Talk to Me About Wrist Watches

[lawdawg]

I must have been in a bad mood when I wrote that! I don't like the trend toward large watch faces, but I could've written that in a less offensive way. Okay, it is good for people to have choices. If someone wants a giant watch they are welcome to it. I got frustrated that it was so hard to find what I consider to be a reasonable size field watch. I like the size and ruggedness of the old ones (35-36mm).

I agree 100% about your view on large face watches. IMO they are tacky. They are very "loud" in appearance, like huge shoulder pads on a double-breasted suit jacket. I also am a small person (5'8" and about 150 lbs) with correspondingly small wrists, and anything over 38mm looks too big on me. People with larger wrists can pull off a larger watch face, but most watches over 42mm start to look pretty cartoonish regardless of who is wearing it.

Unless it's a Japanese movement in the Seiko they are garbage.. and even those are finnicky and innacurate.
get yourself a swiss watch IMO.

You can pick up a Wenger (with sapphire coated crystal for better hardness/scratch resistance) for a song.
Victorinox makes a good quality watch as well without breaking the bank.

then of course you can move up to however much you would like to spend...........

in case you can't tell I am OVER Asian watch movements. Just like their cars they are chincy POS's IMO.

The Seiko 7s26 family of movements are about as sturdy as it gets, and inexpensive too:

Strapcode Review - Seiko 7S26 Movement

It's the movement Seiko uses in their popular SKX dive watch series. I have the SKX007 and love it. One of my good friends tends to use his gear pretty hard, and he's got an SKX. He also has several Rolexes, and he got the SKX so he would have a sturdy dive watch to wear when he was working as a summer camp counselor during college. He didn't baby his Rolexes either - he would actually wear them scuba diving. However, he put the SKX through an even more thorough beating for several summers in a row, including canoe trips on whitewater rivers in Canada, racing small sailboats, week long backpacking trips, and other such outdoor adventures. Even after those summers, he ended up wearing the SKX more than his Rolexes until somebody stole the SKX when he was working abroad as a scuba instructor.

That all said, the Seiko is not a Rolex and I don't mean to say that it is or compare the two. The Seiko is not a refined watch (being entirely machine-made and sometimes suffering from fit and finish issues) and it's not really accurate (being off by up to a minute per day) and there is a somewhat notorious issue with chapter ring alignment that comes up on some of the watches, but overall the SKX series are awesome watches, especially for the money, and they are plenty accurate for the type of use my buddy put his through.

This pic is really a picture of my pickling cucumbers in my garden last summer, but I'm wearing the SKX, just to give an idea of what it looks like (in before "handling your pickle" jokes ):

 

[voorhees]

I still wear my watch. Mostly on weekends. My job could potentially wreak havok on such a thing.

 

[BROBS]

I agree 100% about your view on large face watches. IMO they are tacky. They are very "loud" in appearance, like huge shoulder pads on a double-breasted suit jacket. I also am a small person (5'8" and about 150 lbs) with correspondingly small wrists, and anything over 38mm looks too big on me. People with larger wrists can pull off a larger watch face, but most watches over 42mm start to look pretty cartoonish regardless of who is wearing it.



The Seiko 7s26 family of movements are about as sturdy as it gets, and inexpensive too:

Strapcode Review - Seiko 7S26 Movement

It's the movement Seiko uses in their popular SKX dive watch series. I have the SKX007 and love it. One of my good friends tends to use his gear pretty hard, and he's got an SKX. He also has several Rolexes, and he got the SKX so he would have a sturdy dive watch to wear when he was working as a summer camp counselor during college. He didn't baby his Rolexes either - he would actually wear them scuba diving. However, he put the SKX through an even more thorough beating for several summers in a row, including canoe trips on whitewater rivers in Canada, racing small sailboats, week long backpacking trips, and other such outdoor adventures. Even after those summers, he ended up wearing the SKX more than his Rolexes until somebody stole the SKX when he was working abroad as a scuba instructor.

