November 11, 2024 • 30 mins
Ros is away filming which means today Eric shares some of his passions with the audience with his guest Nick Ferrell. Nick not only talks about his time working for the government in the situation room at the White House, but also how he transitioned out of government to his position as the founder of DC Vintage Watches. So let's enter Eric’s man cave as both of these topics make this week’s he said, he said, both educational and fun.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is, he said, a Yaviho with Eric Winter and
Rodlin fantaz.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi. Right, everybody, welcome to another episode of he said,
he said, because my wife is not here again, but
since she's gone, I wanted to bring in a friend
of mine who shares a similar passion of mine as well.
We're going to go to sort in the man cave
of watches, which is one of my collectible passions. But
this is also a man with a completely other background
(00:27):
before he got into watches, Nick Ferrell, who and I
can't wait to dive into more about his journey which
led him to his current passion now. But worked with
the government for many, many many years, and that in
turn led to a career in now you know, bringing
a vintage watches to the forefront of everybody's life in
(00:49):
a big way. And even on my show The Rookie,
I wear one of Nick's watches, which is a vintage
when he got back he got for me for Bradford
to wear on the show. We can talk about that.
But Nick, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hey, Eric, thanks a lot, thanks for having me on here.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Can't absolutely I'm excited. No, Nick, let's let's just dive
back into your past a bit. So you're a young
man the first career. Did you ever think I'm gonna
go down the path of working for the government. That
was where you wanted to be?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Were you?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You were military as well? Am I am?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I correct, not active military, but I was employed as
a civilian with the primary defense, which I'll get into
in a second. But no, I mean for me, like
my father owned a construction company and he has always
wanted me to do business. And at a very young age,
I showed some aptitude for business, like random aside. When
I was in elementary school, my nickname was the candy
(01:39):
Man because I would go my candy at like Costco
or what have you, and I would sell it to
kids for five cents under what the vending machines charged.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So you know, I I business mind.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I try, and that's that's what I had in mind.
And so you know, through high school that's what I
was doing. And then I started undergrading University of Maryland,
and I was a businessman, and I, to be honest,
quickly became bored with it. And you know, I started
I don't even remember what the aha moment was, but
I started getting interested in like international affairs, foreign affairs,
(02:12):
what have you. You know, I'd always been interested in
military history and things like that, so you know, I
took some classes I and then I picked up a second.
I was like a I was there for business, but
I also did like military content, history concentration, so I
you know, and it's just like one thing led to another,
and I decided I didn't want to do business anymore,
(02:34):
and I wanted to work for the government, but I
didn't know in what capacity. So the one thing I knew,
you know, I gotta I gotta make myself attractive, So
I need to learn a language. So ironically, I chose
between Russian and Arabic. And at the time, and I'm
dating myself, this is the late nineties, I was thinking, well,
you know, Russia, there are ally there our friend, do
(02:56):
I really need to learn Russian color very ironically, if
anyone follows the news, And so I chose Arabic. And
you know, I went to study abroad at the America
University in Cairo, and I was there fall of two
thousand and one, which so I was there for nine
to eleven. So you know, I hit the ground two
(03:17):
weeks later, nine to eleven pops off. It was just crazy.
I remember there was no really CNN presence in the
Middle East. It was it was actually dubbed over in Arabic,
and my Arabic was not good then, so I had
no idea what was going on. The Internet was down,
I couldn't get a hold of anyone in the United States.
I'm from the DC area, so everything was mass chaos,
(03:38):
as you can imagine. So you know, that was really
eye opening for me. So from that, you know, I
got my degree. I got a degree in history, and
I got a degree in political science, and I spent
a year at the America University in Cairo, again learning
Arabic intentsive Arabic, and then I spent semester American University
in Beirut in Lebanon with the same goal, learning Arabic.
(04:01):
And I just started applying to places.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I mean, and it's not just you didn't just have
a regular government job. I mean, you've been in the
situation room, you've been in the in the heart of
you know, government affairs, and I know you've spoken on
this a lot, but I would love to hear more.
I mean, you obviously rose to the top pretty quickly.
You got yourself involved with I mean, the top people
in our government when you're in the situation room. Talk
(04:25):
to me about that, because that's always been fascinating to me,
what it's like in the situation room when you're seeing
things go down in real time with the real decision
makers of the country one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
And you know, so NNGA you had to do. I
started working at National Juice Basal Intelligence Agency, which is
the satellites, the surveillance, the spy satellites Inmagury looking at
other countries military and we had to do a twenty
four to seven ops rotation at an op center. And
that is the White House Situation Room, as you as
you just got into, and you know, I feel like
I was very lucky, you know, right place, right time.
(04:56):
I had the Arabic which obviously helped. I had done
a lot of high level briefing to include the direct
to the director of NNGA on various things. At that point,
I was covering the Middle East, and as we know
after nine eleven, Middle East was huge in America's foreign policy.
So in the White House Situation Room, which is a
you know, a non partisan position, I started under the
(05:18):
GW Bush administration, and I was there for the first
two years of the Obama administration. So you know what
the situation room is is again twenty four to seven.
You know, op center and its main customer is the
President of the United States. Doesn't matter what party. You need
to keep them apprized of everything that's going on in
the world, breaking news, especially that they're going to have
(05:40):
to react to, and whether that reaction is you know,
anything as they need to put out a statement to
very drastic is in you know, we need to raise
the alert level for our military forces based overseas. That's
everything I mean. So you're working shifts, twelve hour days.
It's a small team. There's not many teams. The teams
are are they're all branches of the military, all branch
(06:01):
of the intelligence community, their homeland security, it's probably in
Homeland Security, CIA, FBI.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The all the top general everybody, right.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Everyone is there and they take what you know, it's
been said. You know, it's the best and brightest. I again, humbly,
I think I was right place, right time. Not a
lot of people at n GA knew this thing even existed.
That changed after I did my tour because I put
them on blast. I said, your products are being used,
I'm briefing the president on them, et cetera. And they
got a lot more people applying to it, which is
great because you want the best talent there. I saw
(06:36):
a lot of crazy stuff while I was there, anything
from you know, I was. I was there for stuff
like you know, two thousand and nine, we had what
we call Snowmageddon, which is this massive snowstorm hit the
DC area and I'm I'm bringing this story up because
it goes back to the to you know, the rookie
if you will, to police and I had to go
(06:58):
pick up other people on my team that live further.
Oh yeah, I lived walking distance to the White House.
So it was great. I walked. I never seen DC
more peaceful, four feet of snow. It was great. But
they were like, you need to pick up other members
of your team. Here's this, this this special service police
crews are SUV. You need to go pick up your team.
And I'm like, well, there's is there anyone come with me?
(07:19):
Like no, it's all you And I'm like wait what.
So I'm like, I've been in the snow, you know.
I had to try the lights, but I meant your
noel was looking because I don't want to get in trouble.
