By Allen Farmelo
A podcast about watches, how they work, and why they fascinate us.
Allen and David discuss their simultaneous breakthroughs in their personal collections, with David going deep on very specific vintage Seikos and Allen finally admitting that the Cartier Tank is his favorite watch of all time, and thus worthy of his...
Times are crazy, and our watches can provide the steadiness we may be lacking. This is the second of Allen's horological meditations, and for this one he breaks out his Strat and improvises some spacey stuff with the hope of...
For the most part, these are great watches, but Allen flipped them anyways. Often Allen is raising funds and making room for something new, but he is also rolling up on a new collecting ethos - or two. Get a...
As Elvis once said, "Let's get way way gone for a change." Patina is an observable effect of entropy, or the ongoing disordering of the universe. Allen worms his way into this topic and comes out the other side concluding...
Allen's interview with Martha Roesler of The Coral Restoration Foundation covers the science of reefs, how recreational SCUBA divers can help them, how Oris has been supporting the CRF, and much more. Allen revamps his call to listeners to come...
Why do we focus on having just one personal style? Why do we fracture our communities endlessly into smaller and smaller tribes? How do our personal aesthetics signal tribal membership? Why is carbon fiber so divisive among watch wonks? Allen...
Men's style writer and historian, Pedro Mendes, talks with Allen about watches, men's style, environmentalism, racial tension, gender, and so much more. You'll also get some amazing leads on where to look for your next bit of lifetime-lasting tailored garb.
Today, June 2nd 2020, is Blackout Tuesday. We are facing real and present dangers to our freedoms and to justice with an oppressive state, and any single person who benefits from the status quo is enjoying a luxury at the...
N. American CEO of ORIS Watches, VJ Geronimo, visits Allen at BTD HQ for a spirited discussion about the history of Oris, the company's environmental conservation efforts, the new Divers 65 made in collaboration with Japan's Momotaro Jeans...and much more....
What started as a cute aphorism has grown into a socio-economic theory. Allen works his way through the assumptions that make up this theory, drawing on personal memory, Marxist and Anarchist failures, Pan-Indigenous Environmentalism, and, of course, horological love. The...
On the surface, owning a watch isn't a complex thing. Dig a little deeper into our motives for owning any given watch, and things get complicated fast. Allen explores the mental gymnastics involved in picking out your next watch, and...
It's Episode #30, and Allen takes you through 30 incredible watches that constitute some of his Holy Grail Watches, of which he seems to have an endless supply built up from years of adoring incredible timepieces he can't afford. The...
Why do watch aficionados hate on refinished dials so vehemently? How can these otherwise astute folks miss the incredible artistry involved in refinishing dials, and the layered narratives (or mysteries!) that so often accompany a refinished dial. Allen takes listeners...
Allen takes you on a meditation into your watch, accompanied by a remix of the Graph Rabbit song "Only Fields" from their album Snowblind. This is an opportunity to seek solace and peace in your watch's benign and reliable nature.
Allen falls into the bizarre and powerful orbit of beautifully aged vintage Rolex steel sport watches, those nearly unobtainable, very expensive timepieces that form an elite class of collectibles. From within this orbit, our host attempts to decode what's happening...
Allen delivers his longest written piece about a watch here on the podcast. The watch is the Rolex Sea-Dweller DEEPSEA, and the story is part memoir, part explorer's diary, and part contemplation on the state of the world. A special...
Allen sits down with vintage Seiko expert David Flett for a highly informative dive into this snarly, but wonderful, collecting category. Whether you're looking to build a massive collection of old Seikos or want to snatch up your first vintage...
Allen sits down with Edouard Maylan, CEO of H. Moser Watches for a candid conversation about how this historically significant Swiss watch brand has become one of the most pioneering watch houses operating today. The watches are avant-garde, but they...
Allen takes a deep dive into the phenomenological perspective and clarifies how it can actually operate as a way to examine watches by performing subjective reports on four watches, a Nomos Club, a vintage Seiko Weekdater, an Aquadive Bathescaphe, and...
Allen sits down with Longines' CEO Walter von Känel for a candid interview about the struggle against counterfeiters, dealing with the gray market, closing the in-house manufacture and adopting ETA, as well as Mr. von Känel's personal journey from being...
