I just recently picked up a pair of Puma Palermos by Asphaltgold “Scopa”. What mainly got me was the strength of the entire campaign rollout headed by an appearance of the seminal goalkeeper of my generation, Gianluigi Buffon1. Perfect ad. Perfect execution from head to toe between a brand, retailer and concept. These won’t win any Sneaker of the Year awards or garner much hype but there’s just something so satisfying when a product executes on every front so tightly. Gotta get ‘em.
What pushed this release into stratospheric levels for me was the actual deck of custom scopa cards that came inside the box. I wasn’t expecting them and there wasn’t any indication prior that they would actually include anything else inside the box, nor is there huge any precedent really. Sneakers sometimes do this with extra laces, stickers or shoebags but something this extra is always welcome. I had the biggest smile on my face when I opened the box and went, ‘Oh shit it comes with an actual deck of cards.’ It even had a little QR code you could scan that linked to a site where you could learn how to play. It ties into the whole concept. It’s such an obvious extra to include yet I wasn’t expecting it to be there. We need more of this.
On my journey to a 30th birthday watch the Baltic Tricompax x Tour Auto 2024 presented itself as a sneaky contender. The storytelling and rollout campaign like the Scopa above is incredibly strong, something severely lacking in watches (or is it even appreciated by most consumers outside of watches the go deep or to the moon?). Fratello recently did a great article about the watch and the event tied to it. I can’t repeat it enough but shooting watches in context is such an easy way for brands to market yet I don’t see it nearly enough!
This year’s Tricompax LE is a great little package of a watch. And I say package because it comes with a cool as fuck combo of a a stopwatch and dash clock as arguably, an extra in the box. I’m a sucker for stuff like this:
Now I absolutely don’t need a pair of rally timers2 because I don’t even have a car and I’m a walking in the big city type guy but man stuff like this is great. It’s so tied into the product itself that it elevates the thing it comes along with. Still thinking about the Baltic, I’ve been good at selling recently and my watch box has 2 slots free!
Most of my watch collecting journey has been cheaper vintage watches, so I don’t even so much as get a proper box half the time. I’m not a big box and papers guy either and most of the vintage watches I’ve bought have been Japanese auction site finds rather than through dealers — often what looks like a parent’s old watch that they’ve been too humble to actually wear (good for first owner and NOS! You should take a gamble on a shitty picture on Mercari). It’ll come in whatever box is laying around, wrapped in paper or a little grab bag. Very unceremonious and no extras in sight. It’s true the other way round as well, I handed the last watch I sold butt ass naked (the watch, people) to the guy in front of a train station. A familiar transaction situation for me throughout my entire life especially during my teenage years.
So I’m not too familiar with the whole… unboxing process of a brand new watch. It’s certainly a thing with other stuff, especially tech stuff. From what I can gander however there’s not a lot of fun extra junk other than the watch itself.
I can speak for a couple of the indies. My Kurono Tokyo Mori came with this cool cloth that I hang as an accent piece on my desk’s pegboard. The Kurono Tokyo Seiji came with a little sake cup. My Jaeger-Benzinger came with a couple of nice leather pouches that I don’t really know what to do with, along with hand-written note from Kay Jaeger and Jochen Benzinger, which I have yet to translate even though it’s been years. So let’s do it now!
Neat!
Can you imagine if a Journe came with the Kokies figure?3 We’d all eat that shit up. Especially with things this expensive, the consumer happiness gains to actual effort ratio of adding a surprise doodad into the box must be off the charts right? A little extra thought would go a long way and make things personal.
Luxury is something extra that you didn’t need, right?
If I’m paying x amount just gimme a damn sticker or whatever that I didn’t expect please. Then you’ll be the most luxurious brand in the world. So here’s my little petition for more watches to add something extra into their box. They could all do with being a little less cold and calculating.
I’d love to hear about any little extras that came with something that you got, preferably as a surprise!
I started to type this during the lead up to Arsenal vs Manchester United ⚽ as a way to kill some time before the match. COYG 🔴⚪. More notes on everyday collecting next time (I’m trying to make this phrase like a thing please bear with me). Bit by bit I’ll be tackling my longass, ‘Ideas for articles’ list along with more off-the-dome stuff like this weeks so keep it locked 🫡. As I finish it’s 1-0 to the Arsenal. Gwan.
The 2006 World Cup was 18 years ago and I still remember it so vividly that I can pull up a specific moments of it from thin air unprompted. We are all getting old folks 😢.
I had this in my cart about to check out before I decided that $500USD was way too much for a quadruple-niche figurine. Little did I know they would sell for well over 50x their original value at Christie’s (I was going to link the Christie’s lot itself, but their website is down because of OnlyWatch! Give that a further Google if you’re interested in the weird situation over there). At the time I was absolutely fuming about these dumb figures. Look at this shit and tell me watches and hype don’t go together like a glove bro.