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Post pics of your watches ***Please NO QUOTING PHOTOS***
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,075 Mod ✭✭✭✭
Join Date:Posts: 59004
Oh that I have and they're most certainly different LM, that's for sure.
I like them because there have been vanishingly few attempts by makers over the years to break away from the basic wristwatch design. Certainly not the main names. Square, circular, let's add in a bezel was about the gist of it. Rolex slightly change a bezel colour and the watch nerds go crazy. Even names like Patek are mired somewhere between the 1930's and 1950's, with the odd 70's influence, busy gilding the lily with polishing, but feck all innovation. Panerai are the same, minus the 70's and innovation. IWC add more bling and gaudy colours and size etc etc, building on a historical rep that didn't much exist before their mid 80's onwards marketing department went mad. Watch snobs slag off TAG at times, but at least they did go design mad and distinctively so and did so a lot more than the old Heuer(with a couple of rare exceptions. And having had a few vintage Heuers in my time, I can tell you the TAG's are better made. :eek:). Even "fashion" brands rarely get this radical(though way more than the mainstream boyos). Omega and Longines to be fair did push the boat out design wise, particularly in the 1970's, but today it's more about raiding their back catalogue for ideas.
This LIP crowd, being French (and the design could only be French. The Citroen of watches
) decided to mix it up a bit and that they did. Even more brave as they were the traditional, the "Ford" watchmaker of France. For a start they went outside the traditionally minded watch industry and grabbed the Phillipe Starck type men and women of their day to rethink the "Watch" from the ground up.
The manufacturing and engineering industrial design aspects weren't ignored either. The above watches are made from aircraft quality aluminium and the tolerances are very tight. They reduced the amount of gaskets that usually take up the slack and it's all press fit. On top of that they actually pioneered reliable electronic movements in the 1960's and built their own in house quartz movement in the early 70's, a task that pretty much the entire Swiss industry had to band together to accomplish and at much higher coats and retail prices(I think the LED movement was bought in. Not sure). And they did all that in the midst of heavy duty industrial action that gripped a nation, where at one point the army were sent in. And even reached new markets like the US with the chronograph version of the above Roger Tallon design.
If ye can avert the collective gaze towards her wrist.
Oh and note how the second hand lines up exactly with the markers. Very very few quartz analogues do that even today. As an added bonus they're rare to find these days. Like properly rare. Maybe 3-6 a year turn up on the Bay and even less are working ones. Of my two, the one with the leather strap is a singular one off. No other examples have ever come to light.
TL;DR? Yeh, OK, you got me LM, I'm eccentric/mad.
:pac:
*Late EDIT* in another forum on here women and watches and if they notice them on a man was briefly brought up. In my experience they don't, but I will say these weirdo LIPs do get attention and strangely positive attention with it. Only two of my watches have ever garnered attention from the ladies and these are one.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,075 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59004
OK slight change of pace, but still quartz and not exactly mode de jour... Longines and the mid 1980's this time. I present the Longines Conquest VHP(Very High Precision quartz).
(the hands are actually gold. Blame my bad photography
).
Titanium case and strap, with 18K gold highlights. The finish was made by bead blasting with industrial sapphires followed by a PVD coat of Titanium Nitride, which is a seriously tough finish. So even thirty years on not a blemish can be found on the case. Sapphire crystal too. On the WUS forums a non WIS chap posted who bought one from new and the salesman demonstrated its toughness by taking an example out of the wrapping, walking outside and gouging it into the brick wall. Not a scratch. He wore it daily in an industrial setting and when he retired the spare links from the bracelet looked the same as the ones that had seen the wear of the years.
The movement is mucho coolo. One of the most accurate independent watch movements ever. Longines advertised it as accurate to to a minute every five years. It has two quartz oscillators to run comparison against and a further compensation for temperature. More, it can be regulated further by tapping points on the movement that run in 0.33 sec per month increments. Waterproof to 100ft/30mt and you can adjust the hour independently for time zone and winter/summer time without stopping the movement. Later examples had a perpetual calendar that worked until the 21st century. Five year battery life too as it was the first to have a Li battery(though mine is the 2nd generation with the standard battery). And it has the single best non radioactive lume I've ever seen and that includes Seiko divers. Lasts all night. Odd, considering how tiny an area that's lumed and how thin the lume is applied.
Disadvantages? One. It's small. Like OHMIGOD are you wearing a woman's watch small. 34mm minus the crown. There is a 1988 version that is 38mm(IIRC) and with a screwdown crown, but they rarely come up. Saw one come up before Xmas but was very broke at the time.
It went for near nada *cries*. Ah well...
If you wanted a generic "watch" that just worked, you could do worse than one of these IMH. For its size it would make one helluva "ladies" watch that would be fash today*
Price wise they tend to be strong. 3-600 euro depending on the model. They were a thousand pounds/punts in the mid 80's so not cheap when new. The high accuracy quartz dudes have the real horn for them which drives up the prices.
*though would need some fecking with the strap as it was a man's watch back in the day. I"ve a 6.5 inch wrist and with all the user removable links gone it's still a tad loose on me.Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,075 Mod ✭✭✭✭ Join Date:Posts: 59004
Seiko's are apparently not regulated that well at the factory. So long as it's under +/- 15ish secs per day, be grand kinda thing. Now we're talking of their low and mid range stuff, a Grand Seiko would be a very different beast. Anyway they can often be pretty easily fettled to run with accuracies that would shame some of the big Swiss names. Even pretty old vintage ones and entry level models can run remarkably accurately. Like I said you really can't go wrong with a Seiko. IMHO in history, innovation, design, range, quality and value they blow all but a few of the Swiss boyos out of lake Geneva. Here's a page detailing the process. . Though I'd bring it to a watchmaker unless you're A) comfortable at working at those kinda scales and have the tools and
not are overly attached to the watch in case it goes Arseways(tm).Wibbs,
Farrah Fawcett! MmnnnnDeep Thought wrote: »There's a watch...where
That was a test post to measure your Watchnerd level. Both banned from the forum for seeing the woman not the watch. Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.
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Tweedle Dumb wrote: »Waiting on the latest purchase to arrive
Just started into getting watches. just finding nice reasonable priced ones,
nothing major. new watches, no older ones yet
Mainly amazon so far, so any good sites would be appreciated
Oh man your screwed big time..:pac: It starts with one than two and before you know it will be 10.
Thats a nice watch!0 -
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