But you know, I'm driving the snow before we'll drive in,
you know, picking up other members of my team. Because
you have to be there no matter what, no matter
what's going on, that seat has to be staffed.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Let me ask you this with the situation room, which
is if you know, again, anybody would love to be
a fly on the wall and that situation, you know,
just to understand what's going on. So everybody is there,
like you said, to service the president, I mean, I
mean beIN lot and they talk about that when he
was captured and everybody's there in the situation room, all
these major events are taking place. Do people actually give
resistance to maybe what the president is thinking he wants
(07:58):
to do in the moment and he has to go
with his gut and decide. Note you're wrong, you know,
head general of you know army that you know navy.
Where I'm gonna do it my way? Or is it
pretty peaceful conversation or does it get really heated?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Oh it's all about for sure. I mean, if you're
what we call a duty officer in the situation room,
which is what I was and then the head is
the senior duty officer, the head of the watch team.
Your only mission there is to provide information to someone
like you're either being proactive, like for instance, like when
this happened during Christmas, the underwear bomber, if you will,
and that was December twenty fifth, two thousand and nine.
(08:36):
You know, something pops off, we're getting alerts. We already
know there's gonna be high level interest, so we're getting
the who, what, win, or why how. We're drafting a
one page what we call intel note to brief people
on and then they take the information that we found
and they make decisions based on that. So we're not
offering any sort of advice, but they're making decisions based
on what we're finding. So we got to make sure
it's well sourced. We got to make sure, you know,
(08:58):
we have to kind of anticipate the questions they're going
to ask and have that information ready. Just a you know,
a real quick story. When the Fort Hood shooting went
down in November two thousand and nine, which the mass
shoot againstant killed, thirteen wounded, thirty. I'm on that day.
The head of the situation room comes in, says nick
I need you to reach out. You're gonna make this
one page document and we're going to brief the president.
(09:20):
I was like, okay, sorry, how much time do I have.
They're like, you have nine minutes and I'm like really,
He's like okay. Fifteen fifteen minutes later, what we would
call an ad the Homeland and Securities are And that
was John Brennan at the time. He later went on
to be Director of CIA. Comes in, takes the paper
that I worked on, reaching out to all my contacts
within the primitent Defense, et cetera to get as many
(09:41):
facts as I can, takes it up to the Oval,
and briefs the president on it. With with just that
fifteen minutes to the second, you get a lot of
things like that, But you are flying the wall. You
do get to see And I knew someone that was
in there for the first year of the last administration,
which is very, you know, very contentious time. During the
(10:01):
Trump administration, there was a lot going on. Anytime you
get a new administration in it can be contentious if
they're new to power and they don't really know what's
going on. But there was he he told me some
interesting stories. I will say that, so there's a lot,
there's a there's there's the spectrum is open. The possibilities
are endless as far as like there's person there's big personalities,
and it doesn't matter who's an office, there's always gonna
(10:23):
be like Rom and Manuel. If you remember are well
are E Manuel from uh was exactly Rom was his brother.
That was a personality.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
He was in there during the Obama administration.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
He was the first chief of staff. Like minor actions
with him went from straight up I sort of got
this is Ari Manuel like that kind of stuff to
just very pleasant, Hey, how's the family, how the kids.
It depends on the stress of the moment.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Let's jump to the next chapter of your life. So
you serve with the government for you know, how many
years were you all.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Together as seventeen, seventeen or eighteen?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I think, wow, so an amazing run with the government.
Then you have this passion for vintage watches that's probably
been brewing this entire time, even while you're working for
the government, and you're seeing all these different watches that
all these different military officials and everybody's wearing, and I
mean you're in encyclopedia when it comes to watches. We
sat down, had lunch, and it was fascinating all the
(11:30):
stuff that goes into watches. And you know, I think
I spoken about on the podcast before. It's like one
of my guilty pleasures are watches. I've always been fascinated
by them, whether it's vintage or current. I have a
little bit of a collection myself because I just enjoy it.
I enjoy it. What gave you the confidence to sort
of leave that world start your own business with DC
(11:50):
Vintage Watches and go in, you know, be all in
on that space sourcing, finding these watches, refurbishing them, getting
them ready for sale, and building a business around it.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, it's not just you with a guilty pleasure. I
mean after the pandemic when everyone was a lot of
people were sitting at home and they had time, a
lot of people got into it. It's been huge amongst
like work spanning in the women's market because I think
that they're neglected. I think that's fifty percent of the
customer base. But anyway, no, I mean I had been
huge into watches. My dad got me into them in
high school and in twenty twelve I started DC Vintage
(12:24):
Watches as a side hustle. So I'm doing the government,
I'm doing all that stuff. You know. I wasn't that
long after I got out of the situation room, I
set this up. I had a little more time, thankfully,
and you know, fast forward to twenty eighteen. I moved
out to Los Angeles. My wife is a television producer,
so we came out here, like she has. I wanted
to give her the advantage. We had done my career
(12:45):
for a while and wanted to have her chance. I
was still working for the government. I was on loan
for Department of Defense. We were doing logistics for embassies
and nothing sexy. It was just very boring whatever. But
it got us out here to LA. And as soon
as I got to LA, I started doing what you
do anytime you start a new job. You start networking.
You start seeing here's here's influence, here's not. Here's who's
(13:07):
in the watches, who's not, you know, and I started
reaching out to, you know, actors that like yourself, that
were huge in the watches. Daniel day Kim, which I
considered to be a good friend of mine, is an
amazing individual. He's huge into watches. He was one of
the first people I developed a friendship with out here
and it just went from there and it got to
the point where I had done original research to figure
(13:28):
out what the watch was that Bruce Lee wore in
that martial arts legend.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Talk about that watch, because I say, I know, I
see the sticker on your wall or the picture on
your wall behind of Bruce And we talked a bit
about that. What's the famous that people should know that
the most famous Bruce Lee watch?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Bruce Lee? So it's it's nineteen seventies Siko six one
three nine dash six zero one zero and it's a
black dial on it. Beautiful watch. But there's there. I
found all these pictures with him wearing this watch, did
all my detective work whatever, So you know, I felt
confident from that, and I publicized it and one of
(14:02):
my customers happened to be a writer for GQ magazine,
and I reached out to him and I said, you know,
it was a natural segue. Hey, how's the watch? How
how are you enjoying it? Everything good? I have this idea,
here's this watch. You know, I found all these actors
like will Young Lee, Ronnie Comedian, Ronnie Chiang, et cetera.
(14:23):
You know, our mutual friend Nick Nonzales. Uh. You know,
actors are into it. How about this. I can introduce
you to some of these these these actors that are
wearing the watch. You can interview them, I can give
some background. We can do an article because he'd written
in Watches. He's a fashion writer for GQ, and he
took it to his editor. The editor loved it. They
published it, and you know, obviously, you know, I do
(14:46):
interest here. It led to some good business, but I
also wanted to get the message out there's this cool watch.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Based on that in the previous the experience I have
with the government, the doing the research, the sourcing stuff,
you know, making sure it's good sources, the high level
briefing the people to include you know, the vice president
of both administrations of the president, et cetera. I had
that competence to build these relationships. And you know, seeing
this is before the pandemic, mind you, and seeing businesses
(15:12):
kicking off, it was able. When my time was up
with the tour that I had out here, i left
government and you know, and I haven't looked back quite frankly,
and it's been intensely rewarding because every day I get
to talk with people like yourself that are you know,
you just dork out and watches. I love it, and
it's it's I'm getting paid to do something that I
(15:33):
enjoy highly. And since then I've done all this research
to find these other watches, like you know, the Special
Forces guys war like Military Assistants Command Vietnam Sallie's Observation
group that watched that. We got you for the Rookie.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, I was gonna talk about that because my watch.
