Intermezzo #74: Prelude for 2015.

It's been a year ago I posted my last G-Shock article. I had the idea for a sabbatical year for a long time. For moments in 2013 it was pretty hard to make new 50 Gs articles. Simply because I was running out of Gs. I might have collected over 600 (now nearly 700) G-Shocks in the past 14 years, there are quite some doubles, specially from special models.

Also, writing a good article takes research and time. An average article takes me about 10 hours of writing, editing, taking photos, editing photo's, etc, etc. and that while I have a full 40 hours job, that changed from a pretty relaxing job 10 years ago (on a school with 700 students) to somewhat hectic and very busy now (now nearly 1500 students).

I pretty much enjoyed my Sabbatical year. I didn't had to buy G-Shock models just for my 50 Gs weblog. I only bought about 20 Gs this year. That's about half I usually do. On the other hand, it's getting harder to get nice Gs for a fair price. There are many collectors with deep pockets, who buy up whole stock and sell them for double the price or more. I tried to stay away from this practice as far as I could, but this year I even had to buy watches for inflated prices. Lately I had to buy a "Giveaway" G-Shock, where 1000(!) of them were given away during an event, for $300,-. This watch would be worth $150 max 5 years ago and frankly, I think for such a model, it should be the market price. Living in Europe makes it nowadays near impossible to get the great models. I was pretty sad I couldn't get the hot looking Bape x Coca-Cola model, as it has 2 of my favorite themes on it: Bape and red.

With more free time I enjoyed other things. In February I met a guy at a LEGO exposition who designed a BR 103 TEE locomotive. As a child I always loved the TEE trains and specially the BR 103 series locs and wagons. I bought his building instructions and in about two months I collected all the parts over whole Europe. The best part of the design is that the loc is 8 studs wide, instead of 6, which LEGO usually uses. This gives the train a more natural look. The guy told me it would cost me about €125 - €150 to get all LEGO parts. I can assure you, you may double that. Specially on shipping costs on rare bricks. After I finished the locomotive, I started designing wagons myself. My idea was that a good looking train would have at least 4 wagons. A usual TEE train with a BR 103 loc has probably st leadt 10 wagons. Also here I stumbled upon high costs. By buying from many different sellers, the shipping costs just kept adding up. Until now, 9 months later, I only finished 2 plain wagons. I'm still intended to make a different passenger wagon and a restaurant wagon. Theses wagons look pretty plain, bit there are at least €100 in bricks. With only two finished wagons and two to go, this will be a slow, ongoing project beside my Gs.

With more free time, I had also more time to ride my bicycle. And I took that time. While in the past years I had to be happy to ride 600 to 700 kilometers, I rode about double this year and enjoyed it to the max. We bought another car, and I bought a bicycle carrier. This gave me more freedom to ride everywhere I like. Still I enjoy exploring the islands here around and I find new roads and tracks almost every ride.

I have planned a little ahead. Before 2015 started I have finished roughly writing 8 articles yet and 3 or 4 are ready to publish. I also get help from my good friend Christofono, who will try to write 12 articles. A bit of a relief, only 38 articles on my shoulder. As I plan to visit Japan, this time with my son Bram, again end 2016, I also try to limit my G-Shock buying as much as possible. This also means 2016 will be an obligatory sabbatical. Traveling to Japan for two will be very expensive. Though I look forward to meet my Japanese watch collector friends in Tokyo and Kyoto again.

Well, this was about what I wanted to write in this prologue for the next series of 50 Gs, but maybe you like the expansion of our LEGO Winter Village collection. I made several building movies, so here they are for your amusement. Check them out below:

Cheers to a new year of 50 Gs G-Shock articles. I hope you look as much forward to it as I do. Let's hope we will finish December 2015 again with a set of beautiful articles. I have heard a bit about what's coming up this year and I look forward to some great released. I hereby want to wish my readers a good G-Shocking New Year with lots of joy, new G-Shocks and a good health. Happy New Year!

G-Shock #48: Dee and Ricky 2

In July 2010 Casio released a collaboration model with the designer duo and twins Dee and Ricky Jackson. About a year ago I have written an article about this GA-110DR-1ACR model. In July or August I was confidently informed by Casio that a new white Dee and Ricky collaboration model was coming up. In September this news leaked out early on a Hong Kong based weblog. From that time on, there were a lot of speculations. Was it really coming? Will it be as popular as the first Dee and Ricky? Well, the watch is officially about two or three weeks out now, so it might be premature to say anything about that.

What I noticed is that the first models that were offered on internet auction sites were priced 2 to 3 times the retail price. When I tried to get one, two of these were sold in front of my nose at a sneaker shop, while I was trying to order one. At the same time I saw them for sale at $400.- in my country, ready to ship worldwide, shipping not included. I think it’s a shame that people do not buy this watch for their love, but just to make easy money and so also create an artificial rareness, by buying complete stocks of departments stores and fashion shops.

I was a bit late noticing that this model was already out in The Netherlands. On November 21stI called I Love Sneakerz for the Parra model and en passant asked if they knew about the Dee and Ricky release date. They told this watch was already out for a week. Although 6 were ordered, they only got 2. One had already been sold. Unfortunately the last one was just sold before, I could buy it, on-line when they checked the inventory. The shop owner told me they wanted more of this model on stock, so they might get a 2nd delivery.

