Watches N+1…

Had a punt around the Rolex shops yesterday. Your looking at 12 months wait for a Sub in black and a 2 year wait in green.

Building in exclusivity ?

Rolex marketing, they could make as many Submariners as they wanted.

Have Breitling Transocean on mesh bracelet and Omega DeVille on croc strap.
Both plain and simple.
Lowey – re your £6.5k budget….new or pre-owned? If pre-owned I would be looking at Ian Blowers and Austin Kaye; my preference would be one of the Omega museum range or possibly a Panerai.

They make 2000 watches per week at Rolex, the waiting list is driven by them to create exclusivity. New Daytonas are £10k more or less, anything up to £20k for a ‘new’ second hand one.

Rolex marketing, they could make as many Submariners as they wanted

Yep. When yours is the most in-demand brand, make less not more to maintain exclusivity.

And then hike up the prices year on year.

@lowey – a stainless steel Rolex sports watch will always be a good choice from a value retention perspective. For me, I only really like the Explorer (more so now they fixed the hands issue) but not enough to buy one.

You do definitely need to spend some time looking and deciding what’s right for you. And be mindful that it’s easy to be drawn by the big brands with big marketing budgets. And beware the complete lunacy of watch forums – a spat on one of those makes a politics discussion on here look like the proverbial kindergarten..!

Enjoy.

PS have a look at the watch forum on Pistonheads.

It isn’t too crazy and there’s a wide variety represented from watches costing in the £ hundreds to a guy asking for help to spend £40k….

They also recommend a particular dealer: Dom Hackett (based in Hatton Garden IIRC) who can generally get watches at a decent price.

And then hike up the prices year on year.

Yep, Rolex have done that very well. Bought my first Submariner in 1989 and it cost £710 new. Bought a couple after that through the years for around £1000 used and gave up wearing watches about 10 years ago and coming back and looking at today’s submariner prices I can’t believe how much they cost. Saying that, I always sold mine for more than I paid so the price increases don’t seem so bad then.

N+1 strikes again. About to click buy on the below, may swap out the bracelet for a leather strap.

I have the Presage with the ice blue face on patent leather. They are beautiful watches.

Actually Rolex make 850,000 + watches a year! It’s a factory made mass produced product.

Although I understand the intricacy of those Seiko Prestige, somehow I’m not attracted to them – individual taste is a bizarre thing…

Lowey where is that? If get your name down for the Hulk (green sub). And make 5+ k in 2 years time. As I said the other day I went into WoS on regent Street and they would take my name for a black sub, for the Hulk they would also but said ‘ your wont get though’. I tried in may to get on the list for a Daytona and they simply refused. I’ll have to try elsewhere clearly, so interested to know where you are being told 2 years.

Although I understand the intricacy of those Seiko Prestige, somehow I’m not attracted to them – individual taste is a bizarre thing…

Totally. I’m not hugely keen on chunky dive watches, I prefer a larger face over a big bezel.

Although I understand the intricacy of those Seiko Prestige

It’s Presage. Prestige make pressure cookers!

Yes sorry – bloody autocorrect!

Still looking 🙂

Quite fancy a Marloe coniston or maybe a pre loved cwc g10

So to complete my little story, buying stuff on Amazon’s Japanese site is a doddle. Ordered Christmas Eve turned up on Friday. Amazon sort out all the import duty stuff so no hold ups. Easy.

Rocking a Stealth G-Shock now and feeling pleased with myself.

Pictures of the Jap import please.

This is from another forum

The chap must have really skinny wrists as I have delicate flower wrists and it looks smaller than that.

For those that don’t know these, it’s design is based on the original G-Shock from 35 years ago. EXACTLY the same functionality can be had from a £75 one from Argos. This one differs in the screen face is more muted and the case is steel embedded in resin rather than just resin. Oh, and it has a screw down back rather than 4 screws holding it on.

This version is only available on the Japanese market. I like it.

It’s nice. What model no. is it?

Edit – got it GW-5000 1JF. About £200?

That’s the one.

From Amazon it works out at just under £250 with delivery/import fees etc.

Originally I wanted a solid beater watch, but got carried away once I started digging into forums. I’ll still treat it as such though. Would be wrong not too.

This is the more standard issue

A friend of mine has a brother who was in a certain regiment based in Hereford.

While he was still “in” we visited him and had a weekend on the beer. He showed us loads
of photographs from expeditions etc. and some very interesting memorabilia.

While we were drinking a few Flower’s IPAs in one of the rural boozers, I complimented his watch. It was the original G-Shock shown above.
He offered it to me as a gift but I politely declined.
Wish I’d have taken it now. A classic watch with some interesting “stories” no doubt.

I like the fact it’s a fit and forget sort of watch, doesn’t need cosseting, it sorts it’s accuracy out from the atomic clock radio broadcasts and powers it’s self from the magic thing in the sky.

Interesting that the newer versions have more recessed buttons than the originals.

