The Watch Discussion Thread

[a6m5]

I wish I could do that with my watch, but it's all blacked out, so it may look bit off with any other color than black.

Really digging the straps you guys are posting though. 👍

 

[Brett]

I am looking to pick up another watch, though something a bit more upscale than my current Timex. It would be great if it fit 20mm straps also. Not really sure where to begin looking or how much I really want to spend.

 

[a6m5]

I am looking to pick up another watch, though something a bit more upscale than my current Timex. It would be great if it fit 20mm straps also. Not really sure where to begin looking or how much I really want to spend.

If you decide to go military style, so far, I'm really pleased with the Luminox(mine's Navy SEAL) & NATO strap combo. I think @Mike Rotch recommended these guys, which I think are really cool & supposedly really tough. Maybe @High-Test may want to look into them. No?

Edit: I like quarts.

 

[Mike Rotch]

@Brett the best starting point is to pick a budget, and then we can go from there (style, movement etc). 👍

 

[High-Test]

NO QUARTZ! NEVER! QUARTZ HAS NO SOUL! MECHANICAL OR DEATH!!!!!!!!!

 

[TB]

 

[photonrider]

@a6m5 - why are you trying to upset the poor man when he's just suffered a great loss?
He's a watchmaker, for crissakes, it's like he's seen a buddy lying on the battlefield blown to bits.

All this heathenish talk of G-strings or whatever - G-Shocks, that's not 'watch' stuff, that's just Dick Tracy 🤬 .

I like quarts.

Well, I don't mind a pint myself sometime.

 

[a6m5]

NO QUARTZ! NEVER! QUARTZ HAS NO SOUL! MECHANICAL OR DEATH!!!!!!!!!

👍

You probably realize my issue with automatics though. I wear something else for couple of days, the watch is dead & has to be reset again. It doesn't help that quartz are more accurate. I do love the fact that automatics don't require battery, but I'd happily get the battery changed for the convenience. I guess you could always get one of those rotating watch case/holder things to keep them moving, but I'm not quite there yet.

Well, I don't mind a pint myself sometime.

Quartz. My bad!

 

[MattieM]

Thought i share this with you guys, this came in last week :

A Christopher Ward VW4 limited edition (#497/1957):



It's inspired by the first all british world championship race win at a british track. In 1957 Tony Brooks and Stirling Moss took the win at Aintree with a Vanwall VW4 racing car. The number 20 at the 12 position is the number of the winning car, while the 18 of the second car is highlighted in yellow on the bezel. Also the best average lap speed of 90.61 mph is displayed in red at 40 minutes mark. Even though i'm from the netherlands, i really like this watch.

It's a quartz.... but does it ease the pain if it has a COSC certification?

Here it is besides my other (older) watch:



Greetz,

MattieM

 

[photonrider]

👍

You probably realize my issue with automatics though. I wear something else for couple of days, the watch is dead & has to be reset again. It doesn't help that quartz are more accurate. I do love the fact that automatics don't require battery, but I'd happily get the battery changed for the convenience. I guess you could always get one of those rotating watch case/holder things to keep them moving, but I'm not quite there yet.

Quartz. My bad!

Actually, the amount of Quartzes in this thread is too damn high. Don't believe me? Just read the whole thread and count.
Don't ask me how many - I gave up.

 

[Ettick]

There's nothing wrong with quartz. I just find mechanical watches much more interesting.

 

[photonrider]

The first time I opened a Quartz watch I was stunned - there was nothing inside!
All those beautiful jewels and cogs, rotors, gears, hairsprings - missing! This was just a small clump in the middle of the case. I felt cheated; I usually like to open my watches and peer inside and it's got to look like there's some stuff I paid for in there, not empty space.

Sometimes function takes away form. *sigh.

 

[High-Test]

The first time I opened a Quartz watch I was stunned - there was nothing inside!
All those beautiful jewels and cogs, rotors, gears, hairsprings - missing! This was just a small clump in the middle of the case. I felt cheated; I usually like to open my watches and peer inside and it's got to look like there's some stuff I paid for in there, not empty space.

Sometimes function takes away form. *sigh.

Plus infinity^ 👍

Or its soul. No balance spring, no soul. No balance spring, no temperamental satan filament that can ruin your whole day. No screws to lose, no clutches to break, no stem to bend, no parts to replace. No parts to replace, no value placed on movement as a whole. Not a movement, just a lousy note. What's moving? A servile electric motor every time the current gets through that blasted quartz crystal. A quartz movement does not require maintenance. The cheapest of mechanicals demands it in order to live.

