Watch Out or Watch on? Pt 2.

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Grangerous

Lifer
Dec 8, 2020
3,251
13,104
East Coast USA
You can best see what Rolex has become by direct comparison.
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Modern Rolex (Left) Vintage (right)

The “bigger the better” era even affected Rolex but is thankfully waning. Smaller watches are returning to favor.

TUDOR has released new Dive Watches in 37mm (BB54) and 39mm (BB58) modeled after its own historical pieces. Those issued to both the French Navy (Marine Nationalle) and to US Navy Divers.

That’s far too bold a move for Rolex, which makes its changes more slowly than a glacier.

TUDOR? Keep em coming! Can’t wait to see what’s in store for 2024.
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
We have very accurate mechanical watches today. Our watch oils are much better than oils used a century ago. We have temperature invariable hairsprings, vastly better mainsprings, better balances, the science of horology has advanced to where Rolex sells a million watches a year with a +- 2 seconds a day specification and most beat that standard.

But they could make accurate 15 jewel watches, in the 1880s.


IMG_7442.jpegIMG_7443.jpeg

And 2 seconds over 7 days, was in actual railroad service on a steam locomotive.
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
One of the sales gimmicks watch manufacturers have done forever, is to have accuracy tolerances looser than actual in service results.

The old railroad watches that were guaranteed to meet the railroad standards of plus or minus 30 seconds a week often actually were only off less than half that much.

There is a distinction between accuracy and precision.

I own an Orient Star watch that is amazingly precise, and it gains nearly exactly 14 seconds a day, every day, for weeks on end. It’s not that accurate though, and if I don’t reset it every Saturday it’s more than two minutes fast.

It’s within advertised specifications of minus 15 seconds to plus 20 seconds a day, at plus 14 seconds. Orient gets fewer returns and complaints by setting larger accuracy targets than achievable.



It could be regulated to be within a second or so a day accuracy. But as the watch wears, the tendency is for it to lose time. I’d best leave well enough alone.


Even a quartz watch is not exactly precise or accurate, although the cheapest are advertised to be with +/- 15 seconds a month. But those have been made by the billions for fifty years now, and this Invicta Speedway wasn’t lost or gained a second in the first month I’ve owned it. If accuracy and precision is your top concern, a quartz watch is cheaper in the same model watch.

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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
This one has drawn my eye lately, but im not sure if the face is too big.

View attachment 297686

I have been exploring the watch hobby, and I’ve come to the conclusion we are living in a golden age for people who like to acquire cool watches.

If you are ultra rich, never in history have there been many, many watches over a hundred thousand dollars, some a million dollars or more.

And at the mere Rolex “middle priced” luxury brands sell over a million watches a year, of the five to twenty five thousand dollar price range.

And a half mile South of Bug Tussle, a kid could buy a really cool “field” watch for $30.

IMG_7547.jpeg


That Timex, is water resistant to 100 meters, which is really good. They all have Indiglo which is about the best practical way ever found to tell time in the dark. If you wear out the strap a new one is cheap. The owner can replace a battery every few years for a dollar. Even the mineral glass crystals are replaceable.

When I was ten I had a $30 watch in 1968, not half as cool and it was very cool! It ran a couple or three years and quit, forever.

A Hamilton Khaki field watch costs over fifteen times the price of Timex Expedition, and it’s still not $500.

But for only three times thirty bucks you get a ultra cool Chinese “field watch” with choice of movements.


They even look like a Hamilton,

IMG_7565.jpeg
 

mikethompson

Lifer
Jun 26, 2016
11,292
23,327
Near Toronto, Ontario, Canada
thirty bucks you get a ultra cool Chinese “field watch” with choice of movements.
If it weren't for Chinese "replicas/homages/fakes/doubles" I would have no where near the number of watches I have now.

That Hamilton posted above? $30. For that price I can live without it being an exact double, especially if the movement is decent (still getting hang of the terminology)
 
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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
If it weren't for Chinese "replicas/homages/fakes/doubles" I would have no where near the number of watches I have now.

That Hamilton posted above? $30. For that price I can live without it being an exact double, especially if the movement is decent (still getting hang of the terminology)

Let’s talk about Asian (Some Asians work cheaper thanChinese)homage/tribute/replica watches.

Let’s say you covert a certain Swiss watch in the five to twenty five thousand dollar class.

It’s really not hard to build your own replica.

What is a Rolex Submariner?

It’s first and foremost a watch case style.

IMG_7571.jpeg


Want a Rolex President? Even cheaper.

How about an Omega? Those cases are for sale too.

I like a square Royal Oak

img_7566-jpeg.297803


After you’ve picked a case style, it needs a strap. Straps are leather, stainless steel, or canvas, and size or style or color you want, from $10 to maybe $30.

All the dials and hands you can dream about cost maybe $20 for the set.

There are aluminum and ceramic bezel rings and inserts, all cheap.

