Fratello On Air: Don't Believe The Hype!

Fratello On Air returns with a rip-roaring episode where we ask you, dear listeners, to step away from the hype. There's a lot of it around these days and it can be overwhelming. We're here to talk about it and have a little fun along the way.

Don't believe the hype! No, this isn't a discussion about Public Enemy, but a discussion about watches and some of the brands that have been making their way back into the mainstream. The hype is well orchestrated at times, a little too orchestrated as we'll see. It doesn't mean that the watches are bad, but are they the second coming? We have our doubts.

Handgelenks Kontrolle

We kick things off with some discussion around the recent Geneva auctions. There were some interesting lots, but the weekend felt a bit muted. The hordes of "AquaNautilus" and Royal Oaks seemed to dominate the scene, which got a bit snoozy. Vintage was there but to a relatively small degree. Mike discusses his impressions after watching some of the proceedings over the weekend and we even chat about certain lots. For the Handgelenks Kontrolle, Balazs is wearing his '70 Grand Seiko 5646-7010 which leads to a discussion on a Seiko Duotime that Mike owns with the same base movement. Mike is back to his trusty Rolex 1016 because he's in comfort mode.

The Hype Machine is alive

The main focus of our show today is to discuss brands that have been inundating our Instagram accounts, the web, and now the auction circuit as recently as this past weekend. Daniel Roth and Gerald Genta are LVMH brands that have received a lot of press coverage recently. In our eyes, they were niche at best and controversially designed at a minimum. Should you be as excited as the collective wants you to be? Then, we see heavy dealer activity on brands like Franck Muller and vintage Piaget. Is this where we're heading or does the push boil down to hype? We discuss and hypothesize why this is happening. The hype is real folks.

We hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you have thoughts on upcoming shows, don't hesitate to let us know.