In the time it would take me to just get a rotor off for an automatic, I could swap out an entire quartz movement. One stupid, dime sized piece of black plastic boring that will not work in the nuclear apocalypse damn near killed the honorable trade of horology. Sensible people don't dedicate their lives to fixing quartz, they just deal with it for a fraction of a percent of a workday because delusional soccer moms believe that Rolexes need batteries and that their children should be just as low maintenance and just as accurate.

Maybe I should have gone to horological school after all.

EDIT: I'll stand by every last word I've ever said about Quartz, but that Vanwall Dial is lovely.

 

[photonrider]

...........................

No balance spring, no temperamental satan filament that can ruin your whole day. No screws to lose, no clutches to break, no stem to bend, no parts to replace. No parts to replace, no value placed on movement as a whole. Not a movement, just a lousy note. What's moving? A servile electric motor every time the current gets through that blasted quartz crystal. A quartz movement does not require maintenance. The cheapest of mechanicals demands it in order to live.

👍

In the time it would take me to just get a rotor off for an automatic, I could swap out an entire quartz movement. One stupid, dime sized piece of black plastic boring that will not work in the nuclear apocalypse damn near killed the honorable trade of horology.

I'll drink to that.

The watches that the 'watchmakers who make watches for watchmakers' make are mostly mechanical. And worth a king's ransom.
Audemars Piguet, Richard Mille, F.P. Journe, Ulysse Nardin, DeWitt, Blancpain, Vacheron Constantin, Girard-Perrehaux, Jaeger-LeCoultre . . . these are names that are just fantasies to me . . . because one of the first things that sets apart Quartz from Mechanicals is the disparity in pricing.
Some movements from watchmakers listed above can go for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But one can get a good Quartz for about $100:00.
AFAIK - the number one selling watch in Japan is the G-Shock.
It's all about lifestyle, I guess, and practicality and budgets, and so on.

The love of a watch movement that comes from truly understanding the resonances that beat out the pulse of time with all it's finely made parts moving such as planets would circle the Sun, synchronised perfectly to circle within each other's spheres as they governed the passing of Time - this is more than entrancing, it is an inexplicable passion that mere phonetics cannot reproduce in neither the minds or hearts of those who know not what it is like.
To look at a finely made tourbillon in motion is to make Time stand still, yet set Creation into motion as every tick begins a new moment.

I'll stand by every last word I've ever said about Quartz, but that Vanwall Dial is lovely.

And then there are . . . the faces.

 

[MattieM]

The first time I opened a Quartz watch I was stunned - there was nothing inside!
All those beautiful jewels and cogs, rotors, gears, hairsprings - missing! This was just a small clump in the middle of the case. I felt cheated; I usually like to open my watches and peer inside and it's got to look like there's some stuff I paid for in there, not empty space.

Sometimes function takes away form. *sigh.

Why would you open up a new watch? If you buy a car, do you strip the engine to see if all the internals are there as well? 

 

[OriginalCheezIt]

Why would you open up a new watch? If you buy a car, do you strip the engine to see if all the internals are there as well? 

I'd say opening the caseback is more akin to popping the hood than dismantling the engine

 

[High-Test]

The love of a watch movement that comes from truly understanding the resonances that beat out the pulse of time with all it's finely made parts moving such as planets would circle the Sun, synchronised perfectly to circle within each other's spheres as they governed the passing of Time - this is more than entrancing, it is an inexplicable passion that mere phonetics cannot reproduce in neither the minds or hearts of those who know not what it is like.
To look at a finely made tourbillon in motion is to make Time stand still, yet set Creation into motion as every tick begins a new moment.

Amen.

I'd say opening the caseback is more akin to popping the hood than dismantling the engine

The caseback is the hood, after all.



Riddle me these. Shouldn't take more than a minute.

Nobody likes deadbeats except for horologists.

 

[Brett]

@Brett the best starting point is to pick a budget, and then we can go from there (style, movement etc). 👍

I am looking for something reasonably priced. I am not really looking to break the bank.

 

[Nico_Ble99]

My Ice Watch Chrono in black/yellow. Got it as a birthday gift last year, a great watch. In fact it's my second Ice Watch, my first was an Ice Sili Forever in blue or what it's called.

I'm planning on getting me a third Ice Watch for Christmas, I'm a big fan of those. It'll probably be one from the Ice Carbon series. I mean, look at this white one here:

 

[photonrider]

Why would you open up a new watch?

Because I'm only 99.99999 sure that everything is 100% sure.

If you buy a car, do you strip the engine to see if all the internals are there as well? 

If it was the Furai, yes. Or if there was straw sticking out the boot.

Riddle me these. Shouldn't take more than a minute.

Nobody likes deadbeats except for horologists.

