Learn me watches

In reply to 93EXCivic:

It's sort of an open ended question there.

Do you want quartz or mechanical?
Price range?
Style? (Diver, tourbillon, 24 hour, digital)

Swatch turned off the tap for their ETA movements a few months ago so they're becoming increasing rare and expensive. The Japanese moved in to fill the niche with Miyota (read citizen/seiko) leading the way. By all accounts the Miyota 9015 movement is just as good, if not better, than the ubiquitous Swiss ETA 2824-2 movement.

I just bought a microbrand diver a Halios Tropik SS after I fell hard into the watch fetish.

Honestly I've been hanging out over in the watchuseek forums reading up on all the ins and outs of watches. They're actually surprisingly polite over there and there's a wealth of knowledge which they're good about sharing (in the dive forums anyway).

In reply to The0retical:

Quartz. Under $200 would be good for now. Style I am not sure. I like any but digital I don't really want a metal band.

Straps are cheap and easy to change so I wouldn't worry about the band too much.

As far as quartz movements go, Seiko and Citizen make excellent ones which you can get new or second hand for that kind of money. I have a Citizen E812 for daily wear and love it.

I'll just post this too since it's the search engine I use for private sales.

http://www.watchrecon.com/

I'm still super in love with this thing. Get tons of compliments and I love the way it looks and works.

Here's a completely random submission:

I used to swap back and forth between a Citizen Eco Drive and a Tag Indy 500, but now I wear my pebble almost exclusively. It's great! I was skeptical at first, but as soon as I started reading artist and song names, and adjusting the volume on the shop stereo while I was under a car I was hooked. I've played with a few apps, and the SDK has just been updated to be even better.

Oh, and my watch shows my google authenticator keys!

Note: I am a huge nerd.

I should also mention that this is the best watch ever made:

You can tell the time and the date, even at night. And it was waterproof. I wore one for any years until I got an iPhone. Sad to hear that Timex quality is slipping.

Watches like this are useless to me, I need numbers!

I also hate uncomfortable watches.

Had a Casio dive watch for nearly 20 years, all it ever asked for was batteries and a few bands. Literally wore the buttons off it. Bought a Citizen Navihawk in 1999. Looks cool, but not back lit. Spends more time in the shop than on old Jaguar...

Tom Suddard wrote: Here's a completely random submission: I used to swap back and forth between a Citizen Eco Drive and a Tag Indy 500, but now I wear my pebble almost exclusively. It's great! I was skeptical at first, but as soon as I started reading artist and song names, and adjusting the volume on the shop stereo while I was under a car I was hooked. I've played with a few apps, and the SDK has just been updated to be even better. Oh, and my watch shows my google authenticator keys! Note: I am a huge nerd.

I've been seriously considering one of these. Thanks for the review.

In reply to Powar: Do eeeeet! A few things I was happy to learn:

It's way smaller than I had worried. I have tiny wrists, and it's not much bigger than an ordinary watch.
It's way more stable than I feared. In the few months I've had it, it has only lost the connection to my phone once (even after multiple times my phone died).
The apps work great, and more do come all the time. I made my own watch face.
The "flick your wrist to turn on the light" thing works flawlessly.

Oh, and I get 6-7 days on a charge. Plenty for a watch, I just plug it in once a week.

I had a Seiko digial watch that kept perfect time, had stop watch etc. Problem is, it had a unique band that broke and I could not find a replacement.

I now wear a watch that a local jeweler makes in his shop. It cost about $125 and I have worn it 21 years. I finally had to spend ~ $50 to get it cleaned last year, but it's still ticking.

Dr. Hess wrote: I like Rolex myself, but for what the maintenance cost me, I could have a nice new Seiko every year.

Rolex guy myself. My sub is twice as old as me and still going strong. Though I wear a day/date most of the time for when I am in a suit and have a date-just that I won at a charity auction for the office. I almost never wear the day/date now.

36mm floral/Arabic/pink date-just white gold center is the one I wear daily.

Though I love Martin Bruan and a few other small makers. Watches are not a practical thing, you got to love the engineering or the history to spend the cash. If not your cell phone tells you exactly the same thing.

Mine is a Date, 2 tone, 14K, I think, in the center. I need to get the glow in the dark stuff put back on, one of these days. I had the clasp replaced a year or so ago.

