Think people having bought this can just reply they have enough money it doesn't matter to them.

 

Very true. Hodinkee is not for enthusiasts and collectors, their aim is to dictate fashion and trend to the rich, then ultimately be the ones to sell them the product. It’s working for them. It’s a business and they’re making money.

Has this one been bad for their image, possibly, but they’ll just look at the sales.

 

I don't comprehend what their aim is beyond the obvious making of money.
Are they for enthusiasts and collectors? Definitely not anymore, as you say.
Do they seek to dictate fashion and trends for rich people? Right now, on their home page, they feature a Casio G-Shock and their own $6000 copy-cat travel clock so, if they now seek to influence rich people, why bother with a G-Shock?

When I see Hodinkee on the dial of that travel clock I see a pretentious brand that thinks it is Hermes but actually has neither the design talent nor the craftmanship of Hermes.

 

greatest of all time leather?

 

And that's the irony right there, because the $35 Braun clock posted above has the design signature of Dieter Rams, which is arguably the most influential and important person in the history of design

 

Orrrhhh, this FB comment is brutal as well:

 

New cars depreciate 10% or more the minute that they are driven off the dealer lot. I'm wondering if these clocks will retain 10% of their value?

 

$1100

 

Yes, I was surprised to see the G-Shock, then I saw the price! Hodinkee are ideally placed to convince someone to spend $900 on a Casio. The best G-Shock ever blah blah blah. They brainwash people into an impulse purchase.

 

The Hodonkey award...

 

My reply to people like that is that I have enough money to buy it too, and enough sense/taste not to.

 

Disappointing, but not surprising, stuff from Hodinkee.

A likely redeeming factor now is that they say they’ll donate 50% of the proceeds to some Covid related humanitarian effort. But oh well, that’s unlikely to happen.

Anyway - perezscope with some up close shots of the “finishing”.

 

I noticed both of these yesterday when I was looking at their fluff about it. The off center screws in the leather is just so careless it's unbelievable. I'm sure their excuse would be that this was a pre-production model, blah blah blah. But frankly it's just par for the course on this whole exercise in self-inflicted harm.

In musing about it overnight I can't quite decide what is the worst part - a travel clock in 2020? The exorbitant price? Or the absolutely derivative "design". And in the end I think it's the last one. I mean they still would have gotten shit for releasing a $6K travel clock in 2020, but it at least it looked like it was an actual object d'art and something that was desirable to own, it would have mitigated this whole snafu.

I mean sure, use the leather, but I would have had rhodium plated sterling silver accents, along with a bakelite horn-rim case, and a rhodium plated sterling silver sunburst dial. Something to take it from BAF to "well that's really cool looking, but I will never be able to afford it or justify it".

 

Same movement $128 on EBay

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Vintage-Pontifa-Table-Top-Alarm-Clock-Working-/311752835816Purchases made through these links may earn this site a commission from the eBay Partner Network






Pontifa 7320 8-day with alarm

https://forums.timezone.com/index.php?t=tree&goto=5394815&rid=0

 

I think this is the culmination of the original intent of Hodinkee really - to pump and dump products. At first it was a mixture of enthusiasm and hyping watches of theirs they wanted to sell (anybody remember what they did to the UG Nina a few years ago?) and now they're short-circuiting it and just going for the easy money.

By bankers, for bankers.

 

allegedly did to the Nina...

For the record I think they where complicit in market manipulation on that one.

look they are enthusiasts that where also great business men that slogged and grinded. They literally sat in department stores with a pop up just a few short years ago trying to build the brand. They deserve the success and if they fail they deserve it too.

What bugs me is people bashing the brand because it’s not for them anymore... that seems a bit entitled to me. I am not saying that your doing this @abrod520 bur others are.

What they are doing is obviously working... just this travel alarm clock seems to far to the bulk of vocal readers.

 

Hey, they are only building 96 of these, so it's limited edition! ...yeah...definitely still not worth it...

 

Is Hoodinkee some sort of money laundering outfit?

 

Allegations of market manipulation of watches.

here is how it works. Buy up a bunch of mid grade to great examples of a watch. Also have a mint one. Have a site like hodinkee do a write up then auction the mint one and sell it to yourself via a proxy and eat the buyers fees.

So now all of those watches you purchased for 3-8k are now worth 12-20k.
This was pretty clearly seen on the Nina Rindt and Evil Nina watches a few years ago. Due to the number of watches that hit the market after the article and auctions it’s a bit suspicious. Hodinkee appears to some people to have been involved in this and not just setting a trend.

 

I could not agree more. To me their goal has been clear for quite a while now, and yet some people are still taken in by it.