Who Watches the Watchmen (Our Chit Chat Thread)

Wibbs

Then again when history and marketing collide the latter will win out for most in the general public. Years ago on another watch forum I posted a pic of one of my WW2 German issued watches and one poster went off on me. How dare you! Nazis! kinda thing. Another member who I used to chat with by PM, as it happens a Jewish lad from New York popped into the thread and pointed out that the poster having a fit regularly posted pics of his IWC Big Pilot with no sense of Irony. Well IWC keep the not very marketable direct link to the Reichsluftfahrtministerium(German air ministry) design it uses. As did Patek when they wheeled out their pilots watch line.

2shea

unkel wrote: »

I prefer that watch on the left

Did you manage to get one yet? I haven't been on here in a while.

Lorddrakul

It is a pity that the actual information and general presentation of the historical bit is from the 'Big Book of Junior WWII Stories'.

Great production values, but definitely falls down on the content. It could easily have been 15 minutes shorter.

Despite being a fan of pilot watches, I'm not that wild about the altimeter look. The alu, engraved plate on the back is nice, but you are not looking at that bit most of the time.

banie01

Now I have to go and watch that video
I know that on a high level, the overlap of watches, military and aviation seems quite straightforward.
But lads, I'll be candid!
No one I know in real life has more than a passing curiosity, finding Wibbs, CT and others on this little corner of boards really is confirmation I'm not alone in my love of those topics!
Now...
We may be outliers?
But its convinced my wife I'm quite normal!!!
So thanks, lads :P

Lorddrakul

banie01 wrote: »

Now I have to go and watch that video
I know that on a high level, the overlap of watches, military and aviation seems quite straightforward.
But lads, I'll be candid!
No one I know in real life has more than a passing curiosity, finding Wibbs, CT and others on this little corner of boards really is confirmation I'm not alone in my love of those topics!
Now...
We may be outliers?
But its convinced my wife I'm quite normal!!!
So thanks, lads :P

You would have to count me in that cohort.

I've always been fascinated by military aviation.

In the 90s, I served my time and worked as an aircraft mechanic on narrow body airliners. At that time, there were still lots of ex-service people in the trade. I loved getting stories from them about their experiences and exploits.

Back then, I wasn't into watches as such, but would often note their choices from an uninformed, but appreciative perspective.

Hence the current collection has a flieger style 7750, a 3133 Navitimer, and the most recent addition is a Ti Aerospace.

I'm waiting on my vintage Mark II to come back from its deep service.
[Drums fingers]

Wibbs

I find altimeter designs can work well enough. I would prefer their other models like this one.



The problem I have with the design of the Ziggy in the video is the inner ring. It interferes with the hour hand without being directly related to it. And makes no sense as the hours and minute rings are reversed.



Though if it were it would be uncomfortably and ironically close to the German design spec for navigator watches.



When Patek wanted to bring out their own pilots watch to tap into that lucrative market they claimed they had a historyin that segment(if 3 watches in total, never delivered is a history...) and theirs was based on the American Weems Hour angle design. Only... The three prototypes they produced in the mid 30's were to the exact and very distinctive German ministry's specs at the time.

blue5000

These tentative links to historical greatness are all well stretched aren't they? But there is at least one watch brand with a great history;) but alas today all they seem to do is re-hash their history. Longines.

Wibbs

Some brands are worse than others. IWC for example has long stretched the truth with their marketing. Any links between Breguet and the towering genius of watchmaking who shares that name is tenuous. Actually it's non existent. There are quite the number of Swiss brands who went bust during the "quartz crisis" that are now off the off the shelf homages to a long dead name. Brands like Omega and Longines in contrast rarely do this kinda thing. Well they both have deep histories and inhouse innovations, got through the 70's relatively intact and still producing watches throughout so they don't have to.

Japanese brands pretty much never pull the marketing "history".

Wibbs

Like I was saying much earlier in the thread, out of the Swiss brands Longines really are a bit of an oddball. While Omega are very focussed on their lines, Longines are like a mid tier watch company of the past before more modern marketing kicked off where there was usually a scattergun approach in place. They have a huge range and range of prices that runs from quartz dress watches, through historical remakes, through high end quartz, to higher end chronographs and solid gold dress pieces. They also hit the women's market hard. In Asia that segment makes up half of their overall sales so a lucrative one. Actually they concentrate hard on the Asian market itself. They were always well known over there going right back. Longines were also big in the Americas and southern Europe before brands tended to be worldwide.