That all said, the Seiko is not a Rolex and I don't mean to say that it is or compare the two. The Seiko is not a refined watch (being entirely machine-made and sometimes suffering from fit and finish issues) and it's not really accurate (being off by up to a minute per day) and there is a somewhat notorious issue with chapter ring alignment that comes up on some of the watches, but overall the SKX series are awesome watches, especially for the money, and they are plenty accurate for the type of use my buddy put his through.

personally I feel they are not a robust automatic movement by any means.
If you drop the case on its side the whole movement will go out of whack. There is also a timing spring that is supposed to seat on a peg that can easily be jarred loose. When this happens your watch will run in double time and you will wonder where the time went.
The winding mechanism is less than stellar as well IMO.
They are cheap I guess.. which is good.. but that's about it IMO.. it's the most basic automatic watch movement and therefore the cheapest available.

for a watch in that price range I would much rather go with a battery.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Not to argue, but just to add my $0.02 worth... in decades of dealing with watches, I have never seen a Seiko or Citizens come in that had an issue with keeping time. Yes, Rolexes are among the best of watches, but that doesn't necessarily denigrate the other brands.

Mostly, I have seen lost stems, broken crystals, and battery issues. Outside of changing bands and resizing and such. And, the only ones that I have seen with issues with time keeping tend to be battery watches, or guys who had mental issues with precision that was outside my realm of psychology. Even the cheap ass Timex Expedition that I wear while working in the field... if it is off by a few minutes a week, I am still going to make it home in time for dinner. Nothing I could possibly do could possibly be ruined by a cheap watch.

My Citizens, however, keep in step to the second with Apple time, which I do check occasionally. But, I have never had to touch the time on them except twice a year to Fall back and Spring forward. If even a second is lost, I have never noticed it.

But, I have no stock in these watch companies. You may freely bash them all you like. I just felt compelled to add my post to the pile. I don't even sell watches. I just take in local repairs and such... if I lost all watch repair business, it wouldn't hurt me in the least.

 

[didimauw]

My new watch received yesterday. Wanted one for years. I know many people especially here don't care for digital but this one is special.

Only gshock fans will understand it.

Gw 5000



I'm selling all the rest, and just keeping this one.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Nice one. I actually did some scanning through web reviews on Casio after your initial post. If I could understand how to read digital time, I would consider one.

 

[didimauw]

Yeah it can be tricky. Then you add 24hr time with it, and people look at me like I'm an alien. Lol

Mine was manufactured oct 1st of 2019, and shipped straight from Japan .

Nice one. I actually did some scanning through web reviews on Casio after your initial post. If I could understand how to read digital time, I would consider one.

 

[lawdawg]

personally I feel they are not a robust automatic movement by any means.
If you drop the case on its side the whole movement will go out of whack. There is also a timing spring that is supposed to seat on a peg that can easily be jarred loose. When this happens your watch will run in double time and you will wonder where the time went.
The winding mechanism is less than stellar as well IMO.
They are cheap I guess.. which is good.. but that's about it IMO.. it's the most basic automatic watch movement and therefore the cheapest available.

for a watch in that price range I would much rather go with a battery.

You know more about the movement than I do. I'm more like the single-blend, one-pipe smoker of watch collectors, so I don't get into the finer details of watches.

That said, the general consensus from everything I've read on the Seiko 7S26 is that it's a sturdy workhorse. I've even heard the SKX referred as the AK47 of mechanical watches on several occasions - reliable and durable, but not especially accurate or refined. However, of course, everyone has their own opinions on these sorts of things. To further clarify durability issues and the context of what constitutes "durable", we are talking about tiny little spring-loaded mechanisms full of delicate parts, so of course a mechanical watch isn't going to be durable in the same way that an industrial diesel engine, for example, is durable.

 

[burleyboy]

More and more I see myself drawn away from modern wrist watches. These days the 1970ies Longines gets more wrist time than anything else.

