Allen explores his decision to sell his BIG 50th BIRTHDAY WATCH just one year later. This one is all about aligning one's true passion with one's budget, or lack thereof. And Allen explores how modern watch marketing can come between an owner and his watch.

Beyond The Dial

Why I Sold My 50th Birthday Grand Seiko At Age 51

Allen return from an epic cross-country motorcycle trip with reservations about his Grand Seiko birthday watch and a head full of American Weirdness.

9000 Miles, 21 States, 5 Weeks, 1 Motorcycle & 1 Watch

Allen goes into the ideas behind the Alsta Motoscaphe 120, one of a very few purpose built motorcycling watches. Not branded to match this or that bike, nor just a clever facelift, the Motoscaphe 120 is the culmination of Allen spending the last 30 years or so riding motorcycles with mechanical watches. 

Our First Watch - The Alsta x BTD Motoscaphe 120

Why do the rich get away with all kinds of bizarre quirky behavior while the rest of us are made to look silly when we express our little kinks?  The answer is complicated, and when we bring watches into the picture, it only gets more complicated.  

Eccentricity, Ostentation, Wealth & Watches

Walt Odets is, by most accounts, the first person to blog about watches, thus creating a template for how watch journalism evolved over the past 20 years. His work, however, never resembled modern watch journalism; his was critical, mechanically minded, and decidedly unconcerned with fashion and trends. Allen and Walt discuss his journey in watches and much more.

Walt Odets - Going Beyond The Dial With The Original Watch Blogger

Allen grabs the mic and speaks for an hour with zero edits on topics ranging from his dream of playing with The Grateful Dead (#letallenplay) to OEM straps to how mechanical ignorance leads to silly horological obsessions, and more...

Satanic Ramblings

Horology Inc. provides us with a vast array of dial colors able to splash dopamine onto our opiate receptors. We often dismiss new colors as a superficial trend lacking horological innovation, but Allen argues that - because splashy dials spontaneously inspire joy, beauty, and emotions that, science has shown, replicate our experience of Love - great dials may be closer to the center of The Aesthetic Revolution than we ever imagined. 

Divine Dials, Horological Hedonism & The Aesthetic Revolution

Allen breaks form on his approach to the hands-on review while exploring how Moser creates what is, in his opinion, one of the most beautiful watches currently being produced.

Overlooking The Glory of Large Watches - A Case Study Featuring the Moser Pioneer Centre Seconds Limited Edition in Mad Red

Can irony reconcile the cynical Gen X world view with a luxury hobby? Does the Swiss watch industry sell us "Vintage Nationalism" along with our watches? Did Jean-Claude Biver leverage anti-establishment tendencies with his anti-electronic rhetoric of the 1980s and 1990s?  Allen takes a stab at these topics and more in this essay episode.

Rolex vs. Gen X

In this essay-style episode, Allen takes a journey through the history of glow-in-the-dark materials, drawing a personal narrative spanning five decades alongside a technological and psycho-evolutionary analysis of luminescence. 

Lume

Daniel and Lung Lung from The Waiting List podcast join Allen and James for a 2-hour conversation about how unique regional cultural experiences shape our attitudes toward watches and each other. Expect a lot of laughter and surprises as cross-cultural discoveries emerge in this lively conversation.

From Singapore to Shanghai, Hong Kong, Taiwan, New York, London & Beyond

Flare ups in anti-Asian hatred in the USA have inspired communities to join together to raise voices and awareness around the often overlooked (and sometimes intentionally erased) abuses against Asian-Americans.

Addressing Anti-Asian Hate (w/ James Im)

Allen and Jon both ride Ducati Panigale V2s, and therefore have much to talk about. But they don't talk all that much about motorcycles, instead focusing on Jon's family's history at Cartier and Tiffany, Italian espresso machines, and the indie watch scene.

Ducatis, Watches & Espresso Machines (with Jon Ferrer of Brew Watches)

This is an explanation of how our commitment to you, our readers and listeners, requires that we maintain traditional journalistic ethical boundaries. It summarizes many months of concerted dialogue between the four founders as we created our brand of product journalism. That brand can be summarized as a promise to always keep you, our dear readers, as our primary allegiance.

Beyond The Dial's Promise To Our Readers & Listeners

Welcome to "How They Work," a series of episodes dedicated to understanding the devices behind the dial. In this introductory episode, David Flett walks Allen through a history of mechanical timekeeping going back over 5000 years and sweeping up to modern times.

How They Work 1 - The Long History of Escapements

A podcast about watches, how they work, and why they fascinate us.

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Beyond The Dial

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