Worn & Wound
Casio Has a (Mini) MoonSwatch Moment with their Ring Watch
It’s counterintuitive, but one of the things I appreciate most about working in the watch industry is being reminded of my blind spots. The narrative is often that this community is small and tightly focused, and on some level that’s true, but I think more broadly speaking, the watch world is actually enormous, and there are large enthusiast communities we’ve barely tapped into. That became incredibly clear over the course of Windup weekend in Chicago as one of the most talked about watches of the show was not actually one that can be worn on the wrist. The Casio Ring Watch was not only the most diminutive timepiece of the weekend, but one of the toughest tickets at the event. I was aware that these existed prior to Windup but I had no idea they were so sought after and collectible. A peek behind the curtain: as an authorized retailer for Casio, the Windup Watch Shop sells Casio and Casio G-SHOCK watches at the fair, so over the course of the weekend, through Slack messages, daily team meetings with my Shop colleagues, and conversations over quickly devoured lunches before heading back out to the show floor, I was able to get a sense of the demand for these things. Each day’s allotment essentially sold out in the fair’s early hours, and those who were able to grab one felt they walked away with the prize of the show. The CRW-001 Casio Ring Watch has a retail price of $120, but a quick Google search reveals owners are asking anywhere from $160 to $200 for th...
