Lonely Wrist: All Things Watches & Horology

Preserving the Spirit of Alsta with Angus McFadden: A Diving Icon Reborn

• Lonely Wrist • Season 1 • Episode 59

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What happens when a frustrated vintage watch collector stumbles upon a forgotten brand with a fascinating cinematic history? Angus McFadden joins us to share how he breathed new life into Alsta, the Swiss-made American watch brand that adorned Richard Dreyfuss's wrist in Jaws and Johnny Depp's in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

McFadden's journey began in 2014 when his frustration with authenticating vintage Rolex pieces led to an unexpected discovery – an Alsta dive watch in a part-exchange bundle. That chance encounter sparked a deep dive into the brand's rich heritage dating back to 1946, culminating in his acquisition of the dormant brand and its relaunch in 2017.

Unlike many revived watch brands that focus solely on recreating the past, McFadden has carefully balanced heritage with innovation. The original Nautiscaff and iconic Super Automatic models have been joined by fresh designs like the Motoscaff, purposefully built for motorcyclists. Throughout our conversation, McFadden's commitment to authenticity shines through – from his customer-centric approach to product development to his refreshingly honest acknowledgment that "nobody needs a watch" in today's smartphone era.

What's particularly fascinating about Alsta is its cultural significance as "the non-obvious choice" – the watch for rebels who value quality and character over flashy brand names. This positioning has attracted a passionate customer base that's 80-90% American, honoring the brand's New York roots. As Alsta approaches its 80th anniversary, McFadden remains focused on sustainable growth through product excellence rather than marketing hype – ensuring this once-forgotten treasure continues to grace the wrists of those who appreciate genuine heritage with modern reliability.

Subscribe now to hear more conversations with the innovative minds reshaping the watch industry and bringing forgotten treasures back to life.

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Blake Rea:

Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode here of the Lonely Wrist Podcast. I'm your host, as always, of course, blake Ray, and today's guest is on a mission to keeping a vintage watch brand alive. The brand, I'm sure you know by now, is Alsta, and it's back from the history books and in the hands of a new generation. Our guest, angusus sorry hiccups today is not just re-releasing the classics like the nato scoff and the super automatic. He is creating fresh designs like the moto scoff, built for people who actually get in there and live. Uh, angus is focused, since his hands on the brand is all about authenticity, purpose and watch that look absolutely incredible, perform flawlessly and carry a story with them from the golden age of skin divers. What's next for modern collectors? He is shaping the brand, both rooted in history and ready for adventure. So let's get into it. Please welcome the man behind all still watches, angus mcfadden.

Blake Rea:

Hey, blake, good to see you again yeah, I messed up my intro there a little bit but who cares? We'll roll we'll roll with it. Um, I'm curious about how you got exposed to the brand um and why did you decide to revive also of all brands?

Angus McFadden:

yes, so I was, uh, I was a collector and I collected lots of the usual stuff. I collected Rolex sports watches from the 1960s and 70s and I was getting frustrated because it was so difficult to get hold of good Rolex pieces that you could trust were authentic and hadn't been tampered with. And you know, I had some lots of good experiences and I had a bad experience where I bought a vintage submariner from a reputable rolex dealer, sent it to get serviced and was told that in fact it didn't have all authentic parts in it. So I just thought this is getting too difficult and I was looking at other. I started collecting other brands, such as Yig LeCoultre, and I had some Omegas and I had a Breguet and in a part exchange bundle I ended up getting an Alster dive watch and I thought what on earth is this? In a part exchange bundle I ended up getting an Ulster dive watch and I thought what on earth is this? So I then started researching it and going down the rabbit hole and discovered that the brand had a fantastic heritage, had been around since 1946, and had a whole back catalogue of dress watches, chronographs, ladies' dress and cocktail watches, and then skin divers and divers and other sports watches, and I also discovered at that time that Alstair had disappeared in the late 70s, had gone out of business in 1978. And I thought not much more of it.

Angus McFadden:

And I always had a. I always had a, an idea that I would love to have started a watch brand, and the reason I didn't do it was, for me, watch brands need to have backstory and they need to have something behind them, not just the brand itself. Unless you've got unlimited funds in order to build a new brand, like bishop meal did, I believe that a watch brand needs to have a backstory and have some romance and have a little bit of sex appeal to it. And I thought how do you do that from scratch? Can you do it authentically from scratch without spending, you know, millions on uh, on marketing and building a new brand story? And that was stopping me.

Angus McFadden:

And then I thought I wonder if I could revive a brand that is no longer with us, one that had heritage and a great backstory. And then I started thinking about my little Alsta skin diver that was sitting in one of my watch boxes. So, to cut a long story short, I then acquired the brand and started acquiring the assets and the IP and the rights to the brand worldwide, and I thought this is more like it, a brand with heritage. When I've got some time and some money, one of these days, I might do something with this, but of course, the itch needed to be scratched and before I knew it, I was away meeting suppliers in Switzerland and getting kind of deep into it. And then I this was in 2014. 2014, I started this whole process of acquiring the brand and then fast forward to 2017, we released our first watch of the new, revived Ulster in March 2017.

Blake Rea:

And that was a revival, an update of the Not A Scaff Skin Diver. Wow, yeah, it's a great story. And then, out of all the watch brands you could have revived, I think you probably revived one of the more desirable ones, especially from an American perspective, because it has pretty significant culturalutter. He was born in Belgium, moved to New Jersey, then moved to New York and then started his watch brand. That's correct. And then yeah, I mean, I'm obviously from Vegas. So Johnny Depp wore one in Fear and Loathing right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Blake Rea:

Of course we've got the iconic richard dreyfus from from jaws right, which I think you get the most clout for um yeah and and so I guess your entire acquisition from the time you decided to start acquiring the ip till launch when. When was so? Was it 2014 and then 2017? Did I understand?