People commented as soon as you know, the season started
last year, they're like, Tim has a new watch. Why
does Tim have a new watch? And you know, we
never were able to get fully into it, but talk
a bit more. I mean that watch was from Vietnam.
That's what I love, is like vintage watches, aren't you just
It's not just finding a watch that's out there. A
lot of these watches have insane stories. We'll go back
to Bruce Lee's watching a second, But the watch I
(16:06):
wear on the Rookie was a watch worn by a
soldier in Vietnam. Not just any soldier, but a Special
Forces soldier. It's got a compass on it. It's an
incredible watch. And when he when Nick you know, got
it to my propmaster and it was presented to me.
It's in you know, the with the authentic band. That
soldier's initials of writing was on the band, which blows
(16:28):
my mind. You know, I'm wearing and I loved it.
Because Tim's military past, there's obviously a real character placement here,
but it's that watch has a history and it's it's
seen more than I've ever seen in an intense way
in its lifetime. Talk a little bit more about that watch,
just for a quick second.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
And I remember our initial conversations where You're like, well,
let me tell you, let me tell you a bit
about Tim's character. I was like, hold on, I'm familiar,
trust me. I watched it. I watched the rookie I
know what I'm looking for here, and then we we
I loved it because we hit around those ideas that
would fit your character the watch.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
So the watch itself. Uh, they were again the Studies
of Observation group. They were the soldiers. They were mostly
Green Berets, but they were running behind enemy lines and
the adjoit in the adjacent countries calling in air strikes
on what was you know, uh, the colloc return beade
hoo Chi men trail that was running all these resupplies
from China into Northern Vietnam and eventually in South Vietnam.
(17:21):
So they were, you know, they were hitting these logistics
trails to stop that supply from coming in. But these guys,
I mean, this is I mean, you have special forces
these days that do crazy, amazing stuff, but back then,
they didn't have all these you know, satellites were in
their infancy, didn't have any of this this tactical support
(17:42):
for these at today. And these guys were just like
they're back. They're inserting with teams with like five people
on this team. They're asserting low level insertion with helicopters
or really high outs, opening halo jumps, parachuting into the countries,
and a lot of them died, but they're you know,
they're behind any lines, are surrounded by whole wretch of
menster divisions of North Vietnamese Army regulars.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
They're badasses. And that's where my watch came from. People
from from the rookie fans that watch Lived is Life.
How do you find a watch? Tell me how a
watch like that goes from a man's wrist in Vietnam
and you know, we don't know. I guess if that
that soldier lived or or didn't live, I guess are
they well?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
And again, all the watches we find aren't necessarily from
their risk, but some are. And if we got it
from a wrist, they made it back.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
They made it back, Okay, it wasn't just like they
were brought back. And so they made it back. And
that watch was signed like it had the writing of
the soldier on the band, so that one was at
the war. So did that soldier eventually just sell it
off at some point in time to make some money,
and it made its way on the market.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
What you see now is you see a lot of
estate sales.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Personally, some of these these members, some of these these
military members are passing away. You know, they're in their
seventies or in sixties, seventies, eighties, So you see a
lot of that. So you really have to know you're
setting you're setting alerts on everything. You're one in person,
you're talking to other watch dealers. Some people know what
they have, some people don't. It's things of that nature,
and that's how you're finding it. I mean, it's like,
so I did track down one soldier that I wrote
(19:12):
a article for Watches of Espionage. Amazing, amazing resource. Definitely
recommend your listeners check that out. And I was able
to through my contacts within McFee SAUG was able to
track down this soldier that had the same It wasn't
the watch that you got, but he wore the same
one and for an article for Watches of Espionage, and
(19:34):
he just hit me amazing stories and they just talk
about when these guys were behind enemy lines, they couldn't
wear things that made them look immediately like they were American.
So that's why they decided on Tsaiko because it was
this plausible deniability in case they were captured it. You know,
they maneuver room as far as what they were doing there.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, So it wasn't just to watch. It was actually
potentially a way of covering their identity a little bit.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
It was purposeful. So they weren't wearing DOWG tags. Everything
they had was nondescript with no branding on it or
branding that wasn't American. And that's why they chose Sakoh
as well as you know, it's it's a badass watch
that puts up with a lot of abuse.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Wow. Now, didn't Daniel I believe got the Bruce Lee watch, right,
because the Bruce Ley watches are pretty dope. Watch didn't
he get one of those?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Oh? He has one Ryan Chang Williams.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And Bruce Lee's. We don't know what actually happened to that,
isn't that part of the mystery, Like nobody really knows.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And I actually reached out to his daughter Shannon, and
they don't know because I was talking to some of
her people as well, and they don't know. I guess
it's one of those loss of the ages. And there's
a lot of watches like this, like buzz Aldrin's Omega
speed Master that he wore on the First Moon. Look. Yeah,
he was sending into the Omega Museum and it disappeared.
Really so it's like there's tons of watches like this.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Unfortunately, fascinating, fascinating. Now he also, you know Nick is
taken care of You mentioned Nick Gonzalez. He was a
mutual friend of ours. He took care of a lot
of the watches on The Good Doctor. Worked with many
of those actors and like you said, many others as well.
And I think it's so cool when you know look.
As an actor, we just get these props and a
(21:15):
lot of them, especially in an early show when the
budget's a little tighter. It's just a you know, a
replica of some other watch out there. It has no meaning.
It's just to we just throw it on people's wrists.
But when you can build the props or the wardrobe,
you know, anything around a character that continues to build
on the story and make it authentic, that's what's super
cool to me. And that's why I think listeners might
(21:35):
find this very interesting, especially fans of the rookie. It's
like it's not there's a lot of thought put into
what we're what we're wearing, what we're doing, and trying
to keep it real. And this was just another little
piece to Tim's journey that I thought made it, you know,
fun for fans to sort of discover. And we see
it on every episode. I'm wearing you know, this watch
is out there. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And the problem master I work with Mike Casey, look dope,
he is amazing. Like people like me and others will
see any we predu what is it?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Just to some of the listeners, like you know a
lot of people you know, even myself before I fully
understood vintage watches. It's like, you know, you think of
a Rolex, and rolexs are you know some of the
top of the you know, top of the line watches
out there right, everybody knows that brand. Why was Seko
in the day such a top watch? What made Sako
so special?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, I mean, and it's it continues to this to
this day. Actually, but it was is they kind of
copied some of the things early on that they they
came United States, they looked at someone like Ford and
they were doing these like these automated assembly lines, and
they were trying to bring down costs, so make a
really awesome watch, but bring down costs a little bit
(22:44):
to make it affordable to to the everyman that maybe
can't afford a Rolex. And they got that reputation for that,
and they they went they ran with it. And so
you see a lot of their watches, like the uh
the nineteen eighty Saco sixty three oh nine is huge
even today in the military, I saw people with dood
wearing those. It's this really robust dive watch that people
(23:06):
swear by. I've got one. And so they basically made
these instructible watches that I mean, that's a watch that
came out. Now I'm dating myself. It's depressing, but coming
on half a century and it's still ticking and it's
still ticking. Well, you know, so that's part of it.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What brings the value? Like you know, I learned this
later in my sort of watch collecting path. You know,
Rolex holds value or gains value? Right, uh, Philip, Philip, right,
same thing holds value, gains value. Some watches, don't they
just they just drop like this day and age watch.