I have always wanted a square G-Shock and very pleased with this one. The original is still Uber cool.

plus one, my local and very friendly jeweller who specialises in used watches has a CWC g10 in the window. I’ll chekc the price with him if you like

I’ve just got the cheaper resin version, the 5600 1-ER.

Love the classic square case, solar, self adjust, nicer to wear than my bulky 7900 but smaller buttons so harder to use.

Also have a load of cheap Casios, they just keep multiplying. 🙂

The only watches I’ve ever considered for over £100 are the Orient Bambino, O07J and most of all the Seiko Alpinist mentioned earlier.

https://watchesyoucanafford.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/seiko-sarb017-alpinist-03-br.jpg

However, a couple of duff 5’s over the years has put me off mechanicals for now……

Neilnevill. Thanks for the offer I’ve succumbed to one already off eBay 🙂

Any recommendations for second hand vintage watch shops around London/ Essex area?

Wally, my local is in crystal palace, he’s good. There are several used watch dealers on the strand and Burlington arcade near regent Street, but both are costly.

If you have any idea what you want and budget, I can look in the window for you and maybe take some photos. He always has more inside though including the higher end stuff. Window has lots of tag, 60s, 70s and 80s omega, Cartier stuff at £5-700 ish plus a few at a bit more, last time I was in for a chat he showed me a couple of Rolex datejusts he had in….seem. 4-6k iirc.

I can pop over Wednesday, where are they?

Crystal Palace Jewellers London

76 Church Rd, London SE19 2EZ
020 8653 7507

https://g.co/kgs/QsLJSv

It’s 3 or 4 minutes walk from the bus parade, 5 from crystal palace or gipsy hill station.

Daryll is very knowledgeable and friendly, normally will chat for hours about watches…. It’s normally me thinking ‘i need an excuse to leave!’

Stay away from the two 36mm bond seamaster professionals. (one quartz, think the other is auto as it’s stopped and Daryll always does new batteries). They aren’t for you… No no no. 😉

That shop is a couple of min walk away from me, always has a lot of 50’s to 80’s Omega, longines and the odd zenith. Just be aware that some are redials. Nothing wrong in this just some people don’t know and think it’s just really good condition, there’s 3 omegas in the window now all with the same silvered 3-6-9 Arabic numerals that look box-fresh (redials). Prices are reasonable too.
There’s a couple of shops in clerkenwell worth a look too.

Daryll has an Omega trained guy that services the watches and (not sure if it’s the same guy or another guy) who cleans/freshens dials. Most look (Imv) patina’d nicely.
I find Daryll very honest, if you are unsure of something just ask and he will explain. If the dial looks good, ask if its redialed.
His prices are very reasonable… Although up considerably on a few years ago. I’ve a 1960 seamaster manual wind that I got from him err… 6 years ago for £300, now I see similar in his window at £500+. However if it were in the place on the Strand it would be £800 or so and DEFINITELY a redial.

Time to disgust everyone.

I’ve just pressed the button on a Fenix 3, which means the Seiko Prospex Kinetic GMT (SUN019P1) is going out of rotation and into storage.

https://goo.gl/images/5pWJLV

The Oris Pro Pilot GMT and the 7754 Valjoux Torgoen are safe though.

No GMT fetish here. Oh no.

I think Japanese watches are highly underrated. I own a few Seiko and Citizen (and a Tag).

This is interesting https://deployant.com/5-facts-about-citizen-watch-company-which-you-may-not-know/

Thats very interesting. My horologist friend recommended I but an eco-drive, explaining to me that Citizen were to him as Giant bikes were to me. That makes sense now, but I never realised they were 100% Japanese made.

That Super Titanium looks nice – and 1s per year accuracy for the Calibre 0100!

I’m loving this thread, its a great learning curve.

Neilnevill out of curiosity how much is the London Jewellers looking for the G10?

I wonder what impact smart/activity watches will have on the nice watch market. Having just the other week got a Garmin Instinct my daily wear for the past 15 years Seamaster has hardly been on my wrist.

thatscold – nice link.

Loving this (slightly, but not very, Swiss) Citizen

https://goo.gl/images/96hg8E

Beautiful.

Now if it were GMT…

I wonder what impact smart/activity watches will have on the nice watch market. Having just the other week got a Garmin Instinct my daily wear for the past 15 years Seamaster has hardly been on my wrist.

Likewise while I’m at home recently. I wear a vivosmart on the other wrist permanently anyway for sleep & HR observations mainly and don’t need the instinct so when I leave the house I wear a proper watch. I have my eco drive on now (AT4008-51E) the instinct is charging but I alternate between the eco drive and Tag Aquaracer for work/with suit.

I think likely i’ll be saving up to get the 12yo Tag Serviced and cleaned – it was a wedding present – and box that for Sunday best and rotate the Eco Drive and the Samurai instead.

Most likely what will happen is that each will be worn on the whim of the day.