My FULL Watch Journey - The Good, Bad, and Ugly!

this is my very first watch and this is my most recent watch between these two there's about 30 years there's also about 30 watches this is my entire watch journey the good the bad and the straight up ugly [Music] welcome back to barking jack i am adrian and this channel has been for the past three years about documenting my journey of exploring watches from transitioning from a person who just always wore a watch and enjoyed watches to someone who started to really learn about watches and explore them as a hobby and this place has been a really fun place for me to document essentially what i find out and what i experienced i'm kind of documenting where i'm going forward but i haven't looked back about this time last year for christmas a chap called patrick who was interning for uh bark and jack he found this watch which is my very first watch on ebay and he gave it to me before christmas around 1988 i was living in florida at the time my dad was stationed at mcdill air base i remember sitting in the back of a brown isuzu trooper playing with the bezel and just being obsessed with this watch and that is my earliest memory of enjoying a watch around 1990 i got my first flick flat watch and around 1994 that's when i got my timex man it was around this time that i started to get into straps as well me and my dad and my next door neighbor tom we used to buy animal watch straps and you could swap out your straps a couple years later i'm guessing around 1998 i got a casio calculator watch i don't remember buying this i don't remember being given it so i don't know how i got it but i remember owning it around 1998 1999 my dad was stationed to raf brogan in germany and that's where i bought my g-shock my military g-shock it had g-shock imprinted on the case but it didn't have the white paint in the imprint and so it wasn't easy to see that it was a real g-shock looking back i wish i'd kept it after that it was my gcse times around the year 2000 i distinctly remember having a casio address book watch and i remember doing my science gcse i typed into this address book the whole process for photosynthesis assuming that i would need that for some reason that was a complete waste of time i didn't need it um and i failed anyway me and my dad used to buy watches together we used to talk about watches together so me buying a watch was often linked with something my dad did my dad was um posted out to incirlik in turkey uh in around the year 2000 there's a road outside the base intellect base and it's called the strip and there's loads of fake watch shops down there it's kind of the tradition was when you go there you buy a twenty dollar fake watch and i found a taghoy watch i was obsessed with tag hoya at the time especially the chronographs with the weird very 90s bracelet that is absolutely foul now but at the time i absolutely loved it and that's what i got i got myself a tag hoya chronograph with this kind of alternating brush steel polished steel bracelet on it and i i thought this was really pretty cool that was until i got back to school and everyone there were quite a few wealthy kids at my school and a lot of people thought that this was a real tax and that felt weird i remember feeling like a fraud having this fake watch one of my mates a guy called kyle had an animal watch and i was telling him how cool i thought his animal watch was and he was saying how much he liked my tag hoya i remember just saying have the tag if i can have your animal watch he took my tag hoya and i had his animal watch that was until 2001 when my parents gave me for my 16th birthday they gave me a kahuna chronograph that watch lasted me i think probably about four years the longest that i'd kept a watch up until then all of these watches look so amazingly dated we're now the year 2005 i was at university studying music and i remember getting my um my student loan through and the singer in the band i was in we both went off to a skate shop and we purchased these uh nicks and watches that were on bund leather bun straps and we just bought one each never wore it but it i don't know why i bought it so although i bought that nixon watch i didn't wear it i was still wearing my kahuna kona whatever that 16th birthday watch until around 2007 when i went to argos and i bought a bench rectangle watch i don't know why i bought it i think i just wanted a new watch um i'm sure i liked it at the time it's just funny how styles change it just looks foul i wore that watch for a very long time it wasn't until 2011 i'd moved to london i was working at apple and i bought myself i treated myself to a citizen eco-drive chronograph i remember this being a special purchase it was so special that i actually instagrammed that purchase it was the most expensive watch i'd ever bought i think it was about 250 quid at the time and it really was i looked up to my dad's eco drives he had always talked about how special eco drive was and so it felt like a real special purchase for me and that was my serious watch until 2013 and everything went downhill or uphill depending my sister-in-law used to work for gucci she sent a text saying i'm getting my boyfriend this watch for 90 off would you like one i thought i'm not really a gucci person but yeah i'll take a thousand pound watch for a hundred quid that'd be stupid not to accept that and so i got a gucci chronograph it arrived