Watchlords

Curious why so much deep discount/grey market fodder.

If I may offer a possible explanation: it's because the glory days of Nicolet are gone, dead and buried.

The Nicolet family business used to be massive, with dozens and dozens of trademarks registered, each actually appearing on dials. They had it all covered, from simple dress and casual watches, through column wheel chronographs (with a Landeron 39 inside, usually) in steel and in solid gold, up to split-second chronographs. All the stuff in between - dive watches, sports watches - was also covered.

Then came the Quartz Crisis, then people thought "fuck mechanical stuff" , "fuck Nicolet", and "I'm buying a quartz Citizen/Seiko/Whatthefucknot." Then people's interest in mechanical stuff returned, mechanical stuff was no longer fucked, but Nicolet stayed fucked, and there we are, one last remnant of what used to be a massive holding, trying to pretend it's their heyday again, while it's still as fucked as it was, and as unwilling to invest in a good marketing department as it never was before.

Vintage Dude, send them your cv with a marketing teaser. It worked for me.

tiktok wrote:Vintage Dude, send them your cv with a marketing teaser. It worked for me.

Hmmm, that's not a bad idea. Here's a draft of my job application:

"Dear Armand Nicolet Personnel Department,

I have no experience in the industry, although as an observant fellow and avid researcher, I amount to more than the sodding lot of You combined. Your inept marketing strategy is so unbearably annoying to my massive intellect, that I have decided to request a job at Your unworthy excuse of a company.

It is my firm belief that Your company is just as badly fucked as it was since the 1970s. While Your watches don't entirely blow, they often blow. You have resorted to faux-discounts in an Eyal Lalo manner in order to have Your wares sold at all. It is my considered opinion, that this blows, and since I am the only sentient being - for you seem to have mostly orangutans at Your marketing department - that can get Your company unfucked again, You, dear Sirs, should take my word as gospel, and You can only prove that you are not the pillocks I take You for simply by hiring me.

My requirements are as follows: a five-digit monthly payout to an account on Turks & Caicos, a crate of Wild Turkey and a crate of Dalwhinnie 15 y.o. every month, a glass, a constant supply of ice cubes and cigars, a perpetually horny female assistant, and a couch necessary for effectively performing my work in a horizontal position.

I await Your reply with growing impatience.

Yours truly,

MKTheVintage Bloke, Watch Lord and Master of Time, 1st Baron Foulmouth, WIS Know-It-All Extraordinaire, Knight of the Rectangular Desk and Earl of the Armchair"

MKTheVintageBloke wrote:

tiktok wrote:Vintage Dude, send them your cv with a marketing teaser. It worked for me.

Hmmm, that's not a bad idea. Here's a draft of my job application:

"Dear Armand Nicolet Personnel Department,

I have no experience in the industry, although as an observant fellow and avid researcher, I amount to more than the sodding lot of You combined. Your inept marketing strategy is so unbearably annoying to my massive intellect, that I have decided to request a job at Your unworthy excuse of a company.

It is my firm belief that Your company is just as badly fucked as it was since the 1970s. While Your watches don't entirely blow, they often blow. You have resorted to faux-discounts in an Eyal Lalo manner in order to have Your wares sold at all. It is my considered opinion, that this blows, and since I am the only sentient being - for you seem to have mostly orangutans at Your marketing department - that can get Your company unfucked again, You, dear Sirs, should take my word as gospel, and You can only prove that you are not the pillocks I take You for simply by hiring me.

My requirements are as follows: a five-digit monthly payout to an account on Turks & Caicos, a crate of Wild Turkey and a crate of Dalwhinnie 15 y.o. every month, a glass, a constant supply of ice cubes and cigars, a perpetually horny female assistant, and a couch necessary for effectively performing my work in a horizontal position.

I await Your reply with growing impatience.

Yours truly,

MKTheVintage Bloke, Watch Lord and Master of Time, 1st Baron Foulmouth, WIS Know-It-All Extraordinaire, Knight of the Rectangular Desk and Earl of the Armchair"

I'd give you a job from this cv, you cocksucker.

ttt

I'll be dumping all mine except for one...

codguy wrote: ↑

September 10th 2020, 9:13am

I'll be dumping all mine except for one...

really? Are you saving up for an invicta?

koimaster wrote: ↑

September 10th 2020, 9:45am

codguy wrote: ↑

September 10th 2020, 9:13am

I'll be dumping all mine except for one...

really? Are you saving up for an invicta?

Nope, I'll leave that up to all the IWG fanbois here.

codguy wrote: ↑

September 10th 2020, 11:32am

koimaster wrote: ↑

September 10th 2020, 9:45am

codguy wrote: ↑

September 10th 2020, 9:13am

I'll be dumping all mine except for one...

really? Are you saving up for an invicta?

Nope, I'll leave that up to all the IWG fanbois here.

I thought the numero uno one had already left the building and taken flight!

I missed this one.

In the name of all that is holy and just, PLEASE print that out as a CV and send it to Nicolet. Please!

God knows they need some guidance. Maybe then they would make a watch that doesn’t look like a silver hockey puck trinket that a 500 pound, anemic pimp would wear.

Not on subject (ie; Cecil)
This one is a keeper mostly due to being discombobulated (arabic/roman numerals, three separate hands).
Also love the dial work, 40mm size....... and the 18k gold case, buckle, end links, crown & hour markers.

But that is just me.

codguy wrote: ↑

September 13th 2020, 5:17am

Not on subject (ie; Cecil)
This one is a keeper mostly due to being discombobulated (arabic/roman numerals, three separate hands).
Also love the dial work, 40mm size....... and the 18k gold case, buckle, end links, crown & hour markers.

But that is just me.

Very nice - has a Breguet vibe.

codguy wrote: ↑

September 13th 2020, 5:17am

Not on subject (ie; Cecil)
This one is a keeper mostly due to being discombobulated (arabic/roman numerals, three separate hands).
Also love the dial work, 40mm size....... and the 18k gold case, buckle, end links, crown & hour markers.

But that is just me.

The older models can be a different story. Have a look at their new stuff. They are just are as blah as can be. Is like high dollar Fossil.

biglove wrote: ↑

September 13th 2020, 11:06am

codguy wrote: ↑

September 13th 2020, 5:17am

Not on subject (ie; Cecil)
This one is a keeper mostly due to being discombobulated (arabic/roman numerals, three separate hands).
Also love the dial work, 40mm size....... and the 18k gold case, buckle, end links, crown & hour markers.

But that is just me.

The older models can be a different story. Have a look at their new stuff. They are just are as blah as can be. Is like high dollar Fossil.

True that^^^
Great movements but not much to look at.

The classic pieces however are really well done and a testament to the quality with which they were made is their durability. Even their jobber pieces incorporated the same standards when Roland Barga took over in the mid 80's and turned the brand into a huge assembly operation, perhaps the largest in Switzerland for a period of time.

The brand produced high quality watches in their own brand name as well as assembling watches for some of the best known brands in the business. Barga was best known for his endeavors to incorporate historic movements the brand had acquired over the years, some made by the company in its early years. AIR, they called them O.H.M. (original historic movements) and they were popped into L.E.'s to the number of movements available.

An informative little blurb on the brand from the 3f library of horology:

https://web.archive.org/web/20171110172 ... colet.html