Talking about Cartier . . . and looking for the 'deadest' beat . . . I remember mentioning the Rotunde de Cartier Astroregulateur before - $335,000.00:

I was skeptical myself (and not surprised at anyone who would be skeptical either; I've actually met people who still think the moon shot was fake!)
Since the info came from my fourth Annual Watch catalog (a Feature Edition of the Dupont Registry) and edited by no less than Jamie Hyneman himself, I had to believe what I read. I don't think the NASA 'undercover agents' are pleased with this, pocket protectors and all.
I would think though, that apart from the several missing samples, those that were gifted to other countries and even the fifty States, may have fallen into the 'wrong' hands, and are now facing time.
I have always wondered though: why doesn't NASA actually sell the rock they mine? Don't they feel something is owed to them for all that hard work? Or is it a political thing; after all if a country starts mining the moon (and who wouldn't like to have a chunk of the real Moonstone around their necks or wrists?) then all the countries might get into it as a commercial venture - and as technology improves, it will become a commercial venture available to the public . . . and there goes our moon. Whittled away to a crescent, and we're definitely not going to have a full one. Poor werewolves!
Yes, I've heard about the meteorite watches, and there are a few others in the catalog that blow my mind - including the $335,000 Rotunde de Cartier Astroregulateur designed by movement developer Carole Forestier, a watch that has the balance and escapement mounted on the swinging winding rotor (which configuration, according to Forestier, reduces the positional errors that plague mechanical watches without actually making a tourbillon.) Obviously, another way to try and beat gravity.
I like the Rebellion, IWC, and Chris Aire models but the faces that seem to attract me the most come from Ulysse Nardin. Just . . . classic, fabulous faces that one can watch all the time. And totally out of my league at this point.

The Constellation is exquisite - a classic watch that I used to dream of owning when I was a teen. Even the face of the Jules Audemars Extra-thin watch (which is similar) has a hard time competing with the simple, clean look of the Constellation.

Which reminds me of the swing towards 'pink gold' and 'rose gold' in watches lately. Seems to be some kind of trend; I've noticed many people wearing watches that have some rose gold in the strap, dial or case. Will it catch on? Only time will tell.

As for me . . . still looking for that Seiko to add to my blacklist.
The new Bulova is great - I'm enjoying every second of it.

 

[High-Test]

Talking about Cartier . . . and looking for the 'deadest' beat . . . I remember mentioning the Rotunde de Cartier Astroregulateur before - $335,000.00:

Know how it works?

The pricing is absurd. Though, given one of the Robert Houdin Mystery clocks I cleaned, it's a very elegant movement for the mysterieuses.

Works the same as one of these below. Boss had the one to the right put together and asked me to figure it out. Took less than thirty seconds.

The one to the right (disassembled, gilded velvet base, made by Robert Houdin) has one hand driven by a glass disc behind the dial, the glass tube has another tube inside driven by the movement, which turns a geared crown and thus the hand (singular) to tell the time.

Center clock is also Robert Houdin, from ~1865. If I recall correctly, four exist, and I've handled two. "Swinger" clocks made of pot iron are very common for that time, but none exhibit the trickery of this one. I got the apprenticeship by guessing how a different french Napoleon III era clock worked, but it took me the three months waiting for the apprenticeship to start plus a month of being on the job to guess this one, and I wasn't quite right. Drove me insane, and so does this terrible photo I took.

Take that $335,000 cartier watch and figure what a Houdin Mystery clock must have cost in 1865 under Napoleon III, who was actually a competent ruler.

 

[Brett]

I am considering buying a Seiko "Fifty Fathoms" SNZH watch. Everything I have read has been nothing but positive, but I cannot bring myself to buy it, even though the price is good.

EDIT: Purchased. Now I just have to wait for it to arrive and decide on which additional straps I will be buying.

 

[High-Test]

So I just jumped on this beauty to replace my comatose Bulova:

A 1941 Mido Multifort "Super Automatic" 17 jewel bumper watch. The rotor does not complete full circles, it bounces off springs. Can't wait for it to arrive.

 

[a6m5]

Wow. So beautiful. In & out. 👍

I am considering buying a Seiko "Fifty Fathoms" SNZH watch. Everything I have read has been nothing but positive, but I cannot bring myself to buy it, even though the price is good.

EDIT: Purchased. Now I just have to wait for it to arrive and decide on which additional straps I will be buying.

I had to google it, but I have heard of this watch before. Looks similar to the design of the Seiko I have, but yours do look much nicer. Can't wait to see some pics! 👍

 

[Brett]

I had to google it, but I have heard of this watch before. Looks similar to the design of the Seiko I have, but yours do look much nicer. Can't wait to see some pics! 👍

The additional straps I ordered arrived yesterday. However, it will probably be a few weeks before the watch arrives. I will post some pictures whenever the watch gets here.

 

[kolio]

You guys praise mechanical watches. 👍 Battery watches are OK, but they are not really watches in my book.

