There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
Would love to just buy an original from that period, but due to it now being a collectible, they rarely go up for sale, and even used ones seem to sell for at least a few hundred dollars. At the time they were available, I don't recall ever hearing about them.
Was just wondering if this is something others here were interested in, and if so, would it be something that Massdrop could maybe sway Zippo into remaking? I asked Zippo's customer relations if they could possibly suggest reintroducing it in the future (now that Ti has grown in popularity vs 17 years ago), but only got "at this time, we are not aware of this lighter being produced again." Personally think this would slot in nicely under their $12k solid gold (lol!) and $180 pure sterling models (would probably only be worth $60 imo, but I'm sure some of us would probably still pay double that, given the few alternatives out there).
Would really prefer they made a new solid Ti Zippo Slim (would make a nice alternative to the tiny Ti peanut lighters out there), but would be happy with either Slim or Regular, or both. Dunno.. maybe it's just my OCD compelling me to find a nice Ti lighter to match my Ti watches, knives, flashlights, belt buckles, etc.. =/