Poll: What kind of watch do you own?

[Sclass]

@Seppia - I see Sclass already answered. Also, I haven't advanced as far as he has (yet?) ...I haven't destroyed anything yet...,

@Sclass - BTW, what do you use as/for a staking tool? I was wondering whether you might be using something clever.

Don’t bet on it. I’ve quit after a dozen restorations. I can clean, lube, send a dial out for refinishing, restore hands, change a crystal, replace parts, look up stuff at http://cgi.julesborel.com/cgi-bin/matcgi2?ref=LON_396.2 then install it, that’s about it. I cannot do things like make a new staff, poise. Staking...I’ve pressed jewels using my CNC machine under manual control. Uhm...like once. I don’t have one of those mini arbor presses.

Most of my movement destruction happened when I was a under 25. I can now see the reasons clearly. First I was impatient for results. Second, no source of cheap Chinese and Indian watchmakers tools. I couldn’t afford Bergeon. No YouTube or internet. Frei Borel was a shop an hour away with impatient salespeople...not a web store. My hit rate went way up a decade ago.

Now I’m kind of bored with it. At one time I was fascinated by the inner workings of watch and clock mechanisms. But the more I learned the more I realized it was all kind of the same thing. The balance wheel mechanism/escapement wheel train etc. hasn’t changed much in 100 years. It is just subtle variants on the same thing. Even cars have more mechanical diversity than mechanical watches. That is, most mechanical watches run on half a dozen well known mechanisms. Even chronographs and complications just seem to add more transmissions, levers and brakes. So that more of the same made me lose interest. There are much more diverse machine systems to tinker with out there. Diverse meaning ways to do stuff. Digital systems being the obvious one.

[Seppia]

The lack of diversity in movements is exactly what makes it attractive as a potential “FIREd side hustle” to me.
Learn to service ETA 2824, 2892, Rolex 3130, seiko 7s26 and 6r15 and you can service probably 90%+ of the automatic watches on this planet.

[2Birds1Stone]

Garmin 920XT that I bought used in 2016.

[C40]

I have a couple of Casio G-Shock watches. One is the most plain version, and the other has an ABC sensor (altitude, barometric pressure, and compass). The altitude comes in handy or is just fun to check when on hikes, bike rides, etc. On a hike that is straight uphill, it works very well for checking my position along the trail. The main thing I like about these watches is the convenience of having the stopwatch and timer functions visible on my wrist and more easily controlled than using a phone. I use those for more things than I would have expected. (making tea, roasting coffee, boiling eggs, exercise time tracking, meditation timing, etc...)

[Sclass]

@Sclass: ... (in the same way as a Civic is much more reliable than a Ferrari).
The quality on Patek is real
Sorry for the confusion

Luxury watches today are all extremely overpriced (but so are all luxury goods ...,

2- they are “just” the engine. Many other things go into the quality of a watch. Same comparison that you made with cars, many Audi run on the same engines as Skodas, yet the cars are very different in many aspects.

many excellent quality Rolex fakes, which is not the case for other brands. Google “TC Sub V7 extreme” and you will NEVER buy a five digit sub online again

No confusion Seppia. You get it. A Ferrari and Civic have their roles. Actually your comment about Skoda engines in Audi is spot on. That is exactly what Longines is doing when they put an ETA 2825 in a luxury watch. The example that comes to mind locally (shame no Skoda here) is a Toyota Camry engine in a Lexus ES. It’s a great car and it is reliable. But at the end of the day you’re getting the heart of a Toyota at the Lexus price. Yes, there is more vibration control, sound insulation and leather but the most expensive part of the car is cheap and mass produced. Excellent quality and highly reliable but cheap and mass produced. So I feel there is a degree of deception going on.

This happened during the resurrection of the mechanical watch industry. It was almost killed by quartz and then you started seeing some houses using ETA automatics and marketing them as something unique and exclusive. This marketing strategy really took off in the late 1990s. It saved the big Swiss houses. During the transition you could buy Longines Quartz watches (Mon Dieu! ). Pretty soon the line between luxury watch and fashion watch got blurred. You were no longer buying craftsmanship but you were being marketed craftsmanship. While it saved the industry, it changed fine watchmaking.

The Rolex uses their own movement. And perhaps this is why the used market values an old Rolex more highly than an ETA powered Longines. The market votes with its money. They really fall into a small group of Swiss houses that make their own movements.

Wow...and that TC Rolex fake is impressive. My friend has something like that. He has a datejust he calls a “Swiss replica” he bought in Europe. It looked very convincing up close. Without opening the case it is hard to tell. I’m not a Rolex expert but I was able to turn the set stem clockwise and see the hands rotate counter clockwise which told me the movement was probably ETA. Hopefully the women he picks up at the bar won’t try that.

