- In here, is one of my grail watches.
It's an Audemars Piguet.
I'm trying to create like a,
a little bit of suspense, create a bit of intrigue.
There's only one AP that people actually buy,
and this one is a bit different, this one's special.
(bass heavy hip hop music)
Welcome back to Bark And Jack, I am Adrian,
and today I'm drinking an espresso.
Usually when I do these videos,
I'm just drinking, quite often, just a capsule coffee.
The focus isn't to create a nice coffee,
the focus is to create content,
but today I'm looking at something quite special.
Today I'm looking at something
that I want to take my time over
and enjoy.
This is one of my grail watches,
and to accompany it, I've made an espresso.
Espresso is a more complex coffee to make,
than obviously just a capsule,
but also just your normal filter coffee.
It takes time to perfect the process,
because there's lots of elements that can go wrong.
You can't hide behind adding water,
and diluting the coffee.
You can't hide behind milk
and sugar.
It's just the raw form of coffee.
Without sounding overly pretentious,
it's just nice to dissect it
and enjoy it.
And that's kind of how I see this watch.
This is something I really wanted to dissect
and kind of appreciate the different elements
that are going on.
8.1 millimeters thick.
This was lent to me by a watch dealer friend
at Edinburgh Watch Company.
When he called to say he had it in,
I was actually apprehensive about checking it out,
because there's been a lot of situations where,
check the watch out in real life,
and it just really hasn't lived up to
what I've created it to be in my head.
It's easy to look at a watch
and think, wow, that is a stunning thing,
and kind of become infatuated by it.
But then you actually check it out in real life
and it's just, nah, it does nothing.
It's kind of like the Paul Newman Daytona,
really, really cool looking watch.
But then you check this thing out in real life,
and it feels so incredibly fragile.
And the same goes for the Nautilus.
That used to be on my list of grails,
I think it's a gorgeous looking watch,
incredible curves, beautifully designed.
But when you feel it in real life,
all those feelings of it being on a pedestal,
of it being something that I aspire to own,
just disappeared.
It didn't feel like a sports watch.
It didn't feel like something substantial.
With this, there's something different about it.
It just feels right. The Nautilus didn't.
That looks awesome.
This watch retails for, I think 26,000?
Like a lot of watches like this style,
you can't just get it.
On the gray market they go for near enough, double that.
After I picked this up
and I wore it, the moment I got home,
I looked at how much I could sell my Kermit for.
Not because I could get anywhere close to the cost of this,
but because I want a Royal Oak.
39 millimeters wide, it sounds like it would be small,
but this is because it's all integrated,
it's just a big chunk of metal.
With my obsession about tapering bracelets,
(chuckles)
have a look at this taper.
That is one crazy taper.
From the pictures, I didn't think I'd like the lacking
of the seconds hands.
Visually it just works. I love the cleanness.
The date, I like the date.
I just like the black on the blue.
The blue is the coolest blue I've seen.
It's kind of like a denim blue.
People got upset in my previous video
because I called the Seiko 5 sports watch a dive watch
because it's got a dive bezel,
but they're saying, oh, it's not a real dive watch
cause you can't actually go diving with it,
it's only got a hundred meters of water resistance.
That's how I imagine these people talk.
But fine, in the same breath,
then this sports watch,
shouldn't really be called a sports watch,
cause it's got 50 meters of water resistance,
doesn't even have a screw down crown.
It doesn't even have a balance bridge.
It's got a balance cock, so it's not built for sports.
The main talking points up until now have kind of been
around the aesthetics of the watch
and how it wears,
and in all honesty, I can't fault the looks of this thing.
This thing is, it is gorgeous,
and the hype around this design, as a design,
I think is valid, at least from my perspective,
but this isn't a designer watch.
This is more than a designer watch.
This is more than just the looks.
This is one of the main watches from the Holy Trinity.
So it has to be more than just good looks.
It's got to be a great watch as well.
And that's where I have a few gripes with this watch.
To put what I'm about to say into context,
when I went to Rolls Royce, I was invited
to the Rolls Royce factory, had a big tour of the factory,
and I got to take one of their cars out
for a mess about,
and it was awesome fun.
Rolls Royce
and AP I'd say are of the same level.
With Rolls Royce, everything is about the customer.
It's all about, we have a highly engineered product
that is a car, but what can we do
to make this better for the customer,
not for the car necessarily.
For example, they had a little button on the dash
that closes the door for you.
I could quite happily,
and I have done for all my life,
put my hand out of the door
and shut the door with my arm.
