ScrewDownCrown (Faheem)

So, it seems Phillips, in association with Bacs and Russo, are now doing collaborations with watchmakers to create limited editions for friends of the auction house. A brief chat with my friend “C” aka. @running_sands helped shed some light on this new development.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/10/01/phillips-collaborates-with-watchmakers/

Yesterday, over lunch with the infamous @nycwatchguy and @f1ptb… we discussed the concept of purchases under pressure. In the current environment this issue is far more pronounced, due to the rise of limited editions, the increased popularity of independent watchmakers (who have lower supply inherently) and because of general hype with any popular watches – often fuelled by the influx of profiteers into the watch game, who tend to pose as genuine enthusiasts or collectors. This also raised the question of what defines a “genuine” enthusiast anyway; and when is it ok to sell a watch without being labelled a flipper? Thoroughly enjoyed the conversation, and thought I would share a few of the insights here.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/09/07/purchases-under-pressure/

The Exercise: Tonight and every night for the next seven days, before you go to sleep, write down three things that went well and why they went well.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/05/27/attitude-for-gratitude-3-blessings-exercise/

I saw a link to set up auto-generated podcast episodes... and I thought, why not! 

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/03/17/homo-economicus-watch-collecting/

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/05/10/social-psychology-and-watches/

I mentioned a week ago that I am taking a course on psychology, and so this covers some of the material from the course itself. I may end up splitting this into a few parts as there is a lot I want to cover! To me, social psychology is the most interesting field of psychology. Social psychology is the branch of psychology that deals with how we have social interactions and social thoughts, what we think of ourselves, what we think about other people, how we behave in groups, how we think about different groups, and so on. It's just extremely interesting because these are intrinsicallyinteresting topics - everybody is interested in themselves. It is also interesting because social psychologists have come up with some really cool findings.

For example, people in certain studies were shown photos of Tony Blair and Barack Obama, and then asked, "Who is more American," - now due to unconscious biases and stereotypes, various studies find that Tony Blair is thought of as more American because, due to the colour of his skin, many people think of him as more American.

There is also some evidence that we have a form of implicit egoism. When asked about our favourite letter, it is (more often than one would expect by chance) likely to be the first letter of our first or last name. More than that, psychologists find that the sort of people who move to Georgia are more likely than you'd expect to have G in their name, or those who become lawyers are more likely in fact to have L in their name.

Now, these studies, as of late, have generated a lot of scrutiny, and many have argued that the more sexy findings from social psychology, particularly those involving social priming, are not fully robust. In other words, through no fault, no fraud, nothing wrong in the part researchers, but just because of various failures to replicate the results meaningfully.

In the last post I mentioned "self" and touched on psychological phenomena related to the self such as: everybody notices us, we are above average, and what we do make perfect sense.

Next we move on to attribution theory, which explores how we make sense of ourselves and others, and then onto understanding how we think about other people, and what we actually like about other people - we will then try and connect this to watch collecting.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/05/12/social-psychology-and-watches-pt-2/

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/04/19/the-dilution-effect/

I recently watched a TED Talk entitled "The counterintuitive way to be more persuasive" - the talk was about the Dilution Effect. In this talk, organizational psychologist Niro Sivanathan discusses this cognitive quirk that weakens our strongest cases, and he reveals why brevity is the true expressway to persuasion.

I have written about the idea of "buying what you like" being poor advice for watch buyers... in short, the premise that you already know what you like, is a fallacy, because for most people, this is continuously changing due to external influences. The more appropriate advice therefore, is to educate yourself deeply on the subject, in order to ensure you can clearly articulate what you like, and therefore be sure you do indeed like that thing - only then can you be sure you will be buying what you like.

With that in mind, I was reading this awesome post about something he calls Brandolini's Law - this is the simple observation that it’s far easier to produce and spread BS, misinformation and nonsense than it is to refute it.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/03/30/the-bs-asymmetry-principle/

I never thought I would see the day where I wrote about Vacheron Constantin, and the post was anything other than glowing praise. Many will already know how much I love the brand, and although I only own one watch from their collection, I had, and perhaps still have every intention of owning more of them (although they probably won't sell me one again). I think the Vacheron executives have become too arrogant, too quickly, and it is extremely disappointing; Even if this behaviour is par for the course with hype brands, people who have seen and experienced the 'old Vacheron' have every right to feel disappointed. Sure, this will perhaps become the new normal for the brand, but let's talk about it anyway.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/09/23/whats-the-deal-with-vacheron-constantin/

A few days ago I was reading this post about how our preconceived notions might hinder our decision-making… I thought it was applicable to watches, and wanted to share it here with a few comments.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/10/05/you-might-actually-like-it/

I watched a TED talk by Bill Burnett ... so I decided to share some of his ideas and connect them to watches.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/06/06/how-and-why-do-you-collect-watches/

Have you ever heard the term "Yak shaving"? Either way, I found it had some applicability to watch collecting, so I decided to share some thoughts on this; while slightly obscure and not wholly enlightening... hopefully still educational!

