Here's the question, who's going to sue Josh for claiming "first American watch" first, Cameron Weiss who has been doing it since 2013, Roland Murphy who has been doing it since 1990 or Keaton Myrick, who's been doing it since 2005? my money's on Roland, seeing as how he succeeded in clobbering the shit out of Shinola back in 2015.
Don't tell Josh 'cuz he's a good friend of mine but I think it's ugly AF. Here's the thing tho - back when he was in Culver operating by himself out of his back yard, I went and visited (we have a mutual friend). I bought him lunch, he showed me his first watch, tried to sell me some machine tools. He's a really nice guy. I like him a lot. And at the time, he was spending 40 hours on the dial, then putting it in a German case with a German movement. I asked him what he was looking to get for it and he said "what do you mean? I've sold eight." That was about 100 watches ago at around $20-$30k ea. he's no longer a high school principal. He's got five employees. I'm rebuilding this crazy CNC machine? he just up and bought one. Paid to have it herfed out of the 5th floor workshop of a university in Iowa, schlepped across the ocean to be rebuilt and schlepped back. He's operating at a whole 'nuther level and he is kicking ass at it. So it doesn't really matter what I think? I mean, I think it's substantially prettier than anything Jacob & Co make and they also sell bajillions of dollars worth of watches. Some douchebag paid $3.2m for a Patek Nautilus because it was green. Rich people riching is a thing and if he's already got sales at $70k I think he's ahead of Murphy, who has had that tourbillon at like $150k for ten years. But what do I know. I didn't think Josh would sell his more downtempo watches for $30k and he sold eight. Maybe Murphy has sold dozens of his $150k tourbillons.