Rolex for example were very much a British and her empire/commonwealth market brand, only getting any traction in the US in the late 60's and then other places followed to where now they're the worldwide luxury brand. They're very focussed too. Always were actually. How they navigated the market range in the past was with different brands under the Rolex umbrella. At the very start of the company they had many brand names going at once(12 IIRC), from cheap to expensive, until they narrowed things down to Tudor and Rolex.

Another oddball thing with Longines in the old days were their movements and the finishing on them. You could buy an entry level time only dress watch and it would have the same attention to detail movement as their top of the range chronographs. No extra prima, no more decorated versions.

Even odder was how few watches they sold that were officially certified as chronometers. Yet between timing awards and the chronometer trials they won more than any other brand in the 20th century. Sure, they'd run ads with "the world's most honoured watch", but produced few official chronometers even when their movements were well capable of passing. Omega were kinda similar but copped on in the 60's. Actually Omega were real cute hoors in the 70's when the tuning fork f300 movements were bought in. They just slipped under the radar for mechanical chronometer testing and being electronic would pass the tests in their sleep, so nearly every 70's Omega f300 has chronometer on the dial. They clearly saw it was a sales advantage, while Longines who had the same movements were off smoking dope or something.

Wibbs

From a youtube link in the show us your watches thread:

somebody_else wrote: »

Funny enough, it is not LIP but homage of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBTWjc0gsgA

It still floors me how 200 quid can give you a small run watch like that with pretty good finishing and a Seiko movement. Finishing that would be better than the original in most respects. It's mad how advanced short run production costs have come right down and are available to many more people. If this trend continues and I can't see why it won't the luxury brands should be worried. A few weeks ago I was watching some vids on how scarily "good" the fakes have become and not just Rolex. The days of a 20 quid quartz with Rolix on the dial are long gone. Some of the fakes cost over a grand and are even closer to the real deal. There will surely come a time when the fakes will get so good they'll be nearly indistinguishable from the real deal and will ask the question why a real Brand X model costs 10 grand when the near identical fake costs a tenth of that*. Beyond the bloody obvious or should be bloody obvious immoral aspects of stealing intellectual property and wearing a fake supporting that, but this will surely impact luxury sales?

That said it would be my opinion that we've passed "peak watch", or very close to it.


*now a part of that is luxury brand tax, but just as much if not more are the vast sums of money Brands like Rolex and Omega and the rest spend on all aspects of marketing. I recall reading Rolex alone spent something like 40 million a year on direct advertising and marketing. That's a lot of watches sold to cover that. That's before the costs of research and development.

Cienciano

King Seiko new release

https://www.fratellowatches.com/king-seiko-ksk-sje083/

Wibbs

That King Seiko is bloody lovely though pretty pricey I'd have thought? TBH I'd more likely buy an original, though they're smaller and obviously not as well finished. Still for around 600 quid...

While looking at vintage LIPs(steady....) and the prices I dropped into chrono24 and yet again my jaw dropped at dealer prices. What are they smoking??? It was always dearer than forums, private sales and ebay of course, but now it's way more. Like a watch you'd get in good nick for 4-500 quid all the long day, the dealers there are looking well over 1000 and sometimes more. Maybe the hodinkee effect is in play now? They saw them gouge and figured that's setting the market prices? I wonder does it though.

On the hodinkee front I saw that the John Meyer guy was doing a watch colab with them and I expected some daftly priced fancy from some unknown Swiss franklin mint crowd for many thousands, but no. In fairness he's done a mash up with Casio, a G-Shock for under 200 quid. Fair enough.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

On the hodinkee front I saw that the John Meyer guy was doing a watch colab with them and I expected some daftly priced fancy from some unknown Swiss franklin mint crowd for many thousands, but no. In fairness he's done a mash up with Casio, a G-Shock for under 200 quid. Fair enough.

They sold out in a few minutes and now there's hundreds of them on ebay for $400+

Seems to be the norm for Hodinke, attracts a lot of scalpers

Wibbs

I did notice that the watches were "restricted" to five watches per customer. Eh...

Hodinkee customer earlier:



Clearly they encourage scalpers. One way to flog your stock I suppose.

Wibbs

Wibbs wrote: »

I did notice that the watches were "restricted" to five watches per customer. Eh...