They're more concerned about the driver,
or the user, getting rain on their arm
by shutting the door,
and so let's have a nice button.
Again, that button doesn't benefit anything to do
with the car.
There's a motor inside the body to shut the door,
and it has to be a strong motor surely,
cause that door's a heavy door.
All that extra weight is bad for the car,
but it benefits the customer.
So this is a sports watch that looks sporty.
It's got the sporty looks about it.
It's made of stainless steel, so that's nice
and hard wearing, the bracelet feels solid,
although dainty, it feels solid.
It doesn't have a sports movement.
The movement isn't a movement that's been designed
to take an impact.
So this watch is arguably the equivalent
of the Wraith, for the watch world.
It's a sports watch that isn't for sports,
but if it's not for sports, it must then be a luxury watch.
That means that user experience must be superb.
But this doesn't have a quickset date,
this is 2020,
and one of the Holy Trinity is putting out a watch,
that doesn't have a quickset date.
It only has 40 hours of power reserve.
Maybe it's got a large crown, that's nice
and comfortable to wind, so that you can,
although it takes a while to get to the correct date,
it's not a pain to do it.
This literally is a pain to do it.
This crown, although is large,
and it's a very, very good looking crown,
it is horrible to wind.
It's painful to wind.
You just have these sharp angles
that you have to push against.
The movement might lack a high power reserve
and a quickset date function
because it's such a compact movement,
it's so thin, it's 3.05 millimeters thick,
or rather, it's just an old movement,
that was created by JLC over half a century ago in 1967.
The AP calibre 2121 is based on the JLC calibre 920.
I'm being highly critical about this thing
because of how much it costs,
because of the hype around this,
and also because of how highly regarded AP are,
as a watchmaker, or as JLC the watchmaker.
But also, if the focus is to create a luxury product,
and to create a product that is enjoyed
and liked by the end user, there's such an easy fix.
Just remove the date function,
and that solves so many of the problems here.
And that's exactly what I meant in my previous video,
when I was talking about the Seiko
and the Rolex Submariner.
It wasn't really Seiko versus Rolex.
It was more of, identify what you're buying,
and figure out, is this actually worth it?
Is this actually what I want from a watch?
If I had the money, yes,
I would probably still buy it,
because it is a gorgeous looking watch,
and it feels incredible, it feels right.
I know exactly what you're thinking.
Adrian, you only make videos to shill your straps,
it's got nothing to do with the fact
that you love making videos,
and you love talking about watches.
So this was a stupid idea, commercially,
talking about a watch that you can't change the strap on.
I've got an idea.
Next week, I'm gonna be launching this thing.
Bark And Jack watch roll.
Beautifully handmade in Florence, Italy.
Smells incredible, just like all of our leather products.
Super soft suede on the inside,
perfect for you to just slide--
that's not gonna work, is it?
Well these are great, as long as you don't have Royal Oaks.
From an end user's point of view,
this is why I love my Omega Seamaster so much.
The movement, it is just an amazing movement.
Yes, it does not have anywhere near the finishing
that the AP has,
but spec-wise, performance, it, on the AP movement.
I don't know what the conclusion is to this.
It's, I just wanted to share my thoughts with you,
my experience of getting hands-on with a grail,
and it not living up to my expectations.
It's gorgeous. It is gorgeous.
Try this on if you ever can,
but the movement is a letdown.
Good-looking movement, beautiful movement,
but performance-wise, it's not good.
But then I look at it
and it is just good looking,
oh this doesn't make sense.
Maybe horology just isn't for me.
Maybe that side of the watch world
just isn't my thing.
Maybe again, coming back to that Seiko versus Rolex video,
maybe I just don't appreciate the things
that are important for horology.
Let me know in the comments
what you think of the Holy Trinity,
what you think of this piece as well.
I think it's gorgeous.
Guys, I hope you like this video.
Give it a thumbs up if you did.
If you like the style of this video,
hit the subscribe button down there,
and the little bell icon so you get notifications
when I drop a new video.
If you wanna check out watch straps
and watch accessories jump over to BarkAndJack.shop.
If you want to keep up to date with our new products,
then sign up to our newsletter at BarkAndJack.com.
Oh,
and join the group on Clubhouse.
It's called B&J Coffee & Watches.
I want this to be a two-way thing,
and Clubhouse is a great way of it being two-way.
If you're on Instagram, give me a follow @BarkAndJack.
I'll see you guys next time. Take care.