Angus McFadden:

2014, I started the process and, um, yeah, three years between then and, uh, releasing the, the first piece, and that was a combination of things. It was really the fact that things do take time sometimes when you're dealing with dealing with lawyers and attorney, ip attorneys and also acquiring rights. The rights in certain countries, including the US, was owned by a Swiss company and I had to negotiate and acquire the brand from them. So there was a whole load of different things going on and, to be honest, I wasn't in a huge hurry because I was already doing other things. I already had another business and I wasn't in a huge hurry. It was already doing other things.

Angus McFadden:

Um already had another business and I wasn't in a huge hurry. It was a passion project. It was something that I wanted to do and I thought, when I get around to it, I'll get around to it. But then, as 2015-2016 came, it was gathering. I was gathering pace, I was having conversations with suppliers and then saying, right, okay, I'm going to do this.

Angus McFadden:

So um did some prototyping, did an initial run of the first watch and I thought, if nobody buys these, at least I'll have a watch that I like and I'll put the rest on ebay, but they did like them and that first model sold out. But your point a minute ago about being such an American brand, that's totally right. The brand is rooted in the United States. It started in the United States by Joseph, as you said, in New Jersey and then New York just after the Second World War and then they traded out of New York until they closed and the watches were always made in Switzerland but then shipped to New York to maybe be cased or to be assembled and shipped out. And even today the majority of our customer base is in the US.

Blake Rea:

I would say probably 80% to 90% of our customers are in the us something that I also found when doing my research was um, ulster had never made a quartz watch ever in history, which I found pretty interesting. And you know, obviously I think everybody knows what happened in the seventies, right, the courts crisis, and do you think, uh, I mean I had to do something with? Uh, I guess the struggles that they faced, or just their, their lack of um at the time and and sorry to to knock on some of your uh, your, your, your former uh, your former colleagues, um, but the uh, the lack of kind of willing to, to adapt to, you know, a new market yeah, no, no, you're not.

Angus McFadden:

You're not knocking them at all. I think that's. I think that's quite accurate and the thing that, the thing that really surprised me was that Ulster hadn't tried to make quartz watches, because I think that they would have been successful. I think we would have been um successful in in bringing out developing quartz watches that people wanted. The reason I think that is that we always seem to be. We always seem to be at the forefront and catching the zeitgeist of the time.

Angus McFadden:

When everyone was making dress watches, a few brands started getting into making dress chronographs and then sports chronographs and we were one of the brands that was doing that in the early days. And then the trend started developing for sports watches. So people were starting to get more leisure time, having a bit more affluence, starting to look at things like diving and fishing and and sailing and other leisure activities and again, asta was at the forefront of developing those sports watches. Then the dive watches and then, when the the morning case style case was being made for hoyer and some of the other zenit and some of the other brands, again oster was there having their watches cased in these modern cases. So we're always with with the, the trend, so to speak.

Angus McFadden:

So the natural thing to happen would be that when quartz watches became a thing, that ulster leaned into those and became a a maker of quartz. But I think by that time the owner had maybe run out of steam and decided that enough was enough. And I've spoken, I've had a few conversations over the years with the founder, with Joseph's daughter, who lives in California and she's now in her 80s, and she was of the belief that I think he had reinvented Ulster so many times that it got to the point where he said I don't know if I've got the energy for this anymore, to do another reinvention and another pivot. So they didn't. But ironically the quarks crisis probably killed them, but they would have done well had they embraced it and done quarks watches agreed conveniently.

Blake Rea:

Also, you don't have a chronograph in your collection. Is that something that we can expect from you in the future?

Angus McFadden:

maybe for sure for sure, because some of some of our chronographs you've seen them some of them are absolutely beautiful, beautiful.

Angus McFadden:

The reason we haven't done them yet is because we we have been on a mission to bring the brand back and to re-establish ourselves in the, in the minds of the, the watch enthusiast community, and build our legitimacy as a, as a heritage brand, and it's been my, it's been my strategy to do that step by step, rather than going straight in making expensive, expensive to make and expensive to buy um chronographs before we've got the legitimacy of the, of the watch collecting public, re-establish that legitimacy, should I say um?

Angus McFadden:

So I've wanted to do a step at a time and just make sure that we're making watches that people want and starting off not particularly expensive. I mean, it's still an expensive watch. Even our first watch in 2017 was $800. And that's still a lot of money, but it's not $3,000 or $4,000, which is what a chronograph would be. So I think we need to go on that journey with our enthusiasts and our customers and eventually get there. And it's my desire to launch a chronograph for sure, I don't want to do one half-baked. I want to do it properly and have a nice refined piece with a good movement, and it's going to cost a bit more, so we will get there for sure.

Blake Rea:

You definitely don't strike me as somebody who likes to rush things either. You talked about doing this as a passion project and just letting the wind blow you in the direction.

Angus McFadden:

it seemed like project, and just kind of letting the wind kind of blow you in the direction. It seemed like, um, yeah, it's, yeah, it's total opposite from my other business life. So I've got two business lives I've I'm involved in in tech, at the cutting edge of tech things like ai, machine learning, quantum computing, robotics, and that stuff moves at a million miles an hour. That's really fast and fast decisions being made and fast progress and the world is changing so so much every year. And the watch industry for me is, is not that, it's something that moves a bit more slowly.