Dr. Hess wrote: Mine is a Date, 2 tone, 14K, I think, in the center. I need to get the glow in the dark stuff put back on, one of these days. I had the clasp replaced a year or so ago.

The older datejusts had very weak lum or non at all from the factory. I think mine has no lum at all because it is one of the dress watch line.

I also really like Doxa they make some cool stuff for divers, oris makes some really good skeleton standards if you like that sort of thing. But my love/lusting will always be Patek and Braun. At some point I am just going to sell everything and get a 5030R worldtimer and be done with it.

What the wife got me, that I like...

http://www.amazon.com/Armitron-204406SVSV-Automatic-Silver-Tone-Round/dp/B00152WIO8/

What I like - purely mechanical. That's neat. See through - Also neat.
What I don't like - It loses all it's spring over the course of the weekend, when I don't wear a watch, so inevitably sometime on Monday morning I'll look at it, realize there's no way that time is right, and have to reset it.

I don't know all the Rolex lingo. Mine says:
ROLEX
OYSTER PERPETUAL
- D A T E -

with a blue face. I think datejust is different. I bought it new and the glow in the dark stuff worked great until about 10 years ago. We had this discussion here before, and the watch maker guy said the stuff lasts x years and that's it, and I think mine just expired with time. I should get it repainted, but I'm sure that would cost about as much as another nice new Seiko. I've scuba-dived, skydived, wrecked a bike (BIG bike, not bicycle,) worked on more auto stuff than I care to think about with it on, so it has certainly taken a beating over the years. Like I said, I take better care of it these days and don't do that with it on anymore.

I've got a collection of old Soviet Russian watches that are fun. There's something about seeing the day of the week in Cyrillic that just messes with your head.

For pure legibility, you can't beat this. A Mondaine Night Vision. The face was designed for function and it has tritium tubes both on the hands and at the hours. No matter what the light conditions, it's just easy to see. Very comfortable to wear. I've had some ridiculously enthusiastic folks comment on it, too, it appeals to a different sort than the Speedmaster.

I had a nice Seiko 5 automatic. Problem is, my wife saw it. Now she has a nice Seiko 5 automatic and I have none.

Dr. Hess wrote: I don't know all the Rolex lingo. Mine says: ROLEX OYSTER PERPETUAL - D A T E - with a blue face. I think datejust is different. I bought it new and the glow in the dark stuff worked great until about 10 years ago. We had this discussion here before, and the watch maker guy said the stuff lasts x years and that's it, and I think mine just expired with time. I should get it repainted, but I'm sure that would cost about as much as another nice new Seiko. I've scuba-dived, skydived, wrecked a bike (BIG bike, not bicycle,) worked on more auto stuff than I care to think about with it on, so it has certainly taken a beating over the years. Like I said, I take better care of it these days and don't do that with it on anymore.

That is the older hack model in the 34 case. I think. I have the more modern datejust. I know that the case is a 36 now from what I believe used to be a 34.

Short answer who cars as long as it keeps time, getting the lum repainted is pretty cheap, like under 100$, 200$ with a case polish and 300$ with a service and polish on the older ones.

I have a Swiss Army 1884 Officer's Watch on a stainless band, it almost never comes off. This is my second one, the first one finally croaked after about 16 years of flat out abuse including being dunked in every vile chemical known to man, being worn while pulling engines, dropping transmissions, taking showers, swimming in both salt and fresh water, rough sex, washing dishes and once being snatched off my wrist by a spinning knobby tire which then threw it against a tree. For $189 hell yeah I bought another.

Redline makes some cool auto inspired watches

http://redlinewatches.com/redline_main.asp

I love the Mondaine; the same company makes Swiss railway clocks, which has to say something.

This is my usual daily wear:

There are others, of course - a black Movado automatic dress watch, a Seiko 5 on a canvas band for sporting activities, and some others. Then I've got a couple of my father's old watches, including a gold Tissot I really need to get repaired so I can put it in rotation.

For cheapies, I've got a timex weekender (plenty of styles/bands to suit your need). I've also got a used citizen ecodrive model 38___? Like them both but my only complaint is the damn perpetual calender on the citizen is something you'd never figure out on spending a year alone on a desert island with it. Watch the youtube videos closely.

Bulova Marine Star. SWMBO bought me one of these for my birthday 3 years ago and I'm very happy with it.

Storz wrote: Redline makes some cool auto inspired watches http://redlinewatches.com/redline_main.asp

I've seen those come up on Woot occasionally, as well.