Clearly they encourage scalpers. One way to flog your stock I suppose.

And John Mayer is now an investor in the company so it's all bit skeezy

2shea

micks_address wrote: »

yes id probably take that one to... i have a similar dial layout on the way in the next few weeks. nothing as expensive as a rolex.

i find citizen an odd one. Lots of youtubers talk highly of them even equal to seiko etc but they don't seem to get as much coverage as seiko in reviews or top 10s etc..

Citizen make some great watches. I'd say they are close to being on par with Seiko.

Remember Citizen was the first watch company to produce a Titanium watch (Citizen X-8 Chronometer) and they seem to be the world leaders in Titanium watches, they do them well. Take their Super Titanium watches where the titanium
is surface hardened making it much harder to scratch (titanium scratches up quite easily)

The grade of titanium used in the Tudor Pelagos is pretty poor for a €4k watch, it's not even treated. My €500 Citizen uses a much better grade that's treated. Even the Base ti that Citizen use seems much better.

Their Eco-Drive is the best of the solar powered watches also (in my opinion)

They make some great SKX automatic alternatives

So I dont get why they get as much love as Seiko.

On a side note I dont know why more watch brands use Titanium for their cases and bracelets.

It has a great gun-metal kind of colour and can be polished to a great shine/mirror finish.

It's very corrosion resistant,

Its light and strong as well as being hypoallergenic.

unkel

Titanium? It's light weight is the main benefit. Not many people particularly want a light weight watch. It scratches to feck and the material is expensive.

2shea

unkel wrote: »

Titanium? It's light weight is the main benefit. Not many people particularly want a light weight watch. It scratches to feck and the material is expensive.

Yes Ti will definitely scratch up very easily compared to any other metal. The fact that the top layer of it is oxidized a darker colour and when its scratches it reveals the shiny metal underneath.

But if its surface hardened it actually wont scratch up almost at all and is better then stainless steel.

I also dont understand the whole having weight in a watch? Is it because people equate heavy to expensive? Take super cars, f1 cars and MotoGP bikes it's all about making them as light as possible.

I think the lighter the better, it helps the watch disappear on the wrist.

Also I want my watch to be made out of expensive materials.

Wibbs

2shea wrote: »

But if its surface hardened its actually wont scratch up almost at all and is better then stainless steel.

Very much so. I've 30+ year old surface hardened titanium cased(and bracelet) watches that have worn far better than steel ever would as a daily wearer. Though steel has the advantage if it does get scratched is far easier to refinish than titanium would be if it were scratched. Down the years some have produced small runs of tungsten cased watches and that stuff is expensive, tough as anything and weighty on top(too heavy maybe).

unkel

2shea wrote: »

I also dont understand the whole having weight in a watch? Is it because people equate heavy to expensive?

I like a bit of weight on my watch, I do not value lightness. In fact I would love a solid (white) gold watch for the weight, if it wouldn't mean it was softer

And it's not like you or I or are comparable to a Ferrari anyway, is it?

Thirdfox

Wibbs wrote: »

Very much so. I've 30+ year old surface hardened titanium cased(and bracelet) watches that have worn far better than steel ever would as a daily wearer. Though steel has the advantage if it does get scratched is far easier to refinish than titanium would be if it were scratched. Down the years some have produced small runs of tungsten cased watches and that stuff is expensive, tough as anything and weighty on top(too heavy maybe).

Yup - what we'll be doing actually - hopefully it won't be too heavy. Not necessarily super expensive as a raw material - but just a pain in the ass to CNC (since it is so hard) so that adds to costs - that's why most tungsten watches (think Rado diastar metal shroud is all rounded edges).

Why we move the bezel internally too.

unkel wrote: »

I like a bit of weight on my watch, I do not value lightness. In fact I would love a solid (white) gold watch for the weight, if it wouldn't mean it was softer

And it's not like you or I or are comparable to a Ferrari anyway, is it?

Tungsten will be right up your alley - about as hard as sapphire, almost as dense as gold (and you're probably looking at 18k gold right rather than 22/24k ) and will keep a mirror polish like pretty much nothing else.

Just don't drop it from a height or it'll shatter

Starlight's weight is around 62g with clasp and leather strap
Rough estimate: Equinox may be heading towards 200+g while being a 40mm watch (instead of a 50mm Invicta steel monster etc.)
Rolex 18k gold datejust is around 230-270g

Aside from the weight advantage, titanium is very comfortable to wear. It's hypoallergenic and a poor heat conductor (so doesn't really 'feel' hot or cold in extreme weather).

