Lo.wer Unboxing

[macspite]

Went to Parcel Farce today and paid £45 in VAT and customs clearance fee (having already paid New Zealand sales tax) to claim my eagerly awaited Lo.wer x G-Shock

This will be rather more about the leatherwork than the watch which, with a couple of mods, is an otherwise standard DW-5600E. It makes a welcome change from all those 6900 collabs.

I ordered as soon as it appeared on the Thanks website and this is the tracking information:

02.20 PM	01/02/12	Picked up
11.22 AM	02/02/12	Left New Zealand
10.08 PM	03/02/12	Arrived overseas
10.16 PM	03/02/12	Held for clearance
09.44 AM	11/02/12	Delivery Complete

So - 36 hours to travel 12,000 miles from NZ to UK and then another week to get the 200 miles from Coventry to Fareham ...

What arrived? This:



A stout cardboard box inside a polythene mailer with a fair few labels on it and, inside that:



Receipt and a black box, also



a wooden block which turned out to be



the USB drive you get for orders over NZ $300 - I had only spent NZ $299.99 but they obviously took pity on a poor Brit

In the box:


a leather case like those you get for high-end camera lenses, this would be for a moderate wide-angle optic

And, in that:



The watch, wrapped in its leather jacket and nestling amongst the fleece along with a piece of metal like a ventriloquist's swozzle on a leather thong.



which is a New Zealand shepherd's whistle. Seems to give off a note similar to a dog whistle unless I'm blowing it wrong.

Back to the plot:


Leather "backplate"


Leather cover in place. This is a very old idea for military watches both for protection and to prevent the dazzle from reflection of sun or bright light in the glass attracting attention.



And here is the watch, an unassuming DW-5600


Time has yet to be set



You KnoW it Ain't Ltd. (more on that later)




!! *** WARNING *** !! !! *** WARNING *** !! !! *** WARNING *** !!





Can you spot the (deliberate?) mistake:



I've sent a mail to the nice people at Lo.wer pointing out the error and pointing them to this thread, no doubt there will be an entire van load of beachwear goodies coming my way as recompense ...

How does it look on the wrist? BIG but it doesn't feel too silly nor does it weigh a great deal. One for the military vehicle club committee to ponder after my pink watch debacle perhaps?

[rutteger]

Ahh, very cool You went for it in the end then clearly? Although the watch lacks the customisation of some collabs the value add from the cover and case is high, they look great. Good set of pics too.

Maybe Lower meant to spell ain't wrongly? Or maybe it's a super rare misprint and is instantly worth double

Is the case back engraved? Or is it printed on somehow.

[sharkfin]

Awesome catch!
very cool piece.

enjoy it!

[disavowed]

Cool...

I love the flash drive!

[macspite]

Maybe Lower meant to spell ain't wrongly? Or maybe it's a super rare misprint and is instantly worth double

The parent company of Lo.wer is You Know it Ain't Ltd. My guess is that it is a misprint, should they decide to issue a second, corrected edition it might become more valuable. It shows up in the publicity pix from Lo.wer themselves so I may well be wrong. If I were them I would reply that the mistake is deliberate and save any rectification issues. I know from my own writing and artwork that it is very easy to miss a glaring mistake, it's best to allow others to comment and proof read before the mistake appears before the public.

As for valuable - the initial release of 100 was spread fairly thinly amongst 3 online stores and 18 outlets in NZ and Oz. How they manage that I am not sure, issue a demo to each outlet and hold the rest centrally pending orders perhaps. Thanks, the online store I used is showing sold out. So there has been some demand, whether they become more valuable than the steep initial purchase price waits to be seen.

Just thought, this may be one of the few Casios where the module will fail or the bezel rot before the leather strap fails

Is the case back engraved? Or is it printed on somehow.

Difficult to say as I didn't want to try any destructive testing Running a fingernail over the surface revealed a difference in levels between lettering and stainless back not easily visible with naked eye - could be just a very shallow depression in the metal caused by acid etch for instance.

Cool... I love the flash drive!

Nice little piece of kit - except if the USB ports on your PC are stacked or close alongside each other then the wood casing prevents adjacent ports being used

[Feisar]

Great unboxing and photos, Mac! Mine arrived Thursday and I didn't pay close attention to the back case markings when I slipped off the leather protector.

LOL, my Ani't says hi!

[macspite]

Hi Feisar and welcome to g-shockzone!

So - is it deliberate or a misprint?

With luck I will get a response from Lo.wer once NZ wakes up to Monday

There is a lot of promise in your signature, you going to share some pictures of the collection with us?

[Feisar]

Thank you for the welcome Mac!

I'm not quite sure if it was intentional or misprint and their press shots also show the misspelling. I went back to read the interview with Lo.Wer NZ founder Jake Pine at G-Street for clues... things that make you go "hmmm" Looking forward to hearing their response.

Hi Feisar and welcome to g-shockzone!

So - is it deliberate or a misprint?

With luck I will get a response from Lo.wer once NZ wakes up to Monday

There is a lot of promise in your signature, you going to share some pictures of the collection with us?

[seanobsdot]

That is a pretty penny for this collabboration. Was that the price from the manufacturer? Other than that not my style but looks like a very nice high quality watch as we all should expect from Gshock. Question the thing that says thank-you on it what is that?

[macspite]

Yes, that's the price from the manufacturer. Lo.wer is a New Zealand clothing brand, Thanks is an on-line store selling Lo.wer and other brands. Both are owned by You Know it Ain't Limited.

Certainly expensive and certainly more than I wanted to pay yet it is like many other collabs - the base watch may not be that expensive but the exclusivity of the add-on Bape or Dee&Ricky or Stussy logos and colours hike the price alarmingly. The price may not be high on first sale but the market determines the value, hence all those people spending silly money on Bapes (at best) or Fapes.

The leather work is good quality though disappointingly without very much smell, the watch has just a little added in terms of overprint. The combination though is, AFAIK, unique and, for me, attractive. So I bought it

The wooden thing is a USB 2Gb drive, not overly practical due to the bulk of the wood, Thanks is the store name.

So far we have found two of the 100 Lo.wer x G-Shocks out there, not a bad hit rate for a smallish (but rapidly expanding) watch forum