This week on aBlogtoWatchWeekly, Ariel calls in from a cabin in the woods, David ishome in Budapest sipping a hot beverage, Rick is at the farm office, and atired Ripley appears to be at home in L.A. — all reprobate seals clapping in,says Rick. Host-with-the-most Rick takes time to explore each person's space,perhaps to delay what's coming next. To wit, David has found a Morgan-Stanley2023-2024 report comparing watch brands, which reveals that the top 50 brandsdropped production of watches by more that 2 million between 2023 and 2024 — astat that causes some alarm — for everyone but Ariel, whose interpretation isthat some of these brands are playing with the notion of scarcity as amarketing strategy. Interesting.... What do the others think of this notion?Rick is struck by the fact the Zenith produced on 10,000 watches. "Shouldwe only talk about Rolex?" he ponders. The only brand that surprises Arielis Tudor, which dropped production by nearly 40 percent. Since Tudor doesn'tget as much"free marketing" as Rolex, maybe it needs to do more onthe marketing front. While you all bookmark this report to ponder later, theteam moves on to discuss some recent articles, starting with, speak of thedevil, the Tudor Black Bay Ceramic "Visa Blue" Master Chronometer,which Ariel likes because it's not for everyone — a "Swiss middle fingerto Omega," as he puts it. Next up is the Rolex Day-Date 36 with Roman Numerals, which David has afascination with — specifically, the deconstructed Roman numerals. AudemarsPiguet released an all-black ceramic Royal Oak Offshore, consensus about which seems tobe that, while it's not particularly new and creative, it's really pretty watchthat honors the brand name in refinement, if ambitiously priced. March L.A.B's new watch, whose name is toolong for Rick and Ariel to bother with, has more fonts than Rick can count. Theshow concludes with a riff on a Mission to Uranus. You'll have to listen to the show find out what that's about.
