Watch Photo Thread

[mr_a500]

I thought I'd start a photo thread about watches. What watch are you wearing? What's your dream watch and why? Post some lovely photos.

I'll start with a couple watches I own. First, a Citizen 3510 movement quartz chronograph:

Citizen.JPG

Citizen detail.jpg

I've had this watch for over 21 years, smashed it in a bike crash, wore it in the Pacific and Atlantic and most of the Great Lakes. It still works great. (though it's bashed up a bit)

It's a quartz, so not as interesting as a completely mechanical watch, but it has some neat features that I've never seen on any other watch. When you want to set the alarm time, the hands rotate automatically until it reaches the current alarm time. When you switch back to main time, the hands automatically rotate back. Same for setting time - you can start and stop automatic rotation. I like to sometimes just let it rotate then say to somebody, "Look. Time flies when you're having fun."

When you switch to chronograph or countdown timer, the second hand automatically rotates to zero - then back to the current seconds when finished. It's not bad for a watch that cost me $365 (Canadian). I just wish it had a sapphire crystal.

Here's a watch I got recently - a Seiko SARB033:

SARB033.JPG

SARB033 back.JPG

It's completely mechanical, sapphire crystal front, mineral crystal back showing the 6R15C movement, water resistant to 100 metres. It's a hell of a deal for $364 (US).

Edit: I just saw this watch for $333 US with free worldwide shipping - same seller I bought mine from. (But the Canadian dollar has dropped so hard vs. the US dollar in the last month, $333 US is now the same in Canadian I paid when it was $364 US.)

[002]

Mmm sexy Seikos
I'll get some pics of mine tomorrow.

[bhtooefr]

I should get a pic of the Seiko SNK807 that I'm wearing right now, with a Hadley-Roma leather strap on it.

What I really want is a Ventura v.matic loga with a dark matte blue face and a Spring Drive movement, but that's not gonna happen (and neither is a v.matic loga (which only came in a black face) or a Spring Drive alone, for me). Minimalist slide rule chrono with the movement I find most interesting.

This is what the v.matic loga looks like:

[mr_a500]

Here are some watches that I'd like to have, but they're just too damn expensive:

SUBMARINER_06.jpg

SBGA075.jpg

OmegaSpeedmaster1957Coaxial-1.jpg~original.jpeg

Picot original.jpg

Ulyssse Nardin.jpg

[002]

Watch lust was something I quickly realised I was in over my head for...I have 5 or 6 Seikos and that was it. It's a very expensive hobby

[elecplus]

Not expensive if you use Goodwill
http://www.shopgoodwill.com/auctions/Ne ... 02184.html

This one ends in 3 hours, new in the box! Current bid is under $33.00 US.

[Muirium]

Every watch needs a good story:

Any chance to wield the Walken, I seize with both hands! Um. Wait, that didn't come out quite the way I mean it…

[andrewjoy]

i love Seiko watches nice and simple design, i have an older one tho its strap is broken its face is chipped and it does not hold a charge longer than 1 day still love it tho its my watch !

EDIT

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Automatic-Analo ... 1GNVH1AHZ8

this is the closest i can find to mine mine has a slightly different face with glow in the dark whatsits on it and the same on the hr and min hand

i dont remember the model of it but i have had it for about 10 years

[mr_a500]

This is the oldest wristwatch I own (I have a few older pocket watches), made around 1910.

Elgin.JPG

Elgin back.JPG

I kept it up my ass for two years...

[Muirium]

Anyone who hasn't seen Pulp Fiction will be quite amused right about now…

Elgin. I almost thought it was Scottish until I saw the company's full name inside.

[ne0phyte]

Being an Android fanatic I'm wearing a smart watch, namely the LG G Watch

[andrewjoy]

Being an Android fanatic, I'm wearing a smart watch, namely the LG G Watch

you have just reminded me that i found one in the IT storeroom in work i will have to have a play

[Madhias]

This Elgin watch is nice! I really like its simple and classy design. Sometimes i will search for such a watch, which should be old, and have a simple layout like the Elgin you posted, mr_a500.

I am a Swatch man though. I am always smiling when being at business meetings and then having a colorful watch on the wrist. Sometimes you really see that the people are thinking you must be A) gay or B) just have no style.

Regarding smart watches i like those which are round, and not foursquared. Like the Motorola 360!



This is the watch i am wearing since a few months now:

[mr_a500]

My only other watch of note is this Timex M-433, which I bought in 1983 for $23.99 Canadian! (price sticker still on the case - regular price!)