The ten thousand dollar Swiss watch will have a bit better finishing, but if you keep it all stainless, then 316L stainless is the same around the world.

And with only the simplest tools, a ten thumbed watch dabbler like me can assemble a watch today.

Your watch won’t be a full on Swiss watch but at arms length it looks like one, and it will last two or three hundred years, just the same.

You’ll need a movement inside your home built watch, and there are basically four automatic movements to choose.

The Seiko NH35 series.

The Miyota 8200 series.

Swiss ETA 2824

Chinese clones of the 2824.

Xxxx

What you want is the Seiko NH35.

The other three choices might be technically superior. It’s close. I own all four and all four are excellent movements.

But the entire “watch mod” and home built and micro brand watch hobby industry is as centered around the Seiko NH 35 as the model airplane hobby was around the .049 Cox engine when I was a kid.

Once you have a watch case that accepts a Sieko NH35 from then on, if it quits then $40 buys another one.
 

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Wet Dottle

Starting to Get Obsessed
Mar 20, 2023
165
522
Littleton, CO
Actually, I forgot I also have this watch:

IMG_1371.jpeg

I have no idea what led me to it. Must have been drunk. I'm a minimalist guy and all I ever carry is a (minimalist) wallet and a set of keys. Don't even carry a cell phone that often...
 

Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
Really fine luxury watches are, affordable, relatively speaking.

It will cost about 15 thousand to plant you six feet under, or more, and add maybe five grand more for your tombstone. Twenty grand won’t even buy a middle sized car today.

And truly fine watches hold resale value.

Provided some scuzzy seller doesn’t sell you a fake for two thousand instead of three thousand for a fake Black Bay Tudor.


My mother gave me a Tudor Monarch in 1993 and it still looks new, like this one.

IMG_7312.jpeg


Why it looks new, is I wear replicas, like this $175 Orient Ray II.

The Orient is a higher end homage or replica or whatever you may call it, except it‘s not a fake. It’s an OrienT watch with an in house Orient movement.

I also own a 1962 Omega pie pan Constellation, and my father’s 1958 Hamilton Thin O Matic, both with domed acrylic crystals.

Here’s why I don’t wear those daily.

Longines Ultra Chron with popped off crystal and missing second and minute hands. Ooooops!

IMG_7397.jpeg

Instead I own two Orient Bambinos and a gorgeous OrienT Star Classic Gen 2 with blue dagger hands. If carefully worn an Orient holds quite a bit of resale value.

Here’s why the Seiko NH35 powered “mod watches” absolutely rule the drawers of the watch addicted souls like me:

Like my pipes, I don’t know how many watches I own.

I guess that $30 homage Seiko that quit running in a couple of years in 1968 just ruined me.:)

If I’d picked out a real Seiko when I was ten years old it either would still work or for $40 I could sit down and replace, myself, the movement with a brand new, better version. No other watch ever made goes longer between service than a Seiko automatic, some over fifty years.

In the mail on a slow plane from China is this square case watch with a Seiko NH35 and blue leather strap, total cost $67 with taxes.

IMG_7567.jpeg

It sorta kinda resembles an up to a million dollar Royal Oak. Not exactly.

At 40mm that will be a chunky, blingy watch on my wrist.

All my four other watches with a Seiko automatic run extremely close, within a few seconds a day.

And one of them is almost thirty years old and hasn’t ever been serviced. I paid less than fifty bucks for it, then.

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It’s not for sale, but it’s worth more than a new one.
 

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Briar Lee

Lifer
Sep 4, 2021
4,765
13,789
Humansville Missouri
Actually, I forgot I also have this watch:

View attachment 297888

I have no idea what led me to it. Must have been drunk. I'm a minimalist guy and all I ever carry is a (minimalist) wallet and a set of keys. Don't even carry a cell phone that often...

Inside that Swiss pocket watch is almost certain to be a Unitas 6400 series movement.

To this day, the 6498 ETA movement is still sold in affordable Swiss pocket watches.


When developed in the thirties it was something of a miracle. Here was a pocket watch with shock protection, that really protected the balance staff enough to drop on the floor and it still work, it utilized temperature invariable metals for mainsprings, hairspring, and balance, and updated manufacturing methods delivered it for a fraction of the price of a Hamilton, Elgin, or Waltham.

It even made it to high end large wrist watches.

IMG_7561.jpeg

But like any mechanical pocket watch movement from my $18 Chinese skeleton to the most expensive minute repeater Swiss watch ever made, they have jewels and metal rubbing together under lots of mainspring tension and eventually need a service and an oil change, just like a Rolls Royce or Chevy or Ferrari all do.

The highest grade, elaborate Chinese 6498 costs $75 retail, far less than to clean, oil and adjust a Swiss (or any clone) pocket watch movement. The plainer versions are $35.

IMG_7583.jpeg

This is why “mod watches” are so popular. This is a generic PAM watch case, for $25.

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