But if you go to vintage watches, what is what
(23:42):
are the standout things for someone looking to get a
vintage watch that you know, they know it's gonna even
if it appreciates just a little bit over time, Right,
What are things that, yeah, you're looking for?
Speaker 3 (23:52):
That's a fantastic question. A lot of it is going
to be around the story, just like you said, Like
I like background, I have the degree in history. I
love it. So if you can if there's a story
attached to it, people love that. I love it. So
that is going to play like did this watch even
if it's not that specific like exact watch, but it's
the same reference had some important part in history. We
(24:13):
talk about the mc vee sag, the Bruce Lee Seko's,
there's there's the saiko what they call the Colonel Pogue,
which was worn by an astronaut, but the gold dial
up and out of space. People love the stories. So
that's an aspect of it. And a lot of some
of it is like was it is it made well?
Like does it have a reputation for being robust? And
like for instance, there's a watch that was worn in
(24:35):
the second Rambo film. It's a chronosport UDT. I love
the watch. It's black, it's handsome. The movement in it
is not great, and so it's gonna it's gonna lose
some value because of that, because it can't stand up
to abuse unfortunately. So it's quality, it's the story, it's
the legend, if you will, that's what will contribute to value.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I think, so I think, and I think to build
on that question, you know, as we're entering into the
holidays here, it's a great time men women out there
is are great holiday gifts, right, what's a good sort
of if you were to give some advice entry level,
But obviously you can see nick and you can talk
to him more and learn more about the watches he
can source and what he can get. But what are
good entry level gift watches for the holidays and other
(25:15):
things that you think could be you know, just something
that our listeners should know.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
No, I can. I can give two good recommendations. I
get right because I get asked this question. A lot
one will be vintager one will be new. The vintage
one is what they don't make him anymore. They stopped
in twenty nineteen. But it's called a Saco SKX and
it's there like it was, like their entry level diver.
It either comes with a black bezel or what we
call Pepsi bezel, so you know, blue and red. And
(25:40):
if you're lucky, you can get him for five hundred.
You can get We regularly sell the full box sets
for eight hundred to eight fifty. If you want something
that's that's new Taiko and the reference escapes me. It's
like an SNP something, but the dial on it and watches.
This espionage mate very drew a lot of attention to this.
The dial on it is Arabic letters, so it's very
(26:01):
automatic movement. You can get them all day, every day.
On Amazon for maybe if you're lucky two fifty to
three hundred. Uh. And it's it's a fantastic watch. It's
very visible, it's it stands out on the wrist. Yeah.
I mean I swear by either one of those watches.
I have them both my collection. I wear them all
the time. But it really those are great entry level
watches to get people into the hobby, to gift, to
(26:23):
do whatever.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I think enough as I go to your website and
learn about what watches you have in stock, and you
can source. I know, you can get almost anything if
you're if you have if people are patient, right, he
can dig and he can find. Talk to me about
your new collection, the Sycamore Collection your word.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah, and obviously I would recommend that too, but that's
you know, bring it up to me because it's it's
a little self effacing, but no. So the Sycamore Watch
Collection is a watch line that we came out with
the beginning of this year, and there's two initial watches.
There's one that's a little more demure, it's a little smaller,
and then there's a larger one. Uh. The smaller one
sold out quickly. We're in the midst of making some more,
(27:00):
but they I was surprised how quickly they sold out.
But back to the Arabic dio. Both of them feature
Arabic numbers on the dio. The one we have now
is built more towards like it for my background, there's more,
you know, I've done the diplomacy side, have done the
military side, the intelligence. An smaller one is more the
(27:21):
you know, the diplomacy or at a state dinner or whatever,
the White House or an embassy or what have you,
goes well with the tucks. The other side, uh is
you know that military backgroun. That's what we still have.
That's called Sycamore the Wolf, and it's a GMT so
it tells time in multiple places, automatic movement, but it
has that Arabic dio and it's all black. So it's
(27:42):
like this Matt Black PVD, very Special Force esque. And
that was kind of a labor of love for me
that I wanted to I'd always wanted to find this,
but to do a watch like this because nothing was
out there. So I was like, I make it myself.
I'm gonna use the context. I have an industry. I'm
gonna use the watchmakers that we employ we're gonna come
out with it, and you know, Pew wrote about it,
(28:05):
Campwolf and GQ shout out to him, wrote about it.
Thanks for that. I ct it in the watch periodicals,
wrote about it. And we're I think on our third
or fourth batch of those, so we've sold probably about
a hundred of them so far. But that's that's a
labor of love. We're gonna come out with more watches
right now, but they're in the planning phases. But yeah,
that's the Sycamore Watch line.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Ye. People want to reach you, what's the best way.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Sure, the best way you can go to our website.
It's www dot d C Vintage Watches dot com. Email
sales at DC Vintage Watches dot com. We're on Instagram,
Uh you know at DC Vintage Watches. Uh yeah, drop
us a d M, send us an email whichever we
can find whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
You right, there's some amazing vintage watches out there, and
I know we've been trying to get more on some
of the cast of the Rookies who we're working on
that too. You're gonna see more popping up on our show.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Nick.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Thank you for joining me and being on the podcast,
Love Talking Watches, with you, but also just the you know,
your career journey and how people can pivot and change,
you know, even later in life and find another passion.
Not just not just that it's their new path and
it's their only passion. It could literally be another passion.
You had two great careers and one that's ongoing right now,
(29:18):
and I love for listeners to hear that that the
drive is real and you got to just keep, you know,
evolving with the times.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Now. It's been a labor of love and I feel
very lucky that I'm still doing it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Thank you, Nick, appreciate you talk more soon, all right,
I love you know, listen for any of you out there.
I truly mean this when I say Nick is an
encyclopedia with watches, So as a holidays approach, if it's
something you're into, reach out to him. You will get
so much great info to build on. Maybe you'll find
that your your kid, or your your your husband or
(29:52):
wife might have a new hobby in store that they
want to dive into watches. Thank you for listening to
this episode. If you have something you want to talk
to us about, send us DM at he said he
a d O, or email us at Ericinross at iHeartRadio
dot com and until next time, see ya, Thanks for listening,
don't forget to write us a review and tell us
what you think.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
If you want to follow us on Instagram, check us
out at he said. Ajav or sens at email Eric
and Ross at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
He said.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
AJAB is part of iHeartRadio's my Pultuda podcast network.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
See you next time. Bye,
This is, he said, a Yaviho with Eric Winter and
Rodlin fantaz.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Hi. Right, everybody, welcome to another episode of he said,
he said, because my wife is not here again, but
since she's gone, I wanted to bring in a friend
of mine who shares a similar passion of mine as well.