My wife once warned me that some watches in Watch Magazine could be faked. They had the cases open. Patek or Vacheron I recall. I told her if the fakes could do the work necessary to make the movement look like this I’d pay them for their work.

Fine:

Check the radius on the machined edges. The parts are ground, not stamped. Counter sunk screw holes. Chamfered screw heads. A mix of polishing and fine graining on the surface. Done by hand.

Mass Produced:

Although decorated, this is a cheap mass produced movement. Check the edges. Sharp. Stamped from sheets. The bluing on the cheap screws looks painted on, not true heat bluing which has a iridescent glow. The screws are not chamfered on the edges. The machining is gouged up in places. Coarse irregular graining done with a rotary cutting tool to appear “high end”. There are irregularities on the edges. Trash. This is a $2000 watch.

Both are quality watches. It’s just the deception of craftsmanship in the second one I dislike. Well, I like them, I own many ETA Swiss watches but I paid the appropriate price.

Nice Submariner BTW. I didn’t notice the first time through it didn’t have a date. Very cool.

[Lillailler]

I have three watches, a 'beater' which I wear whenever or wherever there is a risk of damage or loss - ski trips, rock concerts, the gym - and two nice Swiss watches. When my father became established in his profession, he bought himself a nice Swiss watch. I think part of the reason for this was that as a teenager he was groundcrew in the air force, and all pilots and navigators were issued with Swiss watches because precise and reliable timing is essential to air navigation, and he looked up to the pilots and wanted one day to be like one of them. Anyhow, when my brother was commissioned an officer in the Army, my father bought him a nice Swiss watch. A few years later, when I got my University degree I thought, maybe he'll buy me a nice Swiss watch too? Later I got a good 'career' job, professional qualification, etc, and still no watch, so I bought myself one . I used it - still do - as my everyday wear, except that in the way of things I have inherited my father's watch, so I have two, which I tend to alternate. Reading Sclass's post above, with the photo of his collection of beautiful watches, I had a little insight of some sort, maybe a glimpse of a higher Wheaton level, that in buying my own watch I was not buying an instrument for telling the time so much as telling myself I had reached a milestone, I was as good as my brother, as good as my father. I wonder if this explains part of 'label-consumerism', a futile quest for self-affirmation, which can soak up all the money you give it? And is part of FIRE to get your self-affirmation in ways which do not make you poor? There is certainly a huge difference between on one hand "if I want a beautiful watch I will spend a couple of months salary and buy one", and on the other hand "I will get some second hand watchmakers tools and buy cheap non-working watches at flea markets and practice mending skills to make a side income and as a by-product fix up a nice watch for myself".

[EdithKeeler]

I’m currently wearing a Swatch. I also have a 10 year old Citizen, but its band is broken at the moment.

[frihet]

Casio G-Shock watches. I use those for more things than I would have expected. (making tea, roasting coffee, boiling eggs, exercise time tracking, meditation timing, etc...)

I also wear a G-Shock,I didn't use a watch for years but when I started working at the rigs I had to. Because you are not allowed to bring your phone with you for safety reasons. Had a cheap one for the first 3 years which I only used for work but decided to treat myself to something better when it broke down.

As C40 I use especially the timer every day, as well as checking the time in my partners time zone. Very handy to know if you are awake at the same time before making contact. Compass and cycles of the moon, not so much....

It's also mud resist, very handy in my industry and something I sometimes joke with colleagues about. I don't think they mean oil based drilling mud though......

[mferson]

Have a Citizen Ecodrive and I'm amazed at the build quality. It is pretty accurate.

[okumurahata]

Resurrecting this thread. I own a Hamilton Khaki automatic, a Tag Heuer Aquaracer from the 90s (a gift from my dad), and recently got an Apple Watch Series 8. I fell in love with the automatic movement of the Tag Heuer Aquaracer when I was a kid. It felt like magic that the watch started moving just by shaking your wrist. Nowadays, there's no need to carry a mechanical watch, but I think there are some nice items to have for special occasions, and I might consider buying something more in the future.

The Apple Watch gets the most wrist time nowadays, it's also an expensive gadget, which has a finite lifespan of around five years, I'd say. I use it mainly as a fitness tracker, step counter, timer at the gym, to pay for things at the supermarket, as an alarm in the morning (the vibration doesn’t make me hate my life like an annoying sound would), a walkie-talkie with my girlfriend when nearby, GPS on my motorbike, to answer important calls in the shower (ridiculous, but it’s happened), and to track sleep and heart rate. It was one of those things I thought I wouldn’t use much since I already had a mobile phone, but I've found it more useful than I expected. I started with an SE and now have the Series 8. I like the concept of the Ultra, but it’s too expensive and bulky.

A funny anecdote: I always keep my phone on silent mode because it would be madness otherwise. One day, my girlfriend and I were in a king-sized bed in Thailand, doing queen/king things, and suddenly my wrist started vibrating. I saw the name of the ‘director’ on my wrist. I went from king to peasant in one second and, with a fast breathing, answered the call on my watch.

