Ollech & Weiss. Lovely watches, same movements as tags & Breitlings but not as highly priced. The watch of choice in the Vietnam war (not really sure why that is a good advertisement though).

I have a M2 Kartago with a Hirsch strap – has a submariner look about it and cost around £150 2nd hand.

How big are your wrists?
http://www.watchshop.com/mens-nixon-the-player-diamond-watch-a140-2062-p99940117.html
Nixon have some very nice designs in my opinion. I’m sure someone will come on here and say something about them being “fashion” watches, but they’re all the same mechanisms inside and the 2 I’ve had have been very nicely finished.

For me you won’t beat Festina at that price, also I will never buy a Seiko Kinetic again, it will break as you need to adjust the time constantly.

My 14 year old Festina 6566 has been faultless.

For me a good watch should be an automatic or mechanical. I have an old Rolex which keeps awful time and a Seiko 5 that is about bob on month in month out. You can’t buy Seiko 5’s easily in the UK so would need to go through Ebay. The Seiko Kinetics are more expensive but they have a mixed reputation for reliability, the Citizen Ecodrive seems to have a better reputation for a similar system.

Seiko 5 watch

I have a Seiko 5. Very pleased with it.

Like the look of those Olech & Wajs.

I’m also thinking mechanical or automatic

Some nice suggestions so far

I have a Seiko 5 for the everyday/work watch, for the money they cannot be faulted .
Lots of jewellers/watch shops round Manchester have them in just not a big range.

There’s a Dutch guy on the web who sells and modifys them ,can get pretty much any Seiko 5 you want.
The kinetics are famed for a failing capacitor,these can be fixed or modified before they fail,personally I’d rather just have a normal Auto.
Web linky

Modificaties

Anyone know much about fakes? I understand that some can be good quality?
Anyone know where the quality ones could be found?
Can’t justify a luminor or IWC but would love the bling!

I have one of these and love it:

They have a 40% replacement policy which I needed once too – i.e. give them your old watch back and pay 40% of the retail for the new one.

Alessi have a whole range of watches.

I know they’re all about style, but the casings and faces are really well made too. They’re all made by Seiko I think.

I think all of them are under £200.

Waiting on this Orient Automatic 200m water resist here. Nice and clear, relatively cheap. Good reputation, owned in part by Seiko I believe.

ebay skynet_sg £85

Best place I’ve found online for Seikos, Orients and so on is Creation Watches. They deliver fairly briskly from Hong Kong and their watches are legit.

One thing to bear in mind is that if you get an import Seiko or similar, the Seiko dealers I the UK get a bit sniffy, but any reputable watchmaker would be able to service and repair a seiko movement.

As another option, the Hamilton Khaki is a lovely looking watch that wouldn’t look out of place when your smartly dressed as well as looking good with jeans.

Best place I’ve found online for Seikos, Orients and so on is Creation Watches. They deliver fairly briskly from Hong Kong and their watches are legit

My wife wanted to buy me a watch for chrimbo as I wanted a Seiko divers style watch for a while and used Creation, great service and very good price compared to the rip of prices here.

I got this one

retails for between 250 and 300 here

mugsys_m8 – Member
Mrs Mugsy got me a similar Mondaine as Capt John above, mine does not have the day on it though, but still has the date.

Very happy with it. Nice and simple and suits my skinny wrists.

Ditto. As well as the design (which is a modern classic) the size on my skinny wrists looks good.

I’ve got a tissot prc 200 and love it, got it from empirewatches £185 when it retailed for 250. If I could have stretched the budget then a christopher ward chrono would be a big contender. If you fancy something a little different then try here werners flying watches.

Hard to look beyond japanese autos at this price – but oddly Seiko and Citizen stock hardly any in this country so it either means finding a grey import dealer or mail ordering.

Creation Watches are great.

Current everyday watch is a Seiko SNZH55 (on a black leather strap) which is a lovely homage to the 1950s dive watches – glossy bezel, raised crystal and all.

I have a few Seiko 5s and a Citizen titanium divers, most I’ve paid is about £120, all autos, all very nicely made. So far I’ve struggled to see quite why I’d want to pay ten or twenty times that for the swiss equivalent.

CaptJon – Member

Got this for my birthday from my parents. The clarity is amazing; the quickest glance and you can see what time it is.

I really like your Mondaine.

Is that the Swiss railway one? I seem to recall something about them modelling it after the clocks at Swiss railway stations. Anyway, it’s a great example of simple understated style.