We're going to go to sort in the man cave
of watches, which is one of my collectible passions. But
this is also a man with a completely other background
(00:27):
before he got into watches, Nick Ferrell, who and I
can't wait to dive into more about his journey which
led him to his current passion now. But worked with
the government for many, many many years, and that in
turn led to a career in now you know, bringing
a vintage watches to the forefront of everybody's life in
(00:49):
a big way. And even on my show The Rookie,
I wear one of Nick's watches, which is a vintage
when he got back he got for me for Bradford
to wear on the show. We can talk about that.
But Nick, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hey, Eric, thanks a lot, thanks for having me on here.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Can't absolutely I'm excited. No, Nick, let's let's just dive
back into your past a bit. So you're a young
man the first career. Did you ever think I'm gonna
go down the path of working for the government. That
was where you wanted to be?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Were you?
Speaker 2 (01:16):
You were military as well? Am I am?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
I correct, not active military, but I was employed as
a civilian with the primary defense, which I'll get into
in a second. But no, I mean for me, like
my father owned a construction company and he has always
wanted me to do business. And at a very young age,
I showed some aptitude for business, like random aside. When
I was in elementary school, my nickname was the candy
(01:39):
Man because I would go my candy at like Costco
or what have you, and I would sell it to
kids for five cents under what the vending machines charged.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So you know, I I business mind.
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I try, and that's that's what I had in mind.
And so you know, through high school that's what I
was doing. And then I started undergrading University of Maryland,
and I was a businessman, and I, to be honest,
quickly became bored with it. And you know, I started
I don't even remember what the aha moment was, but
I started getting interested in like international affairs, foreign affairs,
(02:12):
what have you. You know, I'd always been interested in
military history and things like that, so you know, I
took some classes I and then I picked up a second.
I was like a I was there for business, but
I also did like military content, history concentration, so I
you know, and it's just like one thing led to another,
and I decided I didn't want to do business anymore,
(02:34):
and I wanted to work for the government, but I
didn't know in what capacity. So the one thing I knew,
you know, I gotta I gotta make myself attractive, So
I need to learn a language. So ironically, I chose
between Russian and Arabic. And at the time, and I'm
dating myself, this is the late nineties, I was thinking, well,
you know, Russia, there are ally there our friend, do
(02:56):
I really need to learn Russian color very ironically, if
anyone follows the news, And so I chose Arabic. And
you know, I went to study abroad at the America
University in Cairo, and I was there fall of two
thousand and one, which so I was there for nine
to eleven. So you know, I hit the ground two
(03:17):
weeks later, nine to eleven pops off. It was just crazy.
I remember there was no really CNN presence in the
Middle East. It was it was actually dubbed over in Arabic,
and my Arabic was not good then, so I had
no idea what was going on. The Internet was down,
I couldn't get a hold of anyone in the United States.
I'm from the DC area, so everything was mass chaos,
(03:38):
as you can imagine. So you know, that was really
eye opening for me. So from that, you know, I
got my degree. I got a degree in history, and
I got a degree in political science, and I spent
a year at the America University in Cairo, again learning
Arabic intentsive Arabic, and then I spent semester American University
in Beirut in Lebanon with the same goal, learning Arabic.
(04:01):
And I just started applying to places.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
I mean, and it's not just you didn't just have
a regular government job. I mean, you've been in the
situation room, you've been in the in the heart of
you know, government affairs, and I know you've spoken on
this a lot, but I would love to hear more.
I mean, you obviously rose to the top pretty quickly.
You got yourself involved with I mean, the top people
in our government when you're in the situation room. Talk
(04:25):
to me about that, because that's always been fascinating to me,
what it's like in the situation room when you're seeing
things go down in real time with the real decision
makers of the country one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
And you know, so NNGA you had to do. I
started working at National Juice Basal Intelligence Agency, which is
the satellites, the surveillance, the spy satellites Inmagury looking at
other countries military and we had to do a twenty
four to seven ops rotation at an op center. And
that is the White House Situation Room, as you as
you just got into, and you know, I feel like
I was very lucky, you know, right place, right time.
(04:56):
I had the Arabic which obviously helped. I had done
a lot of high level briefing to include the direct
to the director of NNGA on various things. At that point,
I was covering the Middle East, and as we know
after nine eleven, Middle East was huge in America's foreign policy.
So in the White House Situation Room, which is a
you know, a non partisan position, I started under the
(05:18):
GW Bush administration, and I was there for the first
two years of the Obama administration. So you know what
the situation room is is again twenty four to seven.
You know, op center and its main customer is the
President of the United States. Doesn't matter what party. You need
to keep them apprized of everything that's going on in
the world, breaking news, especially that they're going to have
(05:40):
to react to, and whether that reaction is you know,
anything as they need to put out a statement to
very drastic is in you know, we need to raise
the alert level for our military forces based overseas. That's
everything I mean. So you're working shifts, twelve hour days.
It's a small team. There's not many teams. The teams
are are they're all branches of the military, all branch
(06:01):
of the intelligence community, their homeland security, it's probably in
Homeland Security, CIA, FBI.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
The all the top general everybody, right.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Everyone is there and they take what you know, it's
been said. You know, it's the best and brightest. I again, humbly,
I think I was right place, right time. Not a
lot of people at n GA knew this thing even existed.
That changed after I did my tour because I put
them on blast. I said, your products are being used,
I'm briefing the president on them, et cetera. And they
got a lot more people applying to it, which is
great because you want the best talent there. I saw
(06:36):
a lot of crazy stuff while I was there, anything
from you know, I was. I was there for stuff
like you know, two thousand and nine, we had what
we call Snowmageddon, which is this massive snowstorm hit the
DC area and I'm I'm bringing this story up because
it goes back to the to you know, the rookie
if you will, to police and I had to go
(06:58):
pick up other people on my team that live further.
Oh yeah, I lived walking distance to the White House.
So it was great. I walked. I never seen DC
more peaceful, four feet of snow. It was great. But
they were like, you need to pick up other members
of your team. Here's this, this this special service police
crews are SUV. You need to go pick up your team.
And I'm like, well, there's is there anyone come with me?
(07:19):
Like no, it's all you And I'm like wait what.
So I'm like, I've been in the snow, you know.
I had to try the lights, but I meant your
noel was looking because I don't want to get in trouble.
But you know, I'm driving the snow before we'll drive in,
you know, picking up other members of my team. Because
you have to be there no matter what, no matter
what's going on, that seat has to be staffed.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Let me ask you this with the situation room, which
is if you know, again, anybody would love to be
a fly on the wall and that situation, you know,
just to understand what's going on. So everybody is there,
like you said, to service the president, I mean, I
mean beIN lot and they talk about that when he
was captured and everybody's there in the situation room, all
these major events are taking place. Do people actually give
resistance to maybe what the president is thinking he wants
(07:58):
to do in the moment and he has to go
with his gut and decide. Note you're wrong, you know,
head general of you know army that you know navy.