Do any of you guys like pocket watches by chance?

 

[High-Test]

You guys praise mechanical watches. 👍 Battery watches are OK, but they are not really watches in my book.

Do any of you guys like pocket watches by chance?

Why, good sir, I would wager that many of us do. I used to rebuild pocketwatches all the time. My stash is down to the dregs:

Can't do much with the Westclox movements. Most Dollar watches are mostly disposable, Westclox dollar watches are entirely disposable.

The 1941 Mido 17 jewel bumper came in today, and I had it on ten minutes before a mishap occurred - my pocket ripped the band lug out, sending the watch crashing into the ground, and unseating the minute and hour hands. Here's what it looked like before the mishap:

Those luminous hands are notoriously brittle. the minute hand began falling apart as soon as the watch hit ground. I had to re-seat the hands about ten times, as they kept getting crossed. The bend that the minute hand got made the hole worse. I've got half a mind to see if my Nixon's hands will work, but I don't want to risk damaging them any more than where they are now. The dark spot in the hand is missing luminous material. I changed the lug that popped to a 17 from a 16. It better not do this again.
I tried fixing the Bulova. It is jumbled. The stem doesn't work as it should - it changes the time when pushed in and when pulled. Here are the two next to one another:

 

[kolio]

Why, good sir, I would wager that many of us do. I used to rebuild pocketwatches all the time. My stash is down to the dregs:
View attachment 437388

Can't do much with the Westclox movements. Most Dollar watches are mostly disposable, Westclox dollar watches are entirely disposable.

The 1941 Mido 17 jewel bumper came in today, and I had it on ten minutes before a mishap occurred - my pocket ripped the band lug out, sending the watch crashing into the ground, and unseating the minute and hour hands. Here's what it looked like before the mishap:

View attachment 437389

Those luminous hands are notoriously brittle. the minute hand began falling apart as soon as the watch hit ground. I had to re-seat the hands about ten times, as they kept getting crossed. The bend that the minute hand got made the hole worse. I've got half a mind to see if my Nixon's hands will work, but I don't want to risk damaging them any more than where they are now. The dark spot in the hand is missing luminous material. I changed the lug that popped to a 17 from a 16. It better not do this again.
I tried fixing the Bulova. It is jumbled. The stem doesn't work as it should - it changes the time when pushed in and when pulled. Here are the two next to one another:

View attachment 437390

Sorry for this ramble.

I am sure some Dollar Watches can be collectable, but only few I would suppose. But yeah, disposable! I have thought about using something to make a dollar watch into a shift knob.

I have a 23j Bunn Special 48 Hour. Needs a little bit of work though. The motor barrel if I remember correctly.and when it is all done i am thinking about a silver tone display back case or a smooth back case. I mean, you cannot tell me that it wasn't worth the $100 I paid for it shipped to my door (Thank ebay). I have a lot of other watches, but that is one of my favorites. I also like clocks, like a Black Forest Cuckoo Clock that my dad has hanging in the hallway. But mostly not cuckoos because they can be a pain in the arse. A couple mantle clocks. And a few wall clocks. I have seen an atmosphere clock once in person, and they are beautiful.

As for Pocket Watches, I prefer Illinois. I am not saying I do not like other companies like Waltham, Elgin and South Bend. But, I live in Illinois. So, I am biased.


That really sticks what happen to your Mido, it is indeed a good looking watch. I really like those hands. I have had quite a few wrist watches with those hands in the past.

 

[photonrider]

View attachment 435234

A 1941 Mido Multifort "Super Automatic" 17 jewel bumper watch. The rotor does not complete full circles, it bounces off springs. Can't wait for it to arrive.

Watch porn! Whoopie . . . now we get to see the insides of all Mike's watches, and a6m5's . . . and OMG the list is endless . . .

*swoons with excitement. Manages to send off one pic before collapsing:

 

[High-Test]

I also like clocks, like a Black Forest Cuckoo Clock that my dad has hanging in the hallway. But mostly not cuckoos because they can be a pain in the arse. A couple mantle clocks. And a few wall clocks. I have seen an atmosphere clock once in person, and they are beautiful.

+5 👍

Cuckoos are a pain. The bellows get brittle, they break, and they're a bitch to get right. Plus, stupidly, they hang off one point, and then the weights drop at their scheduled rates - unevenly, and the damn thing gets goofed.

When I was working at the clock shop in 2012, the boss came in with an atmos bellows, hooked it up to the shop air system, blasted it full, and we looked at him in horror. "What? It's our new ashtray." Apparently it was broken.

I'm better at fixing clocks than watches, but I made a risky investment in a load of clocks in late 2013, and got screwed by the guy. All working my arse. Plus, the bottom of the market fell out. I'm still psychologically damaged from it.