Beyond the Paddling Pool - Part 2: Apples and Oranges!

Because I can no longer ruminate from the comfort of my paddling pool, and I haven't set up my jacuzzi yet, I've been stuck watching a load of bad new movies and even worse television. In desperation, I watched some older stuff which I used to think was great, and it was just as awful! Then it dawned on me that there's a very flawed way in which we rate entertainment in much the same as how we appraise our watches. Let me explain.

We all have our own individual tastes when it comes to things like food, drink, clothes, movies, music, art, people... well, everything really. But one of the worst parts of working out the value of anything to ourselves is by comparing it to something else.

We've all watched a remake movie and said to ourselves, "The original was much better," or even worse, we've succumbed to "grumpy old man" syndrome and written off anything new as being complete trash because of our rose-tinted view of the past. In short, we often compare apples to oranges.

The two things we compare are not the same, they are years apart and for different audiences. Essentially, products, art, food, people... everything has its sell by date, and we shouldn't live in the past.

The trouble is that human nature loves nostalgia, and what we once thought was good is very likely to not have been very good at all. That's where the marketers step in to prey upon our cosy, warm fuzzies, and make us think we can recapture our youth, our memories, or something else depending on the season. We often fall for this by again comparing apples to oranges. We know that something from the '50s will be stale, damaged, dated, possibly a bit cringy, but whatever it is, the marketers will twist and hype up all those points as positives against our better judgement.

I expect I'm losing you a bit with this ramble, but I will get to the point. We shouldn't compare watches designed in the 1950s or any previous decade to the one we are currently living in with watches put together last week. The materials aren't the same, the manufacturing process isn't the same, and the prices certainly aren't the same.

What does a Rolex, for example, from 1953 have in common with one from 2023 apart from the brand name and a few design cues? Not a lot actually. It's comparing apples with oranges.

I see people try to compare the price of a Rolex as a tool watch with the price a similar looking Rolex is as a luxury today, and the rate of exchange just doesn't match up. Have Rolex improved their product exponentially to justify those prices? Has Omega improved their products enough to justify their prices either? Has anyone?

Therein lies another thing to think about, how much is value and how much is simply marketing? Chances are that the brands cash-in on our gullibility and ignorance with as much marketing and manipulation of our emotions as possible, to be perfectly honest. But that's not what I'm getting at here, and that's another discussion entirely.

No, the point is that not only shouldn't we compare Rolex Submariners from different decades to each other, but we also shouldn't compare a Rolex with a Steeldive or a Chronos homage, because they simply aren't the same thing. A Steeldive is a perfectly good watch in and of itself. A Chronos is a perfectly good watch in and of itself. A Casio, same deal. Just insert any brand you like and judge that particular watch on its own merits.

The trouble is that we all compare one thing to another, and therein lies the root of all the snobbery (and "reverse snobbery" which is still snobbery) which we all experience when we turn our noses up at a watch because it's "not as good as" something else, even though it's perfectly fine as it is.

Is a Casio as good as a Rolex? Why do we need to even ask that question? A Casio is as good as another Casio of the same type. It's about consistency within the manufacture of that product. Are all Casios created equally? No. Are all Casio F-91Ws created equally? Again, no. Are all Rolex Submariners created equally? Most definitely, no.

All watches are mass produced. All watches have faults occasionally. No brand is perfect, and no watch is perfect because the nature of everything is to be imperfect. You don't have to get too philosophical about it either, it's just the nature of how everything is made. Everything wears and decays, no matter how much money you pay for it.

So I think it's time to never again compare apples with oranges, or the different models of Rolex with Omega, or Casio with Seiko, because they are all different creations, meant for different times, different audiences, and certainly different price points.

There is no watch better than any other as long as it tells the correct time. The only bad watch is one which doesn't keep the time or doesn't work at all. If it fulfils its primary function, everything else is simply a bonus or cosmetic improvement. Water resistance, quality of the construction, "fit" and finish... some are objective qualities and some are subjective, but they can only be used as deciding factors between watches of exactly the same type.

You can't compare the water resistance of a £10,000 over-engineered dive watch with a £100 Casio. But you can compare two of the same of each. So when someone tells you that their Submariner is better than a G-Shock, they aren't being entirely truthful to you, themselves, or to the gods of all things scientific or logical. One Submariner might be better than another Submariner or perhaps not as good as another Submariner, and that's the only correct way to judge it.

TL;DR; Price and brand is not a good indicator of quality, and different models shouldn't be compared.

What say you?