the day that my first son was born when i opened the box it was dead i casted the watch to the side because i had other to think about and as i moved the watch that's when i felt the rotor i realized it wasn't dead it just didn't have any power inside so i shook it a bit it started ticking game on put the watch on and experiencing that watch although we would laugh as watch people at a gucci watch experiencing that watch did change my viewpoint of expensive luxury watches at that time i thought a 250 quid citizen was that's all i needed that felt special that's what i wanted and i was very happy with my citizen but then i suddenly realized how crystal clear literally sapphire crystal was how smooth and soft karthskin leather is and how nice it is to have a watch that has a bit of heft behind it because this has mechanics inside it's a steel case compared to the eco drive citizen this felt like luxury i knew that gucci didn't make watches i knew that the mechanics inside this watch was far beyond what gucci were capable of making and so i wanted to find out who made this watch then that's when i found watch forums i started learning about sleeter and eta and how actually it isn't just gucci who doesn't make their watches you've got omega who use et movements you've got tag hoya who use eta movements the realization that actually a lot of this luxury stuff it isn't just gucci and fashion brands that kind of cheat that's how i saw it at the time that these proper watch brands like tag hoya and omega they too also cheat by using other people's movements so there's this weird realization that luxury watches is a funny world but the bigger realization was other people like watches that watch is is a hobby it's not just a tool that you wear on your wrist that there's a community around watches and then the rabbit hole opened up and i feel right in it although other watch brands buy in movements this gucci watch is separate from omega from tag hawaii because it is seen as a fashion brand i quickly sold that on ebay i can't remember how much it got for probably about 400 and then that was me starting to say this was when i started the bark and jack instagram account with a friend of mine it was originally called barker and jackson my last name is barca his last name was jackson and he liked taking photographs of men's fashion and grooming stuff and i liked taking photographs of watches i started to go into ads and try on various watches to see what i liked and essentially just document my my exploration at that point of watches ultimately i'd saved up enough money i'd gone past hamilton i'd gone past montblanc i'd gone past tag hoya and i started looking at omega and rolex i was keen not i know it looks ironic now that i talk a lot about relics here but i was keen not to go over alex keem because everyone talked about rolex on forums and i just didn't want to go down that cliched route of getting what everyone else ultimately gets i really had my eye on this omega speedmaster white dial with broad arrow blue hands this thing was phenomenal and it was within budget it was about 2 000 it was just shy of 2 500 pounds at the time and then i thought what can i get from rolex for the same money then i found a relics explorer 2 the 16570 they had it listed for 3 200 pounds i emailed them and said i take off your hands for 2600 i think it was and straight away they replied and said yeah sure thing and that was my watch in 2014 was a rolex explorer ii 16570 with the polar dial that watch was my absolute love and joy i adored that watch it went everywhere with me we traveled all over the place and although it was a rolex i liked the fact it wasn't a loud rolex and i loved this thing it was my daily watch it was my only watch i wore it for my wedding however odd that sounds wearing a kilt and a relics explorer too that's the fancy watch that i had a couple of years later i decided i wanted to change the watch in 2016 i thought i've got a bit more money let's sell the explorer 2 and see what i can get i went watch this for a couple of weeks and it just felt weird um so that's when i went on amazon and just bought myself a seiko 5. the snx s77 there's a lot of situations that are fixed by just having a seiko 5. so it's it was quite cool having that watch in 2016 that was my year to buy what i considered a fancy rolex it was either gonna be a batman or a kermit ultimately i went with the kermit and i bought it for 5990 pounds negotiated it down from around 6200 i think it was and i wish i bought a truckload of those things back then because now that watch is worth about 15 000 pounds in 2017 i paid 995 pounds for an omega speedmaster produced i kept that watch for about four months uh it really wasn't for me it felt dated it didn't tick the box that the speedmaster professional ticked for me and so that went very very quickly i then bought myself a gorgeous and absolutely stunning i don't know why i sold this but i bought myself in 2017 again it was a busy year i bought an omega constellation with a linen dial this thing was just stunning and i absolutely love linen dolls and i haven't seen many linen dial constellations around still in 2017 this is only a year after buying my kermit and the kermit had shot up in price massively i think it was getting very close to ten thousand pounds having only spent just under six for it and so i started to feel uncomfortable living in central london