Timex M-433.JPG

I loved this watch. Unfortunately, sometime in 1984 I foolishly decided to see if it was waterproof. It wasn't. While attempting to dry out and revive it, I cracked the LCD. I spent 4 years trying to find a replacement (meanwhile settling for a disappointing $99 Casio AX-210). I then found a "made in Malaysia" clone of it (crap quality compared to the "made in Japan" original) and used the screen from that. It was slightly thicker, but It worked for a while before that LCD cracked too (too thick for the screen clamp). Damn. I should have kept it on the inferior quality Malaysian "movement".

I wish I could buy another, but because a similar Seiko model was in a James Bond movie, everything that looks like this ends up in a bidding war. Oh how times have changed from the $23.99 days...

[mr_a500]

By the way, I kept that watch up my ass for five years.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I just have a 19-year-old, slowly dying Casio F-91W. Out of laziness I've stapled up the strap, which has stopped it from actually splitting apart completely. It's only on its second battery so far, and the nominal battery life is seven years.

F-91W case.jpg (779.6 KiB) Viewed 92006 times

F-91W strap.jpg (732.85 KiB) Viewed 92006 times

(I'm right-handed but so far back as I can recall, I've always put my watch on my right wrist.)

If I ever felt like I got to the stage in life where I deserve a real watch … there's nothing of any interest on the market. The closest I've ever been able to find is a Seiko SBPG003:

Pros:

• Digital — the only way for me
• One of only one or two designs in the world in the history of ever to update the scrawny, emaciated, yet gaudy designs from the 70s and bring it into line with modern aesthetics, with a more solid look but without all the rubbish written all over the face (and random blobs of colour); designs like the Junghans Mega 1000 just went all silly and pseudo-future (remember Buck Rogers?), while Seiko approached it with a class and restraint rarely found outside of Apple
• Steel bracelet with safety clasp — should last for a good few years before I find an innovative way to destroy it
• All solid metal (none of Casio's frustrating pretendometal plated resin cases) and proper solid links
• Black coated, to defeat the garish bling of metal
• Solar powered
• Dedicated light button (the F-91W doubles up on a button)
• EL panel backlight (shining an LED sideways onto an LCD is retarded)

Cons:

• Possibly discontinued
• Japanese domestic market only
• Potentially unsuitable for Britain — there's too little data to be able to determine how it would fare in an overcast climate and predominantly concealed beneath sleeves based on its extensive sunlight demands; most digital watches aren't a fraction as power-efficient as the Casio 593 module used in the F-91W
• Battery likely proprietary (no guarantee that it will remain replaceable)
• The radio firmware is broken in Britain in summer, as it mixes up the UK and German signals and sets the wrong time randomly (apparently the receiver is pretty poor); the radio officially has no "off" setting (absurd on a solar-powered watch) but unofficially you can disable it by selecting a home time zone that's so far from any transmitter that the watch declines to look for a signal, but that just feels cheap and stupid; there's a hint that the bug might be fixed, but I enquired with Japanese reseller Seiya and he never got back to me at all)
• Made in China — I'd prefer to pay twice as much just for it to be made in Japan
• I don't trust black coatings not to all come off, as that can indeed happen
• I don't trust bracelets either, since I'm pretty hairy, and there seems to be no consensus of there being any universal bracelet design that works for all owners — it seems to be just luck
• "The normal life expectancy for the liquid crystal panel of this watch is approximately 7 years. After that, it may decrease in contrast, becoming difficult to read." I … just … What?

(I assume if I was a practical individual I'd be able to strip all the black PVD off the clasp — I love black and silver together, like with the buckle on my own watch strap.)

The SBPG003 has far too many caveats for my liking.

I guess I'd like to take the Seiko case and bracelet and put a Casio module that has proper battery life and an LCD that doesn't have a miserable operating life. The LCD on mine is fading a bit, but I don't know if that's degradation or the battery.

So, I don't know. Maybe I'd just buy another F-91W terrorwrist watch. At least the current 593 includes an autocalendar so I don't spend all morning on the 29th of February thinking that it's the 1st of March …

[mr_a500]

I just have a 19-year-old, slowly dying Casio F-91W.

They're still selling that watch, though probably not the same quality as 19 years ago:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/251722788902

Some day, you should get a real watch - you know... with hands and everything. Or do you only know how to tell the time digitally?

"Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea."

[Daniel Beardsmore]

eBay? It's still a current product!

My wall clock is analogue, as was my alarm clock. Our monitoring screens at work have teeny little analogue clocks on them (just the hands and dial outline) that were my first and so far only attempt to play with the abhorrent JavaScript canvas API, and all hands update correctly as with a real clock. I've spent my entire life around clocks — longcase, lantern, bracket, carriage, mantelpiece, cuckoo and even one that would suit people at DT: master clocks. Master clocks drove slave dials via electrical impulses, and the pendulum was (typically? I'm not a clock enthusiast!) electro-mechanically driven and sensed. (There's even one that not only survives power cuts, winding all the slave dials on by the amount of time elapsed while there was no external power once power is restored — the Memory Master.)