Angus McFadden:

Maybe people who are long-term watch industry people will say no things are changing all that rapidly, but for me they seem. It seems to be a slower, a slower rate of change. And you're dealing, we're dealing with people. When I say dealing with people, what we're appealing to and talking to people who are spending their hard-earned money and putting their trust in us that we're going to give them something of quality and something that will last and something that has legitimacy. So I do like to take my time and deliberate over that before asking somebody to part with their hard-earned money for one of our products yeah, no, that makes sense.

Blake Rea:

Uh, also curious too. So when you acquired, like the ip and I've asked this to other revival watch brands because it's always interesting to me um, not only did you get the, the namesake, but did you, did you have any like drawings? Did you have any like like diagram, like what? What was it included in your, in your acquisition, right?

Angus McFadden:

there wasn't a lot. Um, we got some archives but most of the archives were lost in water damage, um, back in the the 19 I think it was 1980s, after the company had folded. So we didn't get much in the way of archives and we've been slowly piecing together an archive, a written archive and a physical archive. So we do have technical drawings and we do have photographic assets and we've also had other people online doing research and building bodies of research about the brand. We've also been doing that internally, but we've also built a really nice archive physical archive of watches from the 1950s right through to when the company folded in the 70s.

Angus McFadden:

So we've got a really nice archive of dress watches, chronographs. So we've got a really nice archive of dress watches, chronographs, some really rare divers and even a regatta timer. So we've got some really beautiful watches that they're going to serve as our inspiration for the coming years. And I also have this fantasy that one day we might do a book, might a nice I don't know coffee table book with, uh, these beautiful photographs, and so I'd love to do that. We work, we work with this um fantastic photographer in new york, adam moore. I'm sure you know him and, um, he has photographed some of our um most of our vintage pieces and, uh, he totally gets the brand in terms of the look and the feel, so I'd love to put those in a book one day.

Blake Rea:

That'd be epic um beyond, like the, not a scarf, which is the one that you, I guess um that you own that decided to bring the brand back. Are there any other all-star designs that you feel represent the to bring the brand back? Are there any other Alsta designs that you feel represent the original brand spirit?

Angus McFadden:

So the Super Automatic is our marquee piece. We're really lucky to have that. I've contributed to articles over the last the time that I've been running Alistair. I've contributed to articles on iconic pieces. You know, the audemars has the royal oak and rolex has the submariner and I'm not suggesting we're up there with them, but I've been asked to contribute to articles that talk about that iconic piece that sometimes brands have the one that will always be here, the one that's potentially got a 50 year or 100 year lifespan and we're so lucky to have that piece. We're lucky to have heritage. We're lucky to have a really engaged, passionate, customer enthusiast base, but we're also really lucky to have that piece that will serve us and we plan to be carrying on that super automatic range for the foreseeable future, for as long as people want it.

Angus McFadden:

So I think that's one that really serves the spirit of the brand, and when we brought out the NautisGaff in 2017, lots of people said oh, why didn't you do the super automatic? You should have done the super automatic first, and there's always a reason for things, and the reason that we didn't bring the super automatic out as the first release at that time was the bracelet was so difficult to make that. I just wasn't willing to compromise and bring it out on a different bracelet or on a bracelet that wasn't of sufficient quality. So I wasn't happy that we were getting the quality of bracelet you know the Hooper bracelet that we have on the Super Automatic. I just wasn't happy that we had it right. So I said, right, we've got to do the Nautiscaf instead, and then when we can get the bracelet right on the Super Automatic, we'll release that. So that's why it was three years after the release of the Nautis Scaf that the Super Automatic came out.

Blake Rea:

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean it sounds like faithful accuracy is quite important to you. I mean it sounds like you know faithful accuracy is quite important to you and you know, obviously you're reintroducing a vintage brand to a modern audience. Like, I'm sure there's challenges there that maybe you didn't expect. Yes, I'm sure if you could touch on some of those.

Angus McFadden:

Yeah, sure, if you, yeah, if you could touch on some of those. Yeah, the challenges I think the challenges are around, um, managing expectations of your, of your passionate customers, um, in a way that you're never going to please everyone, okay, but we try and please as as many people as we can. So when we brought the super automatic out, a few customers said but why doesn't it have the magnifier, the date magnifier on the crystal? And my answer to that was that the date magnifier and the crystal is a really difficult thing to get right without distorting the number underneath, and I wanted to make sure that we got that right before we released a super automatic with the date magnifier. And then some other people asked why didn't you release it with the red lollipop seconds hand and the magnifier? So, do you know?

Angus McFadden:

I think it's trying to explain to our customers that we'll get around all these things, but sometimes you've got to do that by evolution and build something that's faithful to the original, but there might be one, there might be one or two details that you don't manage to replicate first time. Now the thing is that people asked about the red lollipop second hand. Why didn't we do that? Now, on the Jaws when they're watching the Jaws movie, that had a red lollipop second hand, but most of them didn't. Most of the originals didn't have the red lollipop seconds hand. Most had either the arrow that our current super automatic has, or it had a white square lollipop. So, um, trying to get something that most customers like but still keeping it authentic is a challenge. I have to ask do you know what happened?

Blake Rea:

to Richard Dreyfuss' watch?