Where I'm gonna do it my way? Or is it
pretty peaceful conversation or does it get really heated?
Speaker 3 (08:14):
Oh it's all about for sure. I mean, if you're
what we call a duty officer in the situation room,
which is what I was and then the head is
the senior duty officer, the head of the watch team.
Your only mission there is to provide information to someone
like you're either being proactive, like for instance, like when
this happened during Christmas, the underwear bomber, if you will,
and that was December twenty fifth, two thousand and nine.
(08:36):
You know, something pops off, we're getting alerts. We already
know there's gonna be high level interest, so we're getting
the who, what, win, or why how. We're drafting a
one page what we call intel note to brief people
on and then they take the information that we found
and they make decisions based on that. So we're not
offering any sort of advice, but they're making decisions based
on what we're finding. So we got to make sure
it's well sourced. We got to make sure, you know,
(08:58):
we have to kind of anticipate the questions they're going
to ask and have that information ready. Just a you know,
a real quick story. When the Fort Hood shooting went
down in November two thousand and nine, which the mass
shoot againstant killed, thirteen wounded, thirty. I'm on that day.
The head of the situation room comes in, says nick
I need you to reach out. You're gonna make this
one page document and we're going to brief the president.
(09:20):
I was like, okay, sorry, how much time do I have.
They're like, you have nine minutes and I'm like really,
He's like okay. Fifteen fifteen minutes later, what we would
call an ad the Homeland and Securities are And that
was John Brennan at the time. He later went on
to be Director of CIA. Comes in, takes the paper
that I worked on, reaching out to all my contacts
within the primitent Defense, et cetera to get as many
(09:41):
facts as I can, takes it up to the Oval,
and briefs the president on it. With with just that
fifteen minutes to the second, you get a lot of
things like that, But you are flying the wall. You
do get to see And I knew someone that was
in there for the first year of the last administration,
which is very, you know, very contentious time. During the
(10:01):
Trump administration, there was a lot going on. Anytime you
get a new administration in it can be contentious if
they're new to power and they don't really know what's
going on. But there was he he told me some
interesting stories. I will say that, so there's a lot,
there's a there's there's the spectrum is open. The possibilities
are endless as far as like there's person there's big personalities,
and it doesn't matter who's an office, there's always gonna
(10:23):
be like Rom and Manuel. If you remember are well
are E Manuel from uh was exactly Rom was his brother.
That was a personality.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
He was in there during the Obama administration.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
He was the first chief of staff. Like minor actions
with him went from straight up I sort of got
this is Ari Manuel like that kind of stuff to
just very pleasant, Hey, how's the family, how the kids.
It depends on the stress of the moment.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Let's jump to the next chapter of your life. So
you serve with the government for you know, how many
years were you all.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Together as seventeen, seventeen or eighteen?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I think, wow, so an amazing run with the government.
Then you have this passion for vintage watches that's probably
been brewing this entire time, even while you're working for
the government, and you're seeing all these different watches that
all these different military officials and everybody's wearing, and I
mean you're in encyclopedia when it comes to watches. We
sat down, had lunch, and it was fascinating all the
(11:30):
stuff that goes into watches. And you know, I think
I spoken about on the podcast before. It's like one
of my guilty pleasures are watches. I've always been fascinated
by them, whether it's vintage or current. I have a
little bit of a collection myself because I just enjoy it.
I enjoy it. What gave you the confidence to sort
of leave that world start your own business with DC
(11:50):
Vintage Watches and go in, you know, be all in
on that space sourcing, finding these watches, refurbishing them, getting
them ready for sale, and building a business around it.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah, it's not just you with a guilty pleasure. I
mean after the pandemic when everyone was a lot of
people were sitting at home and they had time, a
lot of people got into it. It's been huge amongst
like work spanning in the women's market because I think
that they're neglected. I think that's fifty percent of the
customer base. But anyway, no, I mean I had been
huge into watches. My dad got me into them in
high school and in twenty twelve I started DC Vintage
(12:24):
Watches as a side hustle. So I'm doing the government,
I'm doing all that stuff. You know. I wasn't that
long after I got out of the situation room, I
set this up. I had a little more time, thankfully,
and you know, fast forward to twenty eighteen. I moved
out to Los Angeles. My wife is a television producer,
so we came out here, like she has. I wanted
to give her the advantage. We had done my career
(12:45):
for a while and wanted to have her chance. I
was still working for the government. I was on loan
for Department of Defense. We were doing logistics for embassies
and nothing sexy. It was just very boring whatever. But
it got us out here to LA. And as soon
as I got to LA, I started doing what you
do anytime you start a new job. You start networking.
You start seeing here's here's influence, here's not. Here's who's
(13:07):
in the watches, who's not, you know, and I started
reaching out to, you know, actors that like yourself, that
were huge in the watches. Daniel day Kim, which I
considered to be a good friend of mine, is an
amazing individual. He's huge into watches. He was one of
the first people I developed a friendship with out here
and it just went from there and it got to
the point where I had done original research to figure
(13:28):
out what the watch was that Bruce Lee wore in
that martial arts legend.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Talk about that watch, because I say, I know, I
see the sticker on your wall or the picture on
your wall behind of Bruce And we talked a bit
about that. What's the famous that people should know that
the most famous Bruce Lee watch?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Bruce Lee? So it's it's nineteen seventies Siko six one
three nine dash six zero one zero and it's a
black dial on it. Beautiful watch. But there's there. I
found all these pictures with him wearing this watch, did
all my detective work whatever, So you know, I felt
confident from that, and I publicized it and one of
(14:02):
my customers happened to be a writer for GQ magazine,
and I reached out to him and I said, you know,
it was a natural segue. Hey, how's the watch? How
how are you enjoying it? Everything good? I have this idea,
here's this watch. You know, I found all these actors
like will Young Lee, Ronnie Comedian, Ronnie Chiang, et cetera.
(14:23):
You know, our mutual friend Nick Nonzales. Uh. You know,
actors are into it. How about this. I can introduce
you to some of these these these actors that are
wearing the watch. You can interview them, I can give
some background. We can do an article because he'd written
in Watches. He's a fashion writer for GQ, and he
took it to his editor. The editor loved it. They
published it, and you know, obviously, you know, I do
(14:46):
interest here. It led to some good business, but I
also wanted to get the message out there's this cool watch.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Based on that in the previous the experience I have
with the government, the doing the research, the sourcing stuff,
you know, making sure it's good sources, the high level
briefing the people to include you know, the vice president
of both administrations of the president, et cetera. I had
that competence to build these relationships. And you know, seeing
this is before the pandemic, mind you, and seeing businesses
(15:12):
kicking off, it was able. When my time was up
with the tour that I had out here, i left
government and you know, and I haven't looked back quite frankly,
and it's been intensely rewarding because every day I get
to talk with people like yourself that are you know,
you just dork out and watches. I love it, and
it's it's I'm getting paid to do something that I
(15:33):
enjoy highly. And since then I've done all this research
to find these other watches, like you know, the Special
Forces guys war like Military Assistants Command Vietnam Sallie's Observation
group that watched that. We got you for the Rookie.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, I was gonna talk about that because my watch.