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/07/21/yak-shaving-and-watch-collecting/

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/03/24/is-it-worth-having-children/

René Descartes was a French 17th century philosopher, most famous for his saying "I think therefore I am". What makes him stand out for me, is that he was a fierce rationalist - relying on reason as the best guide for belief and action. This was in an age when many philosophers backed up their arguments with appeals to god, Descartes trusted in nothing more than the power of human logic. I am no philosopher, but I do see myself as a fierce rationalist too, often relying on logic to solve many of my own conundrums. It is with this logical hat on, that I would like to discuss the topic of having children, and why this may, or may not be a good idea. My overall conclusion is that while young children may bring many moments of joy and positives to young parents, the real reason for having children is the benefits to the parents when they get old.

The "Front Page Test" is an easy ethics standard which requires asking yourself: "How would I feel if the course of action I am considering were reported on the front page of the local newspaper or in a popular blog?". The idea is, if you feel this would be uncomfortable or create problems for you, then the best course of action is to change the intended course of action. Simple as that.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/07/26/the-front-page-test-for-watch-collectors/

The ending to my previous psychology course covers the concept of happiness, and most of these details are included here. In general, it turns out that happiness is fairly heritable, but there is of course more to it than that. Here we will talk about some basic nuances that will affect your happiness, and describe how the variability in your happiness is affected by external factors. Finally, trying to connect it to watches, the argument and variability of happiness is largely a function of the company you keep, and what you are exposed to most frequently, but it need not be a source of sadness. We are the architects of our own thoughts after all.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/05/25/watch-collecting-and-happiness/

Education is the starting block. As a buyer, you must find out what you like by taking yourself through the process of figuring it out, using data you have gathered yourself. Question what you read, understand all the variants, find all the alternatives and then as you do this, you will begin to find that passion within you start to form. As the passion forms, you will have confirmation of your genuine desire for this item. Conversely, after diving deep, and realising there is no passion to speak of, you might have just convinced yourself the item isn't for you; and that is ok!

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/03/31/watch-collectors-dont-buy-what-you-like/

The parable of the blind men and an elephant originated in the ancient Indian subcontinent, from where it has been widely diffused. It is a story of a group of blind men who have never come across an elephant before and who learn and conceptualize what the elephant is like by touching it. Each blind man feels a different part of the elephant's body, but only one part, such as the side or the tusk. They then describe the elephant based on their limited experience and their descriptions of the elephant are different from each other. In some versions, they come to suspect that the other person is dishonest and they come to blows. The moral of the parable is that humans have a tendency to claim absolute truth based on their limited, subjective experience as they ignore other people's limited, subjective experiences which may be equally true.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/04/06/blind-men-and-an-elephant/

I was reading this book by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein entitled "Nudge" - in the book they evaluate choices, biases and the limits of human reasoning from several perspectives. They tell stories about how they trick themselves to becoming victims of the very limitations of thought that they are describing. This is telling, because the very fact that these educated, articulate professionals can trick themselves (even though they know what is happening) demonstrates how tough it is to think clearly. We fall prey to systematic errors of judgment all the time - however, one of the ways of addressing this issue is to improve our ability to identify when this is happening.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/04/10/nudge-improving-decisions/

A week ago @nycwatchguy started blogging too – which is good news for the watchfam. In his most recent post he discusses “The rules of engagement” for brands in the watch world… and I thought I would share some frameworks to help folks understand with a little more detail how brands think about the process of allocating a watch to a client. I still agree with him, that it would be nice if brands were more transparent, however, I think we should not hold our breath.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/09/26/how-does-watch-allocation-work/

This episode is also available as a blog post: http://screwdowncrown.com/2021/11/20/do-you-miss-depreciation/

I recently had a fascinating conversation with “D” @dooboolooabout his new Furlan Marri watches, contrasting them (perhaps surprisingly) with his new R. W. Smith “micro architectural wonderland” which he recently took delivery of, after a 5 year wait! We then got onto the topic of how depreciation has changed the collecting mindset… and this post gives us a glimpse into collecting in what I call the “endgame league” – I’m sure D will disagree! I hope you enjoy the perspectives.

Is “time” a universal truth? Consider one of my favourite films, Interstellar, where Matthew McConaughey finds himself in a tesseract; this was an incredibly difficult concept to capture on film, and I think it was done really well. Effectively, this is a 4-dimensional space where the 4th dimension is time. In other words, all time is simultaneous and where we are at one particular ‘point’ in time is not a necessarily “mutually exclusive” event. As Rovelli expains it – the universe is made up of countless events – even something trivial such as a rock, is an event which takes place at a rate which we as humans cannot process!

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/04/28/what-is-time-2/

What is the cost of an item? The price tag is a matter of fact, but how often do people really think about the true cost of an item when weighing it against the benefits of ownership? 

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/03/29/costs-vs-benefits/

I came across an article about Alexander Graham Bell and his approach to increasing productivity; I thought it would be a useful post for a Sunday evening, ahead of a new week.

This episode is also available as a blog post: https://screwdowncrown.wordpress.com/2021/08/15/productivity-using-alexander-graham-bells-approach/