Angus McFadden:

Yeah, I do, do you have it? I had it in my hand recently. So there's a great video that you should watch and your viewers should watch. It's on our website. You should watch and your viewers should watch. It's on our website. We released it for the 50th anniversary of Jaws on the 20th of June this year and it's a video of us servicing the actual watch from the movie. It's incredible.

Angus McFadden:

So I got the watch from the owner and asked if we could service it for him because we would love to film it. I said, look, we'll service it and we'll do any repairs that are needing done, and we'll do that in exchange for keeping the watch for a while so that we can make some great content with it. So he said, yeah, that's totally fine. So he sent it to me and that's incredible this watch with so much history, this is the actual watch that was on Dreyfus's wrist and it's been validated. We've got proper validation that that is the watch.

Angus McFadden:

I've been offered the original film watch so many times by people contacting us and saying, oh, would you like to buy the original? So we had the original from the owner, who is connected with the original movie and connected with. So it came from the prop collection of the original movie. So, yeah, if you look in the website, you'll see the video of it being opened and being serviced, and then we sent it back to the owner, who is then displaying it at a Universal Studios Jaws celebration at the Academy Museum, and we released that on the 20th of june, which was the 50th anniversary of the release of the movie in the us.

Blake Rea:

I hope he wears it. Man, have you, that's a watch I would wear. I'd wear the shit out of that actually no, I would wear it.

Angus McFadden:

I would wear. He don't think he does wear it. It tends to be on display. He's also got roy scheider's um hamilton that he wore in the movie so he's, he's also got that, um, and he said you want me to send you that too, and I tried to find a nice way of saying that I don't need that, yeah that'd be cool, but I mean, it's not going to be something.

Blake Rea:

We're going to wrap some PR around.

Angus McFadden:

Exactly, Exactly. So no, we did some good PR around that and then two weeks later, on the 4th of July, we released our new Super Automatic, which 4th of July was a big date in the US, but it was also a big date in the Jaws movie as well. That's how we met obviously the Jaws movie as well.

Blake Rea:

That's how we met, obviously. I mean, I've been watching all stuff for a while and I've been going back and forth with my friends, right, like which one do you think I should get when time comes? And then I saw that you guys were teasing the Super Automatic and I was like, oh shit, Like.

Blake Rea:

I need to prepare my wallet and then, yeah, the uh was not disappointing at all. Um, I think is you guys did a great job, uh, with the new super automatic and uh, and I'm hoping at some some point I could, I could still acquire one. I'm kind of on a on a buying freeze. I've been talking to my wife I just bought so much camera gear. The last thing I'm thinking about right now is sadly buying a watch.

Blake Rea:

Yeah, I hope so, I hope so. So I guess fast forward. You decided to bring Ulster, obviously, to a modern audience and you released the Motoscoff, which didn't exist before your acquisition. How did that collection come to be and why did you feel like you needed to introduce something?

Angus McFadden:

Yeah, so I guess this goes back to your question a minute ago about the challenges of introducing a heritage brand to a modern audience. On one hand, the heritage pieces like the super automatic, the nautiscaf, the chronographs that's what our enthusiasts are asking. They're asking for more of that, more of the of the original pieces to be re-released. But there are a lot of customers out there who are saying why are you only sticking to those small number of pieces? Why don't you innovate and do some new things and bring some new models to the market? So we went through a period where we were bringing out some new things, looking at some new look not-a-scaffs, so doing not-a-scaffs, with coloured dials, with coloured bezels instead of the classic black. And then I looked at the. I was thinking about the idea of doing something else, maybe like something connected with driving or connecting with motorcycling, and I was talking to um, a friend of mine in the us, um alan fermello, who used to run the beyond the dial podcast, and he was saying why don't you do a motorcycle watch? Because there isn't one out there. There are motorcycle-themed watches, so watches that have motorcycle logos on the dial, but there's nothing that's been built from the ground up for a motorcyclist, considering what a motorcyclist is looking for in terms of the ruggedness and the shock-proofness of it, the fact that it has the Destro crown, the crown on the left side, yeah, and it just the conversation started moving in that direction and the next thing we were prototyping the piece, did a bit of research into our customer base to see if it's something that they would be interested in and they said yeah. So we brought that out in a limited, in a limited number, and I also was keen to make the. So the case that the watch comes in is bigger than our usual watch pouch and that's so that it can accommodate a pair of sunglasses for a motorcyclist. So I got the prototype of the pouch made and then was trying every different type of sunglasses you can think of, from wayfarers to you know, all the different styles to make sure that they fitted into this pouch, into this pouch so that motorcyclists can not just throw it in a drawer but actually use it. So that was what was behind that, um, that model, and then that then starts the conversation about does that become a permanent collection, a permanent product within the answer, collection, and I guess that's that's another challenge trying to make those decisions.

Angus McFadden:

Do we make the decision and say, yes, we're going to do it, we're going to back our models and we're going to bring the next one out? Or do we go back to our customers and ask them? And that's what we tend to do. We tend to ask our customers a lot. We do a lot of emailing and I email directly to a lot of our customers saying can I ask you something? If we brought this out, would that interest you? And some of them say, yeah, it really would. I can't afford it at the moment, but I would buy it if I could afford it. And some others say, yeah, put me down for one. And then others say no, it's not of interest.

Angus McFadden:

So we like to do a lot of that, so asking the customers what they want and then the judgment's back on us about what the final product looks like. We did that with the new Super Automatic. We ran a sort of focus group with about 250 of our customers and we asked them to help us um with what they wanted to see, what they didn't want to see, what they like, what they don't like, what they would pay extra for and what they wouldn't pay extra for, what they just regard as being, um, standard equipment that you don't need to pay extra for. So really asked a lot of questions of the customers and then, okay, we take that and design something that that we think will appeal to to more people than not I'm assuming that you got back, like you know, solita movement, you know things like that, upgraded movement and yeah, yeah, we got a lot of.