I like the convenience and precision of digital, and it just seems fitting really.

[mr_a500]

I'm just kidding. I actually tried to buy one of these last month:

[ne0phyte]

I like the convenience and precision of digital, and it just seems fitting really.

Maybe it's just something you have to get used to, but a digital clock is only logical to me. Seeing and parsing numbers is a basic skill that's used and trained more often every day than reading an analog clock (especially in the times of smartphones and computers).
I've been using nothing but digital clocks for so many years that it takes me a lot longer to read an analog watch face.

On the other hand.. this is my alarm clock. It was a gift and replaced a cheap digital one that was a nightmare to program

[002]

Ok here's my little collection. Top-left are the SCBS023 and SCBS017 with are both from the Seiko Moving Design collection. I got the SCBS017 while I was over in Japan and the SCBS023 from Yahoo Auctions. The band on the 023 is nearly kaput, and a Seiko brand replacement band alone is $200...lol. Both are 23J 6R15. The 017 is a strange kind of jump-hour inspired watch, but the hour doesn't tick over like a jump-hour watch so it take some getting used to to read quickly.

Digitals are...well mostly crazy old things from the 80s
I like the h-timetron the most. The one I have appears to be a ?Virtual-On? limited edition I think...

Seiko_1.jpg (516.88 KiB) Viewed 91930 times

[cookie]

Being a die hard "Red Fang" fan, I wear this one:

[mr_a500]

It looks like it fits nicely, but how do you tell the time?

[Muirium]

Easy, you manipulate the face* so it shows the right time. Then read the time.

*Look at your wrist and flex your fingers. Our forearms are basically the housings for our hand muscles. Otherwise we'd have hands as thick as feet. Interestingly, feet were the more advanced stage of our evolution, as our primate brothers still have four "hands" today. The irony being they can pull off wearing an ankle watch more gracefully than us.


"Tell me, why does every shmoe in the street need to know the time today, anyway?"

As this is a photo thread, I dug out my watch and strapped it to my ungainly wrist for your amusement:

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It's a Swiss (but not mechanical) diving watch (which since lost its seal and clouds up on hot days abroad) with a sapphire face (looks a bit too scuffed up to me) I bought as a teenager around 1997. A Rotary Aspen, for anyone who knows what that is. Nothing expensive, but it has a nice stainless steel strap which my wrist was dying for as I'm allergic to leather and plastic. (Yay!) I stared at that bastard through many a fine class when there wasn't a lady around… which was all too often, sadly.

Haven't worn it in years now. My need for watches began and ended with time.

[seebart]

Nice pics here guys.I own some watches most of which I inherited. I havent worn any for a long time and don't miss them. I was never into collecting watches like I am now with keyboards. That's a Heuer Autavia GMT from 1969 in the middle. It's nice but too flashy for me. Look at the dirt and you can guess how long these have been sitting in the closet.

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[Muirium]

You have custom labelled boxes in your closet? I'm sure that says WATCHES.

Those three all look sweet. I know nothing much about watches either, but I trust my sense of style. Could see putting one on as jewellery at a fancy party, while pretending to be someone who doesn't wear jeans every other day…

[seebart]

You have custom labelled boxes in your closet? I'm sure that says WATCHES.

Those three all look sweet. I know nothing much about watches either, but I trust my sense of style. Could see putting one on as jewellery at a fancy party, while pretending to be someone who doesn't wear jeans every other day…

yes that says watches, I do have this one custom labelled box that someone gave me as a gift years ago. Except for the summertime I prettymuch wear jeans every day. About those formal occasions; I know and have met people that are really impressed with luxury items. I find that pretty pathetic. Clothes don't make the man in my opinion.

[Muirium]

I'm typically quite passable for a hobo, so I'm with you. But yet I have to disagree! People judge all sorts of things about each other without realising. Especially in a formal environment like a party with a dresscode. Jewellery, including watches, makes excellent ice breakers in a room full of awkward strangers. Trust me, most people don't like it when you come over and start talking about their nose!

"But I like big noses. I really do. Don't be shy… never let them tell you you're not beautiful…"

[seebart]

oh I could not agree more. I'm just not the type of person that feels comforable when dressed swag. I'll do so if I need to and like you say it can open doors.

I bet this guy would have custom labelled boxes in his closet.

Wall_Street.jpg (217.66 KiB) Viewed 91838 times

[cookie]

It looks like it fits nicely, but how do you tell the time?

It's always "Happy Times"