A second batch of the Dee and Ricky model was delivered at stores last Friday (December 2). This probably means that Casio made more than enough of this model for everyone who loves this model and want to buy it for the retail. The retail price of €130 in Europe is quite fair, while the retail price in Japan is much higher, ¥18000 (somewhere around €160 - €170). This week the US retail price has been shown on the website of Casio US, it’s $130 (€100).

Also with this release a Dee and Ricky G-Shock commercial was released. No Lego this time. The commercial was shot in Paris. A classic Roman statue creates the illusion it’s shot in the Louvre, but I don’t think the Parisians would have been happy with the end. Luckily a G-Shock isn’t easily destroyed.

While it looks like Dee and Ricky have left their Lego designs of the past and have been designing other colorful accessories, the color scheme seem still taken from the famous color scheme of Lego bricks, and why shouldn’t they. Lego seems to be still growing in popularity for both kids and grownups. Actually Lego has the past years been actively promoting themselves for adults with exclusive sets. A lot of dads discover their love for Lego again as their children start playing with the bricks. There is even a term for adults with a love for Lego bricks, AFOL, the abbreviation of Adult Fan Of Lego. I don’t want to admit to loud, as my primal love is at G-Shock, but I consider myself a small AFOL as well.

The big difference between the last years Dee and Ricky model is the strap and bezel color, which is now white instead of black. Actually all black parts on the first model are now replaced by white parts. The yellow, blue, green and red details of the watch are not really changed. Even the lettering on the bezel have the same color scheme. It was hard for me to find a real difference in colors, but I actually can only find one. On the small Speed Dial of the Tachymeter on the 9 o´clock position, the center is now blue, instead of yellow. Now I have found that difference, I think yellow would have been better, as blue is pretty dominant on the dial.

The Dee and Ricky G-Shock is based on the analog GA-110 models, which together with the GD-100, GA-100 and the GA-120 models are considered the X-Large models of G-Shocks. It looks like these X-Large models are pretty popular. Even in The Netherlands these models show up in the streets and even students of me ask where they can get these models, or as a student a few days ago said: “Sorry, I don’t want a digital one like you have, but a big analog one”.

The GA-111DR is equipped with a 5146 module. The watch does not only have analog time, but two of the three parts on the dial are digital displays. The upper display is a normal (positive) display, the lower display is a negative display. The dial itself a design with several layers, which creates depth in the watch. The parts between the hour markers look a little bit like the studded Lego bricks, although they have only 3 studs diagonal on them. The combination of the white resin of the bezel and the blue accents somehow gives the watch, in my opinion, a somewhat marine look, like the Middle Sea Race Raysman. Of course there are also the yellow and red accents, but blue is in definitively in the majority.

The hands and the Speed dial have an industrial design. They seem to have been miniaturized from the cog wheels of Modern Times (1936) or derived from the “Made In Detroit” logo, which could be found on late 80’s and early ‘90s Techno 12”-es from the capital of Techno music. This industrial look give boost the tough look of this G-Shock model.

Like the first Dee and Ricky model, the buttons are in red and blue, giving a playful edge on the watch. The Dee and Ricky text logo is printed on the strap, while the heads logo is engraved on the back. There is a small difference in the heads logo with the first release. It appears that Ricky now has a moustache.

The GA-110DR has the more or less the basic functions on board. A 24 hours Stopwatch, a 24 hour Countdown Timer, 48 cities World Time function and an Alarm function with 4 normal daily alarms, a snooze alarm and a hourly signal. Personally I miss the button beeps. The only sound you can get out of the watch are alarm sounds. Even the Stopwatch operates in complete silence.

Special is the Speed function in Stopwatch mode. You can specify a distance between 1.0 and 99.0 units. It does not really matter what these units are. Speed is expressed in units per hour. So, if you set a distance of “1” and measure 60 seconds, it shows a speed of 60 units per hour. If a unit is a Kilometer, than it is in kmph, if it is one mile, than it is in mph, etc. The Speed Dial can show up to a speed of 100. Indicators in the top display show 100 units and there is even a 1000 units indicator. You can measure speed up to 1998 (units per hour). It all seems not that simple and actually after reading the manual, I still think it’s not easy, but if you need this function, I think you can work with it. I think this function might be good for car racing and other speed sports.

Since the news of the second Dee and Ricky model was out, it was a lot discussed on the G-Shock forum on WatchUSeek and on Facebook. A lot of people contacted me where to get one from and where I got mine. Well, I got one from the I Love Sneakerz, the on-line store of Unknown in Alkmaar, and another one confidential source (was it an early Saint Nicolas present?). I know the shop I bout one in still has another one, but several other shops in The Netherlands like Ace, Gorilli and Concrete probably have this watch in stock. This probably means you might find them in similar stores in Europe too.

The watch is also already out in Japan. My friend FUMI had bought two on November 12. An official party with Dee and Ricky is on December 5 somewhere in Tokyo. Coming week they will promote this watch in Paris (according their twitter accounts). In the UK the watch will be presented on December 16 (G-Shock East), so if you are in London, you might go to the release party (starts at 16:00). For the US there is not a release date yet, but it might be soon known, as it is scheduled for mid or end December. The watch might not be for everyone, but white straps and bezel makes the watch stand out great. The bright colored accents make this watch look very playful. Maybe not a watch for serious work meetings, but great for going out to a party, bar or club, holidays or visiting art exhibitions, etcetera, etcetera.