Angus McFadden:

Yeah, we got a lot of. We want to see swiss movement in there which was, which was fine.

Angus McFadden:

And we asked um, what about the thickness? You still want it thick or do you want it thinner, so that more refined, so you can wear it under a shirt or you could wear it as a sports watch? And then, um, is the? What about the bracelet? How important is that to you? Is that just something that keeps the watch on your wrist, or is that part of the overall package? Do you want some more refinement there? Do you want micro adjustment on it? Do you want a different type of security? Do you want, like push button opening, or don't you care about that?

Angus McFadden:

What about the end links? Do you want them to fit closely, like a bit like an integrated bracelet, or do you like the gaps, the flaws of the original 1970s watch? So we ask all these questions what about a dome crystal? Do you like the dome crystal or do you not? And it's incredible, when you ask customers those questions, some of them say, yeah, we want the crystal as big and domed as possible, to be vintage. And then we have others who say, no, I want it to be more refined, so that it's a sports watch but could be worn as a dress watch. So we need to take all of that into account.

Blake Rea:

It brings me perfectly to the question of um, you know what? What is an all star watch to you Like? You know, you have a stereotype, or I shouldn't say stereotypical, but in your mind it has to meet a certain criteria, right. So, from the horse's mouth, you know what do you feel like.

Angus McFadden:

And also, watch has to have before you would even consider releasing something like that so I've always been conscious of the fact that when we're bringing bringing a new brand back and and appealing to customers that haven't maybe haven't experienced the brand before, you need to be conscious of budget, and I've been conscious of bringing watches to the to our customer base that are too expensive, because if you do that, it then becomes something that's not as easy to, it's not as easy to buy, but it's also not as easy for a new customer to join the Ulster family. If you say it's £3,000 to buy, or $3,000 to buy an Ulster ie a brand you've never heard of, or you could buy a pre-owned Heuer or something for three grand, what are you going to? What are you going to go for? Right? Well, it's a difficult. It'd be difficult to imagine someone going for a new revived brand they'd never heard of and spending that money. So I've always been conscious of making sure it's affordable.

Angus McFadden:

Um, so that was. That was part of the reasoning behind the early pieces having Seiko movements in them. I wanted the watches made in Switzerland, but in order to make them in Switzerland and still keep them affordable, the one thing I was prepared to give up the Swiss part was the movement, because Seiko make really good movements. So now I think we've got some more brand equity, some more brand recognition and some more legitimacy. I keep saying the word legitimacy, but it is a really I think it's a good way to describe it. I think we've got that legitimacy now with a broader customer base who will say, yeah, okay, I'll spend $1,300 on one of their watches because I know who they are and I've experienced how they treat me. I've experienced how they are to deal with and what it feels like to be part of that brand.

Angus McFadden:

So, to bring it back to your question, I think having it Swiss made as much as possible, because people do expect that it's a bit of a hygiene factor when you're buying a spending four figures on a on a watch and so I wanted to have that. I wanted to have a certain amount of refinement. I don't want it just not together. It needs to be, have a certain level of refinement and feel that it could be a dress watch as well as being a sports watch, and I want it to also be. I want it to be informed and influenced by the heritage and by the vintage pieces, but not a carbon copy. I want it to be an evolution, so it might look like a super automatic, but it's got modern materials and it's got a modern movement and it's got a more robust crystal on it and it's maybe got a more robust bezel on it. So, yeah, I I don't want it to be just the um, I don't want to be shaving cost all the time.

Blake Rea:

I want to find that balance between uh of value and cost yeah, I mean it makes sense because if you think about the golden years of watchmaking, the 60s, like late 50s, late 60s, um, you know, if you've ever owned a vintage watch, I mean they're not daily drivers, unfortunately. I mean, I don't have the courage to daily drive a vintage watch. Um, and you know there's a lot of modern advancements that can, you know, essentially extend the life beyond right, you know you've got new technology, silicon um, you know, back in the day, I mean, they weren't using a lot of sapphire crystals, they're using a lot of acrylic, you know. And, um, you know, watches weren't made. I mean, they were made well, of course, but they, you know there's been a lot of advancements that, um, you know, I, I think and I've said this before, and I, anytime I've sent a watch, even and to, to get restored, you know, I, I would like a vintage looking modern watch, you, so I think that's what, that's what resonated with with me.

Blake Rea:

You know, I want modern tech by vintage design. Yes, and that's what?

Angus McFadden:

yeah that's what you have absolutely, and I love the fact that we are that a non-obvious choice. You know, if you, um, if you walk into a room and there's lots of people with uh, wearing watchies, um, the chances of finding someone else in the same room wearing an ulster is quite slim. The chances of finding somebody who's wearing an omega or a brightling or a rolex or whatever is is quite high. But the chances of walking into a room and seeing more than one Alistair is quite slim. And I love that because it's that less obvious choice.

Angus McFadden:

The Matt Hooper character in Jaws the reason that he had the Alistair as opposed to a Rolex was because, although he was a man of means and came from an affluent background, he wasn't flash. He didn't want the obvious choice. He wanted something that was robust and quality and something that would last, and it didn't matter if it wasn't a brand. So that was really chosen for him because it was that non-obvious choice. And the costume designer for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas did exactly the same, putting Johnny Depp's costumes together, saying we want a watch.

