee’s output although I do roll my eyes at some things like when they go on about how a certain watch goes well with a certain button-down shirt.
These clocks are stupid but they aren’t forcing anyone to buy one, and people apparently are buying at least some (those manufactured?) so you can’t blame them for making hay whilst the sun shines. I think some of us should remember the hyperbole surrounding watches we own ourselves, although Hodinkee often take it to a new level I do think they are generally a good thing for the watch community on the whole.
And I think the witch hunt on Instagram is a pretty ugly example of the toxicity of that particular platform and social media generally.
Have you actually looked at it?
Absolutely, I have.
I find some of the much-coveted pieces (YM II, Skydweller) equally ugly and overpriced. To each their own.
Okay,so trying to put a positive spin on this.We all have too many wristwatches so where next? How about a travel clock you can have sitting on display and ticking away.Does anyone know of another travel clock that's new and reasonable price? I would be interested.
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Jup it's called bringing a second watch with you and using that.
Not sure about new, but plenty of georgeous Jaegers on eBay (and I suppose all overpriced, but the who ever said buying vintage was easy?).
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Art-Deco-...e/321898590910
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jaeger-Le...d/273485520990
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jaeger-Le...h/293048505081
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/VINTAGE-J...E/113657418373
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-J...h/363038649599
Thanks - there doesn't appear to be anything new though.Weird how certain things go out of fashion.Sent from my SM-A505FN using TZ-UK mobile app
Perhaps Hodinkee’s next move is to sell carriage clocks or cuckoo clocks to hipsters.
Overpriced in relation to their contemporaries / stable mates do you mean? I agree on a purely aesthetic level on the two you've mentioned (and a couple more besides) but I'm not aware of any accusations the movements, finishing, etc, are not up to par. I think the main issue folk seem to be having with this travel clock is that the movement and quality in general are not all they're purported to be, relative to the asking price.
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