The New Ming 22.01 - Are you eyeing one?

The watches look absolutely awesome.  But, I don't think I could personally pull it off.  I mean, I somehow imagine an architect, let's call him Howard Roark, staring off into the distance, planning for the utopian future, with the Ming on his wrist.  

If I were to buy an independent, I think this is more my style:

Haha! I have to say I love what you have selected here man!

And wonderful imagination there - I could almost visualise the persona you are speaking on too!

I am done with Ming and their whole business model. Either make enough models to meet demand or go away.  I’m not sitting at my computer with my bank on the phone waiting for their stupid order page to go live.  

People give Rolex crap about artificial shortage (hint: it isn’t artificial).  Yet Ming‘s whole business model is built around artificial shortage but they get a pass. 

I feel your frustration. Unfortunately, the reality is their model works and when it does other brands are going to emulate them. I have not voted with my wallet, all things considered.

On a completely separate matter - I too give Rolex crap but I don't hold them accountable for supply / demand matters (and so no, I don't feel they need to do anything about production numbers) - I hold them accountable for not doing anything to prevent the same people buying the same watches to flip for profit on the grey market, when we live in the world of big data (I have seen this happen first hand over and over again in my networks). In fact, they don't seem to want to get involved at all to actually build a database of 'real customers'. That is my peeve, but that's a whole other topic for another thread!

I don't dig the design of Ming watches. For 4k+tax+duties I think there are a lot better options out there. I did watch a few reviews on YouTube where people complain that the hands don't line up correctly, and there are other quality issues. The response from Ming they say was send it back and take a refund. Mass produced movement slapped onto a custom designed case plus a lot of hype and scarcity. Sounds like a money maker. 

I have one regret not getting the blue heated case gmt version for 1400 usd when they were available and no one cared about them. Now the asking price is a bit too high for me to consider one. I like the world timer and higher end ones better than the recent 3-5k releases. i would go for other micro like ophion or benzinger at that price point for something more niche.

Actually I think they lost a lot of brownie points last year amongst the enthusiast community. I was just recounting this yesterday to the benefit of another fellow enthusiast on IG so I might as well share it here:

1) Ming announced that the 17.09 would be the last series production watch of the 17 series case as part of their hype building. One month later they announced a limited edition 17.09 with Massena. When asked on social media why they did this - their reply was they said ‘series production’ and this excludes limited edition. Essentially we were the stupid ones for not understanding the definitions they use.

2) the limited edition with massena sales system crashed on the night of launch. And they blamed the servers. They retried again the next day and it failed again and had to ballot it. Not their fault apparently.

3) the limited edition was delivered much earlier than the series production watch. When it landed with owners, some started to notice issues with the hour hand - and that it wasn’t behaving the way it should. Ming’s social media response was that it was likely damaged in transit by the shippers. Again not their fault. But then it became apparent that it wasn’t a one off issue and that a lot of owners faced the issue. Under intense social media pressure, they begrudgingly put out a passive aggressive apology saying they are calling their watchmakers back from holiday (exact words) to resolve this issue and that they would accept all affected watches for repair and that all undelivered orders will have delays as they will need to implement a fix.

In summary - it was a Public Relations disaster and one of where it was clear that the strategy being adopted was Ming wanted to play the victim and it went to the extent that they claimed that social media wasn’t being fair to them. It was around this time that it also came to light from social media that this wasn’t the first time they had either attempted to absolve themselves from responsibly or opted to silence negative commentary as some IG and blogs shared incidents publicly. Ultimately though they gave an extended warranty for the watches and I heard they eventually fixed the manufacturing flaw. But from this experience, many passionate watch folks have taken sides on the matter and many have taken to heart the perceived lack of sincerity by Ming.

I think they are still very good at doing design work - but yes, the prices are just going to rise on the back of their commercial success (all things considered - they still sell out!)

I too like their higher end pieces, especially from a design perspective. Their Special Projects are always very impressive too. Ah well, I too now prefer to look at other options at the price point. But they are a very interesting microbrand case study - so can't help but follow them just out of intellectual interest!

I watched a docu on phillipe doufor, he went from selling 3 pieces on the first attempt to now his pieces selling at auction for 7.9mil. He is still a micro brand, and what sells is he is true to tradition and his customers. Micro brands like Ming seems more like opportunist trying their hand at money grab. This business model of hype sales and burning their customer base won’t last long. 

I had it in my cart for a few minutes but did not pull the trigger. 

interesting! nice screen shot to go with it too hahaha!