Angus McFadden:

That's not the obvious choice. It's not to be a Rolex, it's to be something that maybe bears some resemblance to it and is robust but a bit of a rebel's choice robust but a bit of a rebel's choice. And then, doing the research, she discovered the rebel, who was the oceanographer in jaws and he had this watch. So maybe that's a good choice for ralph duke in fear and loathing. And then the next big movie appearance last summer, something in the water, which was a a buddy movie, but a shark played a big part in that. So the character that wore the super automatic in that movie again was the rebel, was the character who was the, who was not going to have the obvious choice on her wrist. That was good because that's her wrist, but it was female lead who was, um, one of the female leads who was wearing the watch I'll have to go back and watch that.

Blake Rea:

Obviously. I've seen draws. I've seen fear and loathing in las vegas and, um, you know, obviously johnny depp and fear and loathing, it's like one of my favorite, like all-time movie characters. I think his quirkiness and his uh, uh, I guess excitement about life is, is, and his perception is it's very uh, it's very odd, but it's uh, it's one of my all-time favorite characters in a movie I think you know and you don't need to.

Angus McFadden:

You don't need to advocate the stuff that he got up to in order to say you know, I get the, I get the watch connection and I get that sort of rebellious choice. You don't need to agree with the stuff he did to get that.

Blake Rea:

I have to ask do you know what happened to Johnny Depp's watch?

Angus McFadden:

I don't. I do have my detectives out working on it, though.

Blake Rea:

No, I'm pretty, pretty big and this is weird. I don't think I've ever talked about this publicly, but I'm huge in um, in like movie props, right. So, like, I literally look at at prop store which is like a uk-based, uh like prop house and they sell, you know, like, like either like screen worn items or you know like like props from the films, like I mean, they sell all that stuff and I've been, I've been eyeing watches on there for a while. You know, the ones that I was, I was actually bidding on was one of the the Omegas. The the Omega from it was the Seamaster 300, from not no Time to Die, but the one before it, you know, the one that he had in his hand where he was tied up.

Blake Rea:

Oh right, and it turned into a little bomb or something right.

Angus McFadden:

Okay, yeah, so you're going to bid for that, are you?

Blake Rea:

Yeah, I made a bid for it and it just started getting up there way too high for what I think, yeah, yeah, so you're gonna bid for that, are you? Yeah, I, I, yeah. I made a bid for it and it just started getting up there like way too high for what I think, uh, specter, specter, um, yeah yeah, anything james bond connected is going to be really expensive yeah, yeah, yeah.

Blake Rea:

So that's the reason why I'm just kind of curious. Um, and I guess in the future. So your brand has been built on the cinematic appearances, right? Is that something that you know you guys are going to try and continue through legacy, like you know? Do you want, you know, more screen visibility in the future? Is that what you're going to hang on to or even try to achieve?

Angus McFadden:

I don't know, because On one hand, the screen visibility has been the thing that's really brought us to the public's attention, but on the other hand, it's something that I feel, yeah, I'm a bit conflicted on it. On one hand, it doesn't feel very authentic sort of paying to have your watch appearing in a movie for us anyway. On the other hand, it gives brand visibility. So I think that's something we might do in an opportunistic way rather than chasing it.

Angus McFadden:

The reason we appeared in Something in the Water, for example, is that the director of that movie is a customer and an enthusiast and she wears a super automatic all the time. She wears it on set when she's making movies. She wears it when she's not on on set, and she was like I'd love to have a little nod to jaws in the movie and most people won't get it. But if you know, you know. So, yeah, that's why we appeared in that, and we also have had conversations with the movie studio as well about potentially doing something with them in future.

Angus McFadden:

But I think, um, we'll just, yeah, we'll just feel our way with that one. I don't want to be, and the reason I'm saying that I don't want to be paying lots of money to appear in movies. I just don't think that that's who our customers are and who our brand enthusiasts are and who we are. I think that we would be then chasing a whole different customer group, which is great. We want to get new customers, of course. We want to keep building the the answer customer group, but at the moment our customer group is really engaged and passionate and um and loads of our customers have more than one piece and I just think they would feel that we might have lost that special thing that they love about us if we started then spending our profits on movie appearances.

Blake Rea:

Yeah, well, obviously that has to be transferred back to the cost of the customer, right?

Blake Rea:

Like, if you're spending 300, I don't even know how much it would cost 200, 000, 100, 000 to have product placement and an xyz movie, like you wouldn't be able to keep your watches in that what I I would consider very, uh, obtainable price segment.

Blake Rea:

You know, I mean, you have a quality product, um, I've seen one allsta in my life on just, unfortunately, just one um, and you know it doesn't take long for you to realize that you have, you know, a great product. It, almost instantaneously, once you put it in your hand, the fit to finish the build, it's all there, um. But you know that would put you into a whole new price segment. You know your, your entry door would be double what it is now. I think, and and you know you're you're on the right, the right track to to being able to keep these watches obtainable, right? You know there's not a lot of watches out there that are history, powered with legacy, with the story, you know, that are under a thousand dollars, like please show me another watch that has similar, you know heritage under a thousand dollars and in your case, like what? Seven hundred dollars, right?

Angus McFadden:

yeah, yeah, yeah, the last super automatic was 800, the new one is 1300.

Blake Rea:

Just under 1300, yeah, but still even the, not even the, not a scoff, you know like 700, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, even the Nodoscoff.

Angus McFadden:

Nodoscoff is like $700.

