More obsessive wristwatch malarkey.

I have the limited edition Nurburgring STI version of this, just serviced, bargain at around 150GBP on sale.

My apologies MrSmith, I misinterpreted your post, you are pretty much saying the $250K watch is about looks.

jewellery for men. 😐

you say that like it’s a bad thing? rockape63

All of the Orients listed so far are quite horrendous

How can the Bambino be horrendous? It’s so subtle it could be classed as dull, albeit generally by those who haven’t seen one on the flesh but horrendous?

Yes I own one, it’s a mk1, not the ugly looking mk2 (that is a terrible design) or the slightly confused classic/modern looking mk3 above.

Just picked up my Stargate 2 – now just waiting on the sapphire and MM hands…

Orient black mako XL next on my watch list. 135 from Amazon.

I suppose it’s all relative. I can see the logic of spending fifty to a hundred quid on something that does everything you want, well. It must be that my hundred quid is another mans grand, five grand, relatively speaking. It really is just showing off though, if you’re honest. JUST like posh cars, houses not so much. Thing is, at least with the cars, the houses, the bikes (to a point at least) you get something really noticeably better. The watch is still just a watch at the end of the day; some of the really posh ones don’t even keep time all that well, or so I understand…

There is an international standard of accuracy, that watches have to comply with in order to be classed as a chronometer. A chronometer, is by definition, going to be a pretty expensive timepiece, because it would be used for navigation.
Not so crucial now we have GPS.

There was a post around christmas time about watches, one of the brands mentioned was nite, I got interested and bought one of their vision range, its heavy and very black but I really like it, it is so solid feeling and different to anything I have had before

Just remembered this:
http://www.chronocentric.com/watches/accuracy.shtml

Are quartz watches always more accurate than mechanical ones?

Typically they are, but not always. Accuracy and precision are not exactly the same thing.

It is important to remember that even when a mechanical watch is allowed to vary +6/-4 seconds per day, that does not mean it will consistently vary by that high an amount each day. Mechanical movements–except the very rare ‘turbillon’ movements that correct for it–are noticably affected by the gravitational pull of the Earth. It only takes a performance distortion of 1/1000th of a percent for a watch movement to be one second less accurate in a day. This causes the performance of mechanical movements to be somewhat different from day to day when not stored in a fixed position. The good news is that the actual variations of a mechanical watch will often cancel each other out. This means a mechanical watch will tend to be more accurate over a longer period than the single-day COSC measurement may imply.

The day-to-day performance of quartz is much more consistent than mechanical under identical conditions. Quartz performance is affected mainly by temperature changes and weakened batteries. So a quartz watch that you measured to gains 0.5 second yesterday will be consistently increasingly off correct time by about that amount. You can be pretty certain that in 60 days, it will be about 30 seconds off. At the end of a year, it would be likely be over 180 seconds off.

Compare that to a mechanical watch that you measured to gain 2 seconds yesterday. It would seem that our example quartz watch is 4 times more accurate than this. But while the daily measured daily variations seem much higher, they are not likely to be as consistent, so will have a dampening effect. You cannot accurately predict that this mechanical would therefore be off by 120 seconds at the end of the same 60 days. It might be right on time, or it may be 200 seconds off. That broader range of variations allows most mechanical watches to stay closer to correct time than the daily variation rate implies. Over a year, some mechanicals can on average stay closer to correct time without having to be reset than a quartz watch might.
The last bit, in bold, is certainly my experience
Of course, as the article points out, in the real world, for most purposes, any difference in accuracy is utterly irrelevant;
What’s important is the pleasure an owner gets from wearing a particular timepiece; I get little pleasure from wearing the Casio, it’s bulky and not very comfy to wear, and it’s almost impossible to read in the dark, because the lume is really poor, and the backlit digital section is really dim too.
My Seiko is really bright, has huge markers and hands, and is bright enough to read clearly at 3-4am, if necessary.
Still, it’s unlikely anyone would want to steal the Casio, they might take the Seiko, however, because it looks like very pricey watch.
And of course, a quality watch is an item of jewellery, for both men and women; I know women who like wearing a quality timepiece; one of the women I work with has a really nice, understated titanium-cased Seiko man’s watch, and she loves it to bits, much as I do my Seiko, I wouldn’t swap it for anything, a more expensive watch wouldn’t do what it does any better, and I’ve seen very few that are as aesthetically pleasing, and that’s the most important thing.
Plus, it was effectively bought for me by my mum, with money I was left.
Why wear something cheap and ugly, when you can wear something nice that give the wearer pleasure.
Actually, wearing a cheap Casio is very much a socio-political statement in itself, and is as much an item of male jewellery, like wearing cheap bead or woven bracelets and necklaces, showing everyone how cool the wearer is, not being tied to material things, blah, blah, blah…

Hey. You can some pretty nice casios, you know. Mines solar powered, waveceptered, made of titanium AND you can read it in the dark…

My problem with expensive watches is a simple one: I’d end up breaking them. Or at least badly scratching them. No point spending lots of money on a watch which is gust going to look like a tank drove over it in six months.