If you're flipping watches constantly and wondering how to slow that down, Allen's got a method for picking out keepers and avoiding flippers. The method grew out of a talk Allen gave at a Gear Patrol event about creating the...
Rather than go to Vail, CO with Oris and his awesome colleagues, Allen came down with the worst stomach flu of his life, during which he entered a fever-induced delirium and started shopping for a new watch for 3-days straight.
Have you tried to settle in on just one or a few watches and find yourself bored? Are you more interested in the hunt for the new timepiece than in a long-term relationship? Allen confesses to growing bored with his...
Why are we so excited about a recreation of a vintage movement like the Omega 321? Has digital social media and the ensuing crisis of truth prompted some of us to seek analog expressions of our authentic selves? Can a...
Allen goes through his top 10 favorites of the year. Not a "best of" list, but a "my favorites" list, including some very expensive and some very affordable watches.
How do booze and pot affect your perception of time? Your sense perceptions? Your impulsivity? Find out as your host, Allen, brings his personal experiences up alongside phenomenology and medical research to form a theory of how watches connect us...
Allen's birthday watch is a Grand Seiko Limited Edition SGBH269, a watch that explores the turning of the seasons from Spring to Fall, just as Allen is turning to the autumn of his life. This episode is a meditation on...
Allen sits down with best selling novelist Gary Shteyngart to talk about how watches have figured into Gary's writing. From his New Yorker article called "Confessions of a Watch Geek" to his novel Lake Success Gary has used watches as literary...
Grand Central Watch's 3rd generation leader, Steve Kivel, has turned his family's business into a high-tech service center with seven full-time watchmakers working full-time in a brand new state of the art facility. Allen and Steve sit down to discuss...
Allen's colleague Cait Bazemore comes on for a lively discussion of the emerging trend of women wearing more complex mechanical tool watches, and how the watch industry is shedding it's old-school attitudes toward so-called lady's watches. From Serena Williams to...
Allen returns from a week in Italy having toured Tuscani on a Ducati motorcycle while wearing his Bremont Supermarine, lapped on a race track in a Ferrari, sported Hublots, and having accidentally bumped into the representative for Nims who just...
Celebrating the 10th Episode, Allen goes through his top ten watches of all time. It's a personal list, not a top ten best, but a top ten favorite. You'll hear about some very tasty watches and what specific features appeal...
Allen's account of his trip to the Longines factory in Switzerland starts with an explanation of how one ends up on such a trip in the first place. He then recounts hanging with Longines' CEO Walter von Känel (a.k.a. The...
Why do mechanical watches seem so calming and down to earth? Why does the Apple Watch seem so intrusive? In this episode, we travel in time to consider old and new technologies up against each other, and how a mechanical...
A colleague once told Allen that women's watches don't get as much coverage because, "Women's watches suck." Let's complicate the topic of gendered watches, and let's get past some of our ingrained attitudes about what makes a watch right for...
When watches are truly designed as tools and do their job without kowtowing to fashion trends, our aesthetically fussy attitudes can give way to a far more grounded affection for the designs. Many watches, old and new, are considered from...
Allen goes after the notion of "microbrands" and calls for a change of thinking around the role of independent watch brands of all sizes. He discusses independent record labels as an analogous notion, gets into the importance of regionalism and...
In Episode 4, Allen is visited by a fox while record his account of a one-watch experiment. Unexpected results include feeling great about the one watch even though his time in it was hellish, and realizing that his personal collecting...
Allen ponders how watch diameter and wrist circumference became the main measurements of watches when, in fact, those two dimensions hardly matter when it comes to how a watch works on your wrist. He recommends a few different strategies for...
In this episode, Allen talks with Watch Desk Editor at Gear Patrol Magazine, Oren Hartov. They discuss the ins and outs of working in a bustling news room, the history of Israeli military watches, escaping the Nazis, making music, and...
Host Allen Farmelo discusses various conceptual frameworks that we can use in attempting to understand watches. These include a mechanical perspective, cultural, social, historical, design, phenomenological, and (out on a limb here) New Age. This overview provides a set of...
Your host Allen Farmelo says hello and gives a short introduction and guide to Beyond The Dial.