Blake Rea:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that is right there in that obtainable segment. I think You're right there.

Angus McFadden:

It's just where your priorities are really. Even if we had the money to splash out on a movie appearance, that money could be much better used. I would say improving other things Like R&D, Instead of improving our visibility to a new customer group. That might happen away in the future, but at the moment that money could be better spent improving our product, improving our communications with our customers, improving our service. All those things are good at the moment, but the you can always be better and I think spending those making the experience of being an answer customer is where I would rather put the money, um, rather than spending it on trying to build our audience makes sense.

Blake Rea:

Super, you know you get. You have described Ulster as you know authentic, you know purpose driven and sophisticated in the modern watch landscape. Which one of those do you feel is probably the hardest to maintain?

Angus McFadden:

I think authenticity is possibly the hardest to maintain for the, for the reasons that we've just been talking about. Right, you know, I think you. Then you can then get dragged away from your heritage or dragged away from the things that make you an attractive proposition. You can be easily dragged away from those. If someone came along and said to me, would you like to go down a whole different path? We'll throw lots of money at you and go down a different path with the brand and start building a different type of watch for a different type of customer. So there you go. You need to make a business decision. Do we want to grow this business and do we want to start becoming higher volume, or do we want to maintain that authenticity that we have and that's really hard to hold on to? Someone gives you that opportunity. You need to weigh it up. What's more important? Things like purposefulness of the, the watches I think that that's reasonably easy to maintain and and the sophistication too.

Angus McFadden:

Now, that's sophistication is not something that I made up. It's something that customers, when we did our focus group last year as well, they were saying these are you know what. Give us some words that you think of that come to mind when you think of alstom, when you look at our content online, or if you look at our watch, or give us some words that you think of, and the word sophisticated came up again and again. They said, yeah, yeah, you're rugged, yes, you're tough tool watches, but you've got that little. Somebody said you've got a little kind of sex, a bit of sex appeal, which I loved. I thought that was brilliant. I would never have the audacity to say that about us, but it was a customer that said it. Say that about us, but it was a customer that said it. And um, so you know? So I think, um, yeah, I, I. So, to answer your question, I think the authenticity is potentially the hardest to hold on to. I'm hoping, I'm hoping you do it.

Blake Rea:

No, you're doing a good job. And just for the record, I often refer to watches as sexy.

Angus McFadden:

Yeah, totally.

Blake Rea:

I agree with you there.

Angus McFadden:

You talked about. You know, obviously in the future, you know, looking at chronographs, you know, are there any other complications that you feel are worthy of the Ulster label? Yeah, I think a g I'd love to do, a gmt I would love to do. We've been talking and doing designs of, uh, a gmt, a super automatic, potentially a super automatic gmt, or an autoscaff GMT. I think that does fit because if you think about the who, the Ulster customer is somebody who likes the outdoors, somebody who likes a bit of adventure, somebody who on their weekends maybe rides motorcycles, maybe they sail boats, maybe they go fishing.

Angus McFadden:

There's a lot of outdoor sports, um, that go, that goes on with um, our typical customer, and adventure and travel go hand in hand with those with those outdoor activities. So again, the romance of the heritage brand of travel and and these types of things go perfectly with a gmt, with a traveler's watch and I guess that's the again the, the, the romance of the heritage brands coming out nobody needs a gmt watch, nobody needs another, another time zone on their watch, nobody even needs a watch. Your iPhone or whatever phone you use gives a more accurate time and it also gives you multiple time zones. So you don't need a GMT, but I think there's something quite I don't know something quite romantic and sophisticated about GMTs. So that's a long answer.

Blake Rea:

No, it's a great answer. That's a great answer. I think you're probably one of the first brand owners to ever come on a podcast who owns a watch brand that says you don't need a watch. So hats off to you, buddy.

Angus McFadden:

We're talking about being authentic. We're talking about being authentic. We're talking about being authentic.

Blake Rea:

Yeah, we all know it, but it's never been vocalized by a watch brand owner. Let's lean into that a little bit more. So you talked about heritage right and bringing back a heritage brand. You know, and this is probably, I guess, one of the more challenging questions I might ask I've got a couple more challenging questions and I'm trying to fit everything in here to the top of the hour. If you could sit down with Joseph Alciter today, you know, what would you guys talk about? What would you ask him? What would you want to know from him?

Angus McFadden:

Why did he throw in the towel instead of leaning into the Quartz Revolution as opposed to Quartz Crisis, the Quartz Revolution and get ahead of it and really build Ulster for the late 20th century and into the 21st century with quartz watches? I think I would ask him that.

Angus McFadden:

Maybe most of the things he did with the brand were really spot on. I think, as I said earlier, he really kicked ahead of, was often at the forefront of trends, but because he didn't have the ambition to build a brand that had global appeal and was selling large volumes of watches, he was quite happy to say we're going to make these lovely chronographs, then we're going to go and make some lovely sports watches, then we're going to go and do something else and then run out of steam. So that I think that's the question I would ask him why, why did you not lean into quartz?

Blake Rea:

yeah, well, maybe he was leaving it for you maybe, maybe what, what's?

Blake Rea:

uh, what do you feel I'm you? Probably maybe you've gotten some misconceptions about Allsta, you know if, because I know there's a lot of people who are listening in my podcast right now that maybe aren't as sleuthy on the internet as I am and have maybe never heard of Allsta. But I'm sure maybe you've ran into some objections or maybe misconceptions about the brand, or maybe even just people that don't understand or even know the brand. You know, what would you like to say?