I’d probably opt for a nice Japanese auto given the budget. I’m wearing a Luminox Chrono at the moment (not those Navy Seal ones, for I am not a Navy Seal!).

My everyday watch 4r16 military watch SRP011K … 🙂

Bought it at one of the Durham watch shop near the bridge for I think under £199.

I also rather fancy this one … Orient WZ0141ER … can’t find one in the UK at the moment.

I’ve got a couple of Orients

Orient Star 300m by Matthewjb, on Flickr

DSCN0867 by Matthewjb, on Flickr

A lot of watch for the money. Although can be tricky to get repaired if anything goes wrong.

2nd for Creation Watches. I bought a Seiko Orange Monster from them a few months ago at ~£120. Fedex’d to my door within a week. Bargain!

Nice Orient matthewjb …

For the Orient if it goes wrong then just buy another one as they are not expensive at all but then I doubt it will go wrong at easily.

The Orient WZ0141ER is rather difficult to find at the moment. Should have got it when it was available …arrghhh ….

Hopefully, I will be able to own one of this in future … Seiko 5M22-6C20 AGS Military SUS …

[img]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bpOE-ZVeAi4/TQyFlBdCanI/AAAAAAAAB0w/SU6whCVGbbM/s320/002.jpg[/img]

Can anyone tell me what jewels are in a watch? Are 23 much better than 21?

csb – Member

Can anyone tell me what jewels are in a watch? Are 23 much better than 21?

Scroll down the page …

Mechanical watch – Jewels

Thanks. The answer appears to be ‘no’, more jewels aren’t necessarily better.

coolhandluke – Member
Citizen ecodrive?
POSTED 1 DAY AGO # REPORT-POST

Argos just had some on a great offer – £200 reduced to £80. I decided to treat myself to one.

I have one from the people below. Very well made a a propper Swiss auot movement

Steinhart

bravohotel9er – Member
I really like your Mondaine.

Is that the Swiss railway one? I seem to recall something about them modelling it after the clocks at Swiss railway stations. Anyway, it’s a great example of simple understated style.

Thanks. I didn’t wear a watch for about 5 years because i didn’t like any of the styles (and i was under the false impression having a phone was a replacement for a watch). But then i saw this one, loved the style and decided to get it for my 30th. I’ve worn it everyday for the past 3 months.

The Smiths Everest on timefactors new arrivals looks interesting:

http://www.timefactors.com/new1.htm

£150

Spec.

No battery change ever required!
World Time: Local time and date for 22 world time zones (30 cities).
Perpetual for 100 years.
Quick Interchangeable Time from analog to digital.
Hand-Retracting System (world first)
Three City Alarms
Timer: 99 minutes
Help Function (LCD)
Chronograph feature: 24 hours, 1/100 second
Rapid Change to Standard or Daylight Saving Time.
Max 100m water Resistant
Rotating Side-Rule Bezel.
100 m water resistant
Titanium Case and band.
99 minutes countdown timer.
Screw-Back case.
Alarm & self-Adjusting Calendar
4-Years Power Reserve
Power Saver Function
Low Charge Indicator
Diameter: 40mm
Thickness: 12mm

That one’s just lacking any detail. 😆

I’ve got one of both of these (both are about £250):

This would be my choice:

A lot cheaper than you wanted though:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004X4KVUI/ref=asc_df_B004X4KVUI6535431?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B004X4KVUI

This is the Citizen Eco-Drive Argos had on offer – and it was £70.

Back to £200 now though.

MMMM… Citizen BM6560-54H

Simple, Ti, never runs out of battery and a smidge under budget at £180
I bloody love mine 😀

When my old tag finally gives up the ghost I’m going to get one of these or something by the same person.

http://www.watchshop.com/mens-jorg-gray-6500-obama-commemorative-edition-chronograph-watch-jg6500-p99939237.html?source=froogle

Given to Barack Obama by the Secret Service. I like it a lot.

Some lovely watches

I like the citizens, seikos, steinhart , mondaine

The ollech & wajs seem really good value, struggling to find out where to get one from though

Well if you fancy my Citizen then £150 and its yours.

I need the money for bike bits!!!!!

After reading this, have brought myself a Mondaine-Seems to be a very nice watch so far, very clear to read

Do Festina make good watches?

Definitely mechanical, preferably automatic.
I can recommend the Seiko Monster, mines orange like the one on the right. Standard colours are orange or black and should be well under budget, limited edition colours (blue, yellow, red, purple) are more expensive. I’ve always hankered after the Citizen Orca on the left, it is flippin’ massive though:

The lume on both is awesome, you can read by it.