wearing a near enough ten thousand pound watch and so that's when i realized i needed to get an everyday nice watch i got my heart set on a vintage submariner a 5513 i really wanted a matte dial 5513 but ultimately i couldn't afford that and so i found a 5513 from 1985. style wise i thought that was the perfect everyday watch so much so that that watch is what started this youtube channel ultimately i sold that watch but not until i'd bought what was to become my favorite watch of all time which was a relics explorer 14270 i fell in love pretty much instantly with the explorer one which at the time i bought for 3 250 pounds the final watch i treated myself to in 2017 was a cwc g10 which still i think is perhaps my coolest watch paid 70 quid for this thing i actually bought two of them i ended up selling one because it was so bashed up this one was pretty bashed up i just needed a lot of polywatch and a good clean this is military i'll put a link to a video that i've done on this because this thing is really very very cool finally got to a new year and in 2018 i treated myself to a seiko k skx007k1 i really didn't understand the hype of the skx i thought the skx was just really quite a weird looking watch similar to the explorer when i got it it kind of made sense in 2018 that's when we launched our nato straps over at barkunjac.com you can check out our native straps and everything is back in stock now in 2018 i also bought a tudor black bay harrods edition the day i picked this up i came home that's when i found out that an offer that we'd placed on a house in scotland had been accepted and i got into a lot of trouble having just bought i can't remember how much it was two and a half grand three grand something like that i got in trouble so that watch didn't hang around for very long nor did the next watch which was the batman the rolex gmt master ii the double one six seven one o b l n r if you remember back to when i bought my kermit the decision was between the kermit and this watch ultimately at the time i felt like the kermit had more character to it i didn't bond with the batman and to be fair i started to take the channel and the business part of bark and jack much more seriously and so i sold that watch it meant that i could buy the gear that needs to buy to take the channel to the next level so i didn't buy much in 2018 and in 2019 i bought myself my first grand seiko this is the spgn 001 it was a phenomenal gmt watch that movement inside really is mind-blowingly good and it is i'll put a link i won't go into a detail here i'll put a link here that talks about that watch it is mind-blowingly good ultimately i sold it eventually and i've got my tudor black bay 58 black nothing hugely much to say about that watch i guess the only thing i'd say about that watch is i bought the black bay 58 and very soon after that tudor had got in contact and lent me the pelegos had i borrowed the pelegos before i bought the black bay 58. i'd be sitting here with a peloton and i'll probably be wearing it the pelegos changed my viewpoint and this is what i like about documenting or at least noting down this watch journey is i can see my personal tastes changing from someone who really enjoys vintage watches to someone who's now sitting here with a brand new very modern looking very modern designed rolex that transition is really quite big and the transition of moving from small watches smaller watches to larger watches happened with the pelagos the bigness didn't feel out of place and so the pelagos opened the doors for me to own a larger watch i'd already bought the blackberry 58 so i didn't want to buy another tudor and so i looked at other larger watches and that's when i found the omega c master professional 300 with the white dial this watch typically would have been too big for me but because of the the pelogos changing the narrative around larger watches i kind of understood the seamaster better or rather i could see it in a different light and so the seamaster that was my new watch in 2020. in 2021 rolex announced a new explorer 2 and i had to get it i haven't done a video on this watch yet i'm going to do a whole video talking about my new explorer 2. but guys that is my full watch journey up until now there's still so much more to explore i'd be really interested to hear if any of those early pieces were ones that you had guys thanks for watching if you like this video hit that thumbs up button if you like the stylus video hit subscribe button down there and the little bell icon so you get notifications when i drop a new video don't forget to jump over to barkingjack.com and check out the watch accessories and straps that we have over there we have full stock of all of our nato straps and these will be coming out really quite soon take care

Channel: Adrian Barker

Views: 556,686

Keywords: bark and jack, barkandjack, rolex, omega, seiko, watch review, rolex review, omega review, watch collection, watch collection men, watch collection 2021, rolex submariner, Explorer, submariner, daytona, datejust, value rolex, omega seamaster, omega speedmaster, jenni elle, best watches under 100, ultimate watch collection, rolex explorer II, rolex 226570, rolex 16570, rolex explorer 2, polar dial, Producer michael watches, CWC g10, gshock, grand seiko, best investment watches

Id: z5v49_r0fbM

Length: 16min 18sec (978 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 12 2021