 

[BROBS]

You know more about the movement than I do. I'm more like the single-blend, one-pipe smoker of watch collectors, so I don't get into the finer details of watches.

That said, the general consensus from everything I've read on the Seiko 7S26 is that it's a sturdy workhorse. I've even heard the SKX referred as the AK47 of mechanical watches on several occasions - reliable and durable, but not especially accurate or refined. However, of course, everyone has their own opinions on these sorts of things. To further clarify durability issues and the context of what constitutes "durable", we are talking about tiny little spring-loaded mechanisms full of delicate parts, so of course a mechanical watch isn't going to be durable in the same way that an industrial diesel engine, for example, is durable.

right, just overall I don't feel it is as robust as some say.
Older swiss made (even generic in brand) movements are usually more stout.
I guess I'm just hard on my watches!

 

[elessar]

7s26 durability did arguably go down a bit when they went to the pin type regulator, but I also feel it's a sturdy workhorse. There are actually some crappy Swiss movements as well. I'm looking at you Baumgartner 158.

My Seiko black monster has served me well for more than a decade but is starting to lose accuracy. For the money I think a 7s26 is tough to beat, but not indestructible.

 

[BROBS]

I probably just had a bad experience. I’m not overly keen on Japanese products also had a lemon Subaru.

 

[elessar]

Subarus are not pleasant to work on either! Sorry for your bad luck. The older 7s26 movements had a more robust regulator but Japanese efficiency dictated they move to a pin type which is more efficient to assemble. Probably saves a tenth of a cent.

In fairness my ETA 2836-2 powered watch keeps better time than my Seiko ever did. But it is in a nicer watch that I treat better so I cannot comment on its durability.

 

[BROBS]

I’ve been happy with Wenger and Victorinox battery watches for the money!

 

[elessar]

Only gshock fans will understand it.

Did somebody say G-Shock?

 

[BROBS]

Ugh I can’t do a silicone or rubber band.

this one was 40 bones!

 

[elessar]

I'm with you on that but for some reason this gshock doesn't irritate my wrist like other silicone bands. I usually remove them for NATO straps. This band is almost a hard plastic. The watch isn't a looker but has been with me through thick and thin and then some.

That Wenger is sharp! Very nice

 

[BROBS]

Dang now you make me want to give g shock a try! I think I wore one back in the day as a kid and I do sort of remember the band being harder than silicone.

another thing I like about the Wengers is the sapphire coated crystal. Makes them pretty tough and cheap. The Victorinox come with an actual sapphire crystal! I’m rough on the crystals.

 

[ssjones]

I'm with BROBs on a preferring a quartz vs a lower end auto.
I've had this Seiko quartz diver since 1993. It had a magnifier window, but I broke it twice in the first few years of ownership, so I just replaced it with a flat crystal. I "restored" if a few years ago, with a new bezel (took three years to find that piece, from via a parts dealer in the UK , which set me back $70) and a ebay Seiko Jubilee bracelet (the factory was stretched beyond belief). The case has been polished countless times, before I knew such things were cool, but hey, I like shiny stainless. It's only every needed a battery. I bought an SKX a few years ago, which only ran a few months before timekeeping became very erratic. I was fortunate to return it for a refund. The quartz version (which by the is a 39mm model, slightly smaller than the SKX). I have the original bezel and bracelet, but don't see them returning to the watch. This one has truly been my beater, been snorkeling all over and even surfing in Hawaii.

My Swiss-made Accutron (quartz) had a pretty expensive ETA movement (expensive by quartz movement standards that didn't last ten year. A buddy, a repair hobbyist, replaced the movement for me on that one. It lasted about 9 years.

 

[BROBS]

If anyone works on watches I have my 7s26 in the smaller diameter case black face with 90 degree crown. I installed a sapphire crystal in it and oiled it a tiny bit on the crystals. Like I said the movement spring needs set back on the peg so it runs fast. I won’t fix it so maybe trade me a tin for it ?