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. 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. Yeah. So interesting. Depends on the error. Yeah, I think I'm a no though. Bye everyone, bye.