People commented as soon as you know, the season started
last year, they're like, Tim has a new watch. Why
does Tim have a new watch? And you know, we
never were able to get fully into it, but talk
a bit more. I mean that watch was from Vietnam.
That's what I love, is like vintage watches, aren't you just
It's not just finding a watch that's out there. A
lot of these watches have insane stories. We'll go back
to Bruce Lee's watching a second, But the watch I
(16:06):
wear on the Rookie was a watch worn by a
soldier in Vietnam. Not just any soldier, but a Special
Forces soldier. It's got a compass on it. It's an
incredible watch. And when he when Nick you know, got
it to my propmaster and it was presented to me.
It's in you know, the with the authentic band. That
soldier's initials of writing was on the band, which blows
(16:28):
my mind. You know, I'm wearing and I loved it.
Because Tim's military past, there's obviously a real character placement here,
but it's that watch has a history and it's it's
seen more than I've ever seen in an intense way
in its lifetime. Talk a little bit more about that watch,
just for a quick second.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
And I remember our initial conversations where You're like, well,
let me tell you, let me tell you a bit
about Tim's character. I was like, hold on, I'm familiar,
trust me. I watched it. I watched the rookie I
know what I'm looking for here, and then we we
I loved it because we hit around those ideas that
would fit your character the watch.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:59):
So the watch itself. Uh, they were again the Studies
of Observation group. They were the soldiers. They were mostly
Green Berets, but they were running behind enemy lines and
the adjoit in the adjacent countries calling in air strikes
on what was you know, uh, the colloc return beade
hoo Chi men trail that was running all these resupplies
from China into Northern Vietnam and eventually in South Vietnam.
(17:21):
So they were, you know, they were hitting these logistics
trails to stop that supply from coming in. But these guys,
I mean, this is I mean, you have special forces
these days that do crazy, amazing stuff, but back then,
they didn't have all these you know, satellites were in
their infancy, didn't have any of this this tactical support
(17:42):
for these at today. And these guys were just like
they're back. They're inserting with teams with like five people
on this team. They're asserting low level insertion with helicopters
or really high outs, opening halo jumps, parachuting into the countries,
and a lot of them died, but they're you know,
they're behind any lines, are surrounded by whole wretch of
menster divisions of North Vietnamese Army regulars.
Speaker 2 (18:03):
They're badasses. And that's where my watch came from. People
from from the rookie fans that watch Lived is Life.
How do you find a watch? Tell me how a
watch like that goes from a man's wrist in Vietnam
and you know, we don't know. I guess if that
that soldier lived or or didn't live, I guess are
they well?
Speaker 3 (18:22):
And again, all the watches we find aren't necessarily from
their risk, but some are. And if we got it
from a wrist, they made it back.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
They made it back, Okay, it wasn't just like they
were brought back. And so they made it back. And
that watch was signed like it had the writing of
the soldier on the band, so that one was at
the war. So did that soldier eventually just sell it
off at some point in time to make some money,
and it made its way on the market.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
What you see now is you see a lot of
estate sales.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
Personally, some of these these members, some of these these
military members are passing away. You know, they're in their
seventies or in sixties, seventies, eighties, So you see a
lot of that. So you really have to know you're
setting you're setting alerts on everything. You're one in person,
you're talking to other watch dealers. Some people know what
they have, some people don't. It's things of that nature,
and that's how you're finding it. I mean, it's like,
so I did track down one soldier that I wrote
(19:12):
a article for Watches of Espionage. Amazing, amazing resource. Definitely
recommend your listeners check that out. And I was able
to through my contacts within McFee SAUG was able to
track down this soldier that had the same It wasn't
the watch that you got, but he wore the same
one and for an article for Watches of Espionage, and
(19:34):
he just hit me amazing stories and they just talk
about when these guys were behind enemy lines, they couldn't
wear things that made them look immediately like they were American.
So that's why they decided on Tsaiko because it was
this plausible deniability in case they were captured it. You know,
they maneuver room as far as what they were doing there.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah, So it wasn't just to watch. It was actually
potentially a way of covering their identity a little bit.
Speaker 3 (19:57):
It was purposeful. So they weren't wearing DOWG tags. Everything
they had was nondescript with no branding on it or
branding that wasn't American. And that's why they chose Sakoh
as well as you know, it's it's a badass watch
that puts up with a lot of abuse.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
Wow. Now, didn't Daniel I believe got the Bruce Lee watch, right,
because the Bruce Ley watches are pretty dope. Watch didn't
he get one of those?
Speaker 3 (20:26):
Oh? He has one Ryan Chang Williams.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
And Bruce Lee's. We don't know what actually happened to that,
isn't that part of the mystery, Like nobody really knows.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
And I actually reached out to his daughter Shannon, and
they don't know because I was talking to some of
her people as well, and they don't know. I guess
it's one of those loss of the ages. And there's
a lot of watches like this, like buzz Aldrin's Omega
speed Master that he wore on the First Moon. Look. Yeah,
he was sending into the Omega Museum and it disappeared.
Really so it's like there's tons of watches like this.
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Unfortunately, fascinating, fascinating. Now he also, you know Nick is
taken care of You mentioned Nick Gonzalez. He was a
mutual friend of ours. He took care of a lot
of the watches on The Good Doctor. Worked with many
of those actors and like you said, many others as well.
And I think it's so cool when you know look.
As an actor, we just get these props and a
(21:15):
lot of them, especially in an early show when the
budget's a little tighter. It's just a you know, a
replica of some other watch out there. It has no meaning.
It's just to we just throw it on people's wrists.
But when you can build the props or the wardrobe,
you know, anything around a character that continues to build
on the story and make it authentic, that's what's super
cool to me. And that's why I think listeners might
(21:35):
find this very interesting, especially fans of the rookie. It's
like it's not there's a lot of thought put into
what we're what we're wearing, what we're doing, and trying
to keep it real. And this was just another little
piece to Tim's journey that I thought made it, you know,
fun for fans to sort of discover. And we see
it on every episode. I'm wearing you know, this watch
is out there. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
And the problem master I work with Mike Casey, look dope,
he is amazing. Like people like me and others will
see any we predu what is it?
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Just to some of the listeners, like you know a
lot of people you know, even myself before I fully
understood vintage watches. It's like, you know, you think of
a Rolex, and rolexs are you know some of the
top of the you know, top of the line watches
out there right, everybody knows that brand. Why was Seko
in the day such a top watch? What made Sako
so special?