Best I found for durability was a titanium Protrek – solar so didn’t have to worry about batteries, it got pretty bashed and covered in paint but kept working, but I’ve now lost it.

Thanks to Count Zero – I didn’t realise any of that. Very interesting.

Agree with the second half of the post too.

Titanium Breitling here wear it as a daily and never had any problems. Servicing costs are high but only need doing every 3 odd years.

Horses for courses really – everyone is different and have different hobbies/passions etc.. Its what makes us Human.

Most of my mates look at my MTB and go why does it cost so much when you can get an Asda special… granted they are true.. you can still only go so fast etc etc but it wont ride as well blah blah at which point we just carry on drinking and move on to teh next topic

Same for watches,, same for most hobbies.. there is always a cheaper alternative bit of kit which gives you the same if not slightly less performance that what you have got but if you like what you have then thats all you ever need to please

Reserving the Bering for outside of work only – don’t want it going the same way as the Seiko from contact damage.

Using the off road timepiece for work (Origo). Times the coffee brew and everything…

jewellery for men

Correct, and that is no bad thing at all. I don’t wear any jewellery bar a wedding ring and a watch. The ring is a constant, the watch I can change depending on what I’m doing and where I’m going. Today I’m wearing a G-Shock, mainly as I rode my bike last night and forgot to change it this morning. Tomorrow I’m out socialising at some nice bars so I’ll wear something different, Sunday it’s Sunday lunch with the inlaws, so something different again. I’m lucky enough to own a few watches, most were bought to signify or remember something and I like them all very much.

And you know what, I don’t know why anyone would think of this as a bad thing.

Just for giggles, here is my current timepiece (on the rare occasions I wear one):

A bit flash maybe, but I’m worth it 😉

Crikey. Does it do this?

Pfft, at the moment I’m wearing one of these:

😉

That watch needs a DeLorean to pose with. 😯

Coincidentally that’s the one car I really want to own.

That is one cool watch.

The scrolling map display is ace – and the battery lasts 1000x longer than the iWatch battery 😉

bencooper – Member
The scrolling map display is ace – and the battery lasts 1000x longer than the iWatch battery

But can it randomly voice dial when you don’t want it to?

(I’m assuming this will be a feature enabled on the iWatch because Apple love it so much you can’t disable it on the iPhone.)

I do have another Casio which has a phone number memory, and a little speaker – you select the number you want, hold it up to the phone, and it tone-dials the number for you.

The coolest, and most utterly pointless watch I have has to be the Cosmo-Phase:

It has an orrery to show the positions of the planets and Halley’s Comet 😀

This thread has literally single handedly just +lots, to my ‘watches I’d like to own’ list.

Damnit.

I’d love a watch like this

But….

My problem with expensive watches is a simple one: I’d end up breaking them. Or at least badly scratching them

^ that means i’ll settle for my cheap yobokies seiko lookalike as i don’t really mind when i do this to it.

bennn – Member
This thread has literally single handedly just +lots, to my ‘watches I’d like to own’ list.

Damnit. 😀

I was also considering one of these…

Classy, prefer the Orient myself though.

Edit; is there a ‘such a thing’ as too many watches!?

Are we just posting pictures of our own watches yet…still in love with this, simple/classic design and if I’m wearing it means it’s finally the weekend!

Nice!,

Some lovely watches. I’ve always been tempted to get one of these. Anyone seen/had one in real life? Are they as awesome as they appear to be on teh interweb, or just plasticy 80’s junk?

love a watch like this

But….

My problem with expensive watches is a simple one: I’d end up breaking them. Or at least badly scratching them

I know what you mean, but having said that, I have a colleague who wears that same watch on a daily basis, work and out of work, and it’s not got a mark on it – Aren’t Rolex’s meant to be pretty tough?

His father bought it for him when he turned 21, but said he wasn’t spending all that money for it to sit in a drawer.

Plasticky 80’s junk – you say that like it’s a bad thing! I think they’re pretty unreliable, but that’s not the point really.

If we’re doing LEDs, though, there’s this:

Weighs a ton, has three batteries to drive it, but it can do calculations on time itself…

Drool… it’s like a digital typewriter for your wrist… man…

So whilst all the usual suspects are assembled – and still playing nicely without major squabbles 🙂

Can I ask a watch question?

I’ve never spent much on a watch. I never wear one for work because it would get trashed and I like having my hand connected to my arm (I’ve seen too many people with missing fingers etc – one even with a missing arm). I don’t even have a wedding ring for this reason.

But I’ve now done 26 years with the same company and I get £500 (voucher) to go towards a watch. The singlespeed framebuilder side of me likes mechanical, automatics etc. But what will be the reality if it hardly ever gets worn (so rarely gets wound / energised)? Would a “good” quartz be more sensible?

I never wear one for work because it would get trashed and I like having my hand connected to my arm

Maybe just don’t do it up so tight?

There is something lovely about a nice mechanical watch

Not that I’ve ever had enough to buy one for myself, but I can’t walk past a jewellers or watch shop without spending at least 10 minutes looking and thinking one day..

I’m not sure what it is about them, it just seems like a great combination of engineering and artistry

I’m not one for showing off at all, I just love well put together things