Surface hardening and treatment is something Citizen put a lot of R&D into. You get what you pay for though. Their entry level titanium watches don't have the same treatments & scratch resistance as stuff higher up.

eljono

I wore a titanium ecodrive Citizen for 10+ years as my daily and found it to be an excellent watch. One of the reasons I choose it was because of the titanium case and bracelet, the material itself appealed to me at the time and I liked how light it was compared to steel watches.

Mine took some big hits over the years and the bezel does have some surface damage but I found the titanium to be quite scratch resistant and not as liable to damage as some make out.

In addition the ecodrive movement has been fantastic. Not once did I need to reset the time apart from when crossing timezones, always super accurate and kept great charge.

Ryath

unkel wrote: »

I like a bit of weight on my watch, I do not value lightness. In fact I would love a solid (white) gold watch for the weight, if it wouldn't mean it was softer

And it's not like you or I or are comparable to a Ferrari anyway, is it?

You'll need to go platinum it's about 20% denser!

Platinum Daytona at 282g! The white gold only weighs 195g.
https://www.rolex.com/watches/cosmograph-daytona/m116506-0001.html

If you can stretch the budget a bit the Royal Oak Offshore weighs in at 432g!

david

Ryath wrote: »

You'll need to go platinum it's about 20% denser!

Platinum Daytona at 282g! The white gold only weighs 195g.
https://www.rolex.com/watches/cosmograph-daytona/m116506-0001.html

If you can stretch the budget a bit the Royal Oak Offshore weighs in at 432g!

I like a bit of weight too but 170-180 is my sweet spot. 432g is like having a pound of Kerrygold strapped to your wrist.

2shea

unkel wrote: »

I like a bit of weight on my watch, I do not value lightness. In fact I would love a solid (white) gold watch for the weight, if it wouldn't mean it was softer

And it's not like you or I or are comparable to a Ferrari anyway, is it?

I'll have you know I'm a highly tuned machine thank you very much! :-)

Lorddrakul

Funny that this has come up now.

I had only recently acquired my first titanium watch, along with its ti bracelet. It is a mix of steel rollers and ti folded links and clasp.

Altogether it weighs 72g. Just for giggles, I weighed some of my other watches for comparison.

In the middle is my Alpha M1957 on its stainless bracelet, at 152g.

I have a Citizen 44mm quartz Eco Drive chrono on a 22mm mesh bracelet and it is 121g.

But after adding the Miltat 22mm Super Engineer II bracelet with solid curved end links to my SKX009, it now comes in at 184g.

That's quite a heft, for me, but pleasing nonetheless.

The ti watch is a substantial piece, at 40mm without crown, but is a quartz so is quite slim in profile, but I forget it's even there.

I like it in contrast to the SKX, but wouldn't part with either.

Cyrus

Personally I don’t like super light or ultra thins a watch needs a little heft for me,

That said too thick or too heavy is no good either .

2shea

Lorddrakul wrote: »

Funny that this has come up now.

I had only recently acquired my first titanium watch, along with its ti bracelet. It is a mix of steel rollers and ti folded links and clasp.

Altogether it weighs 72g. Just for giggles, I weighed some of my other watches for comparison.

In the middle is my Alpha M1957 on its stainless bracelet, at 152g.

I have a Citizen 44mm quartz Eco Drive chrono on a 22mm mesh bracelet and it is 121g.

But after adding the Miltat 22mm Super Engineer II bracelet with solid curved end links to my SKX009, it now comes in at 184g.

That's quite a heft, for me, but pleasing nonetheless.

The ti watch is a substantial piece, at 40mm without crown, but is a quartz so is quite slim in profile, but I forget it's even there.

I like it in contrast to the SKX, but wouldn't part with either.

I prefer when the watch just blends in and you forget it's there....

Fitz II

Cyrus wrote: »

Personally I don’t like super light or ultra thins a watch needs a little heft for me,

That said too thick or too heavy is no good either .

Balance is the thing for me. I dont mind a heavy watch so long as its well balanced between the head and the bracelet and it distributes the weight around your wrist well. A top heavy watch is an annoyance. I dont like to wear watches super tight either. Ultra thins are also not for me, I dont want to forget its there, they are inherently delicate.