Angus McFadden:

you know we don't get too many objections. Really. I think in the early days we got objections about why you're not putting a swiss movement in your watches, and I could talk all day about why we we didn't put a swiss movement in those early watches. Um, I think I've already mentioned it. You know the choice. The choices were to either manufacture in the far east and put a swiss movement in which lots of brands do, or do something a bit different and get the start manufacturing in Switzerland, put a Japanese movement and then eventually evolve into having a Swiss movement and an all-Swiss watch and hopefully that leap from a Swiss watch with a Japanese movement to an all-Swiss watch isn't such a big leap after all in terms of price. So we got lots of not not lots, but we did get questions about why did you not put a Swiss watch?

Angus McFadden:

And I think lots of the objections come from probably a misunderstanding of what goes into making watches. Sure, you know, I've had people. I've had people saying you know how come of what goes into making watches. Sure, I've had people saying how come Seiko can make a dive watch that costs $800 and you guys, it costs $1,200?.

Blake Rea:

That's the question.

Angus McFadden:

Seiko makes 30 million watches a year and they manufacture everything in-house. And even Somebody once said to me you know I can get a Longines for less expensive than yours with the same spec. It's like Longines makes one and a half million watches a year. If you're making it that kind of volume, you can do a lot with your pricing. At that kind of volume you can do a lot with your pricing. But to design and prototype and manufacture and assemble and quality control and market and distribute watches made in Switzerland at the prices that we do, I think we should be applauded for, as opposed to anyone saying we think it's too expensive even though it isn't expensive. I think often it's a misconception about how much work goes into actually bringing a watch to market and how much work goes in for a small brand, an independent brand that doesn't have all the resources.

Blake Rea:

Yeah, I think I know the answer to this one, but which watch past, present or maybe even future? Wink wink, do you feel best, tells the Ulster story. As someone who's maybe never heard of the brand, is it the super automatic?

Angus McFadden:

Yeah, I think it is the super automatic. Yeah, I think it is the super automatic. The the notice gaff was really important because that was the entry into dive watches. That was skin divers for at the time, so that was the type of watch that you would wear directly on your skin. It was for leisure diving. And then the super automatic was more of a professional diver's watch. But in reality professional divers don't tend divers wouldn't tend to wear one of our watches. They have dive computers.

Angus McFadden:

I would say the Superautomatic is the one that is a really good entry point because there is lots of backstory to the model. There's lots of interesting facts about the model, the fact that there's the cinematic references, the fact that there are some interesting customers out there who wear them um, you know people from the world of music, the worlds of music and movies, uh, wear them. So it's a. It's a. It's an interesting entry point to the brand and then you can start discovering other things, maybe more niche models, like some of the bronze models that we brought out yeah, yeah, I've been going through the, the collection, and I think, uh, I mean, I love what you're doing with the, not a scuff.

Blake Rea:

I think that would be where I would my entry door as well. Um, final question, because we're at the top of the hour, I'm trying to help you keep your schedule.

Angus McFadden:

Yeah, that's okay.

Blake Rea:

You know, obviously you don't want to make the same mistakes that you know previous owners of the brand did. So you know how are you going to preserve this brand for the future. You know, like what steps are you taking to make sure that this brand continues forward, as opposed to just another short-term run and I wouldn't call Alsta's first run short-term by any means, but you know what I mean.

Angus McFadden:

I know what you mean. I know what you mean. That was kind of you to say how you're going to stop making mistakes. I mean, we're making mistakes all the time. I make mistakes all the time and I think learning from those is something that continues. That's important. So, yeah, how am I going to preserve the brand?

Angus McFadden:

I think a big mistake that lots of small brands make is trying to compete with the big brands when it comes to throwing so much resource and so much capital at advertising and social media and trying to keep up with the big brands, and I think that that's a mistake because eventually you're just going to run out of steam and run out of money. So not, so not not making the mistake of throwing so much money because we think we've got to compete with Rolex or Richard Mille or or Breitling. You're never going to compete with these guys in terms of their marketing spends, so don't try. Do what you have to do, but I think putting more money into making sure that your proposition is improving your customer base are delighted to be part of the brand. I think that that's how we're going to continue um, growing the growing ulster and making sure it's still here in another 80 years time.

Angus McFadden:

Next year's our 80th anniversary, so we'll we'll do some special things there. We're talking at the moment about doing a model for that anniversary and maybe one or two brand partnerships, so that's exciting. But we're not going to make the mistake of throwing so much money into marketing that there's nothing left for improvement of the product and improvement of the experience.

Blake Rea:

Wow, yeah, I can't wait to see what you guys do next year. Obviously, huge fan. Thank you so much for spending just about an hour with us kind of breaking down the brand, answering some of the questions that I had. Hopefully, you know, um, you know also it comes to a wrist near you, you know, for all the listeners. So, um, I, I can't, I can't wait to to get my first all stuff and um, and we'll have to have a chat about that at some point later.

Angus McFadden:

So we will. We will for sure. Thank you for your kind words, and I'm also a huge fan of what you're doing. It's difficult to really carve a niche out in the space that you're in and you're you're knocking it out, so well done thank you.

Blake Rea:

Thank you so much. It means it means a lot. We will see you on the next one and we're definitely going to stay in touch and everybody we're going to link all stuff below Definitely encourage you to go check them out. They're definitely worthy, in my opinion, of your money and if you haven't seen one, you might be the first one in your friend group to start the trend there. Thank you so much, angus. Appreciate your time. Thank you, blake.

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Blake Rea

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