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, I mean, and it's it continues to this to
this day. Actually, but it was is they kind of
copied some of the things early on that they they
came United States, they looked at someone like Ford and
they were doing these like these automated assembly lines, and
they were trying to bring down costs, so make a
really awesome watch, but bring down costs a little bit
(22:44):
to make it affordable to to the everyman that maybe
can't afford a Rolex. And they got that reputation for that,
and they they went they ran with it. And so
you see a lot of their watches, like the uh
the nineteen eighty Saco sixty three oh nine is huge
even today in the military, I saw people with dood
wearing those. It's this really robust dive watch that people
(23:06):
swear by. I've got one. And so they basically made
these instructible watches that I mean, that's a watch that
came out. Now I'm dating myself. It's depressing, but coming
on half a century and it's still ticking and it's
still ticking. Well, you know, so that's part of it.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
What brings the value? Like you know, I learned this
later in my sort of watch collecting path. You know,
Rolex holds value or gains value? Right, uh, Philip, Philip, right,
same thing holds value, gains value. Some watches, don't they
just they just drop like this day and age watch.
But if you go to vintage watches, what is what
(23:42):
are the standout things for someone looking to get a
vintage watch that you know, they know it's gonna even
if it appreciates just a little bit over time, Right,
What are things that, yeah, you're looking for?
Speaker 3 (23:52):
That's a fantastic question. A lot of it is going
to be around the story, just like you said, Like
I like background, I have the degree in history. I
love it. So if you can if there's a story
attached to it, people love that. I love it. So
that is going to play like did this watch even
if it's not that specific like exact watch, but it's
the same reference had some important part in history. We
(24:13):
talk about the mc vee sag, the Bruce Lee Seko's,
there's there's the saiko what they call the Colonel Pogue,
which was worn by an astronaut, but the gold dial
up and out of space. People love the stories. So
that's an aspect of it. And a lot of some
of it is like was it is it made well?
Like does it have a reputation for being robust? And
like for instance, there's a watch that was worn in
(24:35):
the second Rambo film. It's a chronosport UDT. I love
the watch. It's black, it's handsome. The movement in it
is not great, and so it's gonna it's gonna lose
some value because of that, because it can't stand up
to abuse unfortunately. So it's quality, it's the story, it's
the legend, if you will, that's what will contribute to value.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
I think, so I think, and I think to build
on that question, you know, as we're entering into the
holidays here, it's a great time men women out there
is are great holiday gifts, right, what's a good sort
of if you were to give some advice entry level,
But obviously you can see nick and you can talk
to him more and learn more about the watches he
can source and what he can get. But what are
good entry level gift watches for the holidays and other
(25:15):
things that you think could be you know, just something
that our listeners should know.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
No, I can. I can give two good recommendations. I
get right because I get asked this question. A lot
one will be vintager one will be new. The vintage
one is what they don't make him anymore. They stopped
in twenty nineteen. But it's called a Saco SKX and
it's there like it was, like their entry level diver.
It either comes with a black bezel or what we
call Pepsi bezel, so you know, blue and red. And
(25:40):
if you're lucky, you can get him for five hundred.
You can get We regularly sell the full box sets
for eight hundred to eight fifty. If you want something
that's that's new Taiko and the reference escapes me. It's
like an SNP something, but the dial on it and watches.
This espionage mate very drew a lot of attention to this.
The dial on it is Arabic letters, so it's very
(26:01):
automatic movement. You can get them all day, every day.
On Amazon for maybe if you're lucky two fifty to
three hundred. Uh. And it's it's a fantastic watch. It's
very visible, it's it stands out on the wrist. Yeah.
I mean I swear by either one of those watches.
I have them both my collection. I wear them all
the time. But it really those are great entry level
watches to get people into the hobby, to gift, to
(26:23):
do whatever.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
I think enough as I go to your website and
learn about what watches you have in stock, and you
can source. I know, you can get almost anything if
you're if you have if people are patient, right, he
can dig and he can find. Talk to me about
your new collection, the Sycamore Collection your word.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yeah, and obviously I would recommend that too, but that's
you know, bring it up to me because it's it's
a little self effacing, but no. So the Sycamore Watch
Collection is a watch line that we came out with
the beginning of this year, and there's two initial watches.
There's one that's a little more demure, it's a little smaller,
and then there's a larger one. Uh. The smaller one
sold out quickly. We're in the midst of making some more,
(27:00):
but they I was surprised how quickly they sold out.
But back to the Arabic dio. Both of them feature
Arabic numbers on the dio. The one we have now
is built more towards like it for my background, there's more,
you know, I've done the diplomacy side, have done the
military side, the intelligence. An smaller one is more the
(27:21):
you know, the diplomacy or at a state dinner or whatever,
the White House or an embassy or what have you,
goes well with the tucks. The other side, uh is
you know that military backgroun. That's what we still have.
That's called Sycamore the Wolf, and it's a GMT so
it tells time in multiple places, automatic movement, but it
has that Arabic dio and it's all black. So it's
(27:42):
like this Matt Black PVD, very Special Force esque. And
that was kind of a labor of love for me
that I wanted to I'd always wanted to find this,
but to do a watch like this because nothing was
out there. So I was like, I make it myself.
I'm gonna use the context. I have an industry. I'm
gonna use the watchmakers that we employ we're gonna come
out with it, and you know, Pew wrote about it,
(28:05):
Campwolf and GQ shout out to him, wrote about it.
Thanks for that. I ct it in the watch periodicals,
wrote about it. And we're I think on our third
or fourth batch of those, so we've sold probably about
a hundred of them so far. But that's that's a
labor of love. We're gonna come out with more watches
right now, but they're in the planning phases. But yeah,
that's the Sycamore Watch line.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Ye. People want to reach you, what's the best way.
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Sure, the best way you can go to our website.
It's www dot d C Vintage Watches dot com. Email
sales at DC Vintage Watches dot com. We're on Instagram,
Uh you know at DC Vintage Watches. Uh yeah, drop
us a d M, send us an email whichever we
can find whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
You right, there's some amazing vintage watches out there, and
I know we've been trying to get more on some
of the cast of the Rookies who we're working on
that too. You're gonna see more popping up on our show.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
Nick.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Thank you for joining me and being on the podcast,
Love Talking Watches, with you, but also just the you know,
your career journey and how people can pivot and change,
you know, even later in life and find another passion.
Not just not just that it's their new path and
it's their only passion. It could literally be another passion.
You had two great careers and one that's ongoing right now,
(29:18):
and I love for listeners to hear that that the
drive is real and you got to just keep, you know,
evolving with the times.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
Now. It's been a labor of love and I feel
very lucky that I'm still doing it.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Thank you, Nick, appreciate you talk more soon, all right,
I love you know, listen for any of you out there.
I truly mean this when I say Nick is an
encyclopedia with watches, So as a holidays approach, if it's
something you're into, reach out to him. You will get
so much great info to build on. Maybe you'll find
that your your kid, or your your your husband or
(29:52):
wife might have a new hobby in store that they
want to dive into watches. Thank you for listening to
this episode. If you have something you want to talk
to us about, send us DM at he said he
a d O, or email us at Ericinross at iHeartRadio
dot com and until next time, see ya, Thanks for listening,
don't forget to write us a review and tell us
what you think.
Speaker 1 (30:09):
If you want to follow us on Instagram, check us
out at he said. Ajav or sens at email Eric
and Ross at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
He said.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
AJAB is part of iHeartRadio's my Pultuda podcast network.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
See you next time. Bye,
Host
Roselyn Sanchez
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