[basuragomi]

Seiko solar watch because it doesn't need battery replacement and a Casio F91W that I found washed up on a beach.

[candide]

When I am not teaching, I don't carry a watch; instead, I just use my phone or whatever computer is nearby to tell time.

To me, it is nice to have one less thing, and I like to have a broad margin to my schedule, and I've always shown up early to things. When I buy watches, they are the cheapest thing I can find at Walmart. Here's the fate of an old one:



It's in my garage.

[RogueCipher]

The lack of diversity in movements is exactly what makes it attractive as a potential “FIREd side hustle” to me.
Learn to service ETA 2824, 2892, Rolex 3130, seiko 7s26 and 6r15 and you can service probably 90%+ of the automatic watches on this planet.

This is a really interesting angle. What are the paths to learning watch repair? The way I imagine it is by buying broken watches, getting some tools, and trying to fix them.

[jacob]

This is a really interesting angle. What are the paths to learning watch repair? The way I imagine it is by buying broken watches, getting some tools, and trying to fix them.

I looked into it way back during the blogging years. I've actually disassembled and reassembled a manual movement. Indeed, I just bought some oilers figuring it's time to try again. Much has changed in the past fifteen years when you still had to piece together material from old books and correspondence courses. Today there are several youtube channels that will teach you most if not all you need to know for free. Tools are readily available on eBay and you can also buy new tools or "consumables" like rodico from e.g. ofrei.com. The standard top of the line tool manufacturer is still Bergeon, but these days there are also plenty of Chinese and Indian knockoffs that cost 1/5th of the Bergeon tools.

That said, while watchrepairing used to be a solid business/side-income, this all ended about 40 years ago with the cheap quartz watch was introduced. These days only nerds and rich people wear mechanical watches. There may be some profit in that (if you can convince anyone to let you work on their $2000 watch) but unless you can find ways to source old watches outside of eBay (pawn shop?), there's little profit fixing old watches.

I'd recommend getting an actual working movement (of eBay) or a cheap (typically Russian) mechanical watch and playing around with that.

I should also note that you can go two ways. One is to concentrate on servicing the movement and/or just changing batteries. The other is designing and building a watch out of parts (hands, dial, case, ...) that you choose yourself. In regards to the later, if all you want to do is design and maybe put your own signature on it, there are even companies called white label makers that will build one (or 100) for you; really not that different from cafepress making a t-shirt.

[RogueCipher]

I looked into it way back during the blogging years. I've actually disassembled and reassembled a manual movement. Indeed, I just bought some oilers figuring it's time to try again. Much has changed in the past fifteen years when you still had to piece together material from old books and correspondence courses. Today there are several youtube channels that will teach you most if not all you need to know for free. Tools are readily available on eBay and you can also buy new tools or "consumables" like rodico from e.g. ofrei.com. The standard top of the line tool manufacturer is still Bergeon, but these days there are also plenty of Chinese and Indian knockoffs that cost 1/5th of the Bergeon tools.

That said, while watchrepairing used to be a solid business/side-income, this all ended about 40 years ago with the cheap quartz watch was introduced. These days only nerds and rich people wear mechanical watches. There may be some profit in that (if you can convince anyone to let you work on their $2000 watch) but unless you can find ways to source old watches outside of eBay (pawn shop?), there's little profit fixing old watches.

I'd recommend getting an actual working movement (of eBay) or a cheap (typically Russian) mechanical watch and playing around with that.

I should also note that you can go two ways. One is to concentrate on servicing the movement and/or just changing batteries. The other is designing and building a watch out of parts (hands, dial, case, ...) that you choose yourself. In regards to the later, if all you want to do is design and maybe put your own signature on it, there are even companies called white label makers that will build one (or 100) for you; really not that different from cafepress making a t-shirt.

I appreciate long messages! Today, I looked into a few venues, including this example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDa1ZZFwoBU. I also explored eBay for offers on broken watch movements and similar items. Investing in tools will be necessary, but I think I'll start by experimenting with movements as a hobby. I usually work with computers, so engaging in something tangible and physical is a net positive in my playbook.

When you say "servicing the movement," does that mean that anything broken in that particular model and restoring it to a pristine state constitutes fixing it? For example, specializing in servicing the Seiko 7S26.

Thank you for the inspiration and for your book! I'm re-reading it now for the second time.

[jacob]

When you say "servicing the movement," does that mean that anything broken in that particular model and restoring it to a pristine state constitutes fixing it? For example, specializing in servicing the Seiko 7S26.

[Servicing a watch movement] just means understanding what makes it tick and learning everything that makes it [keep] going and being able to do so. Usually I recommend those who mostly look at screens and need to "touch grass" to start with the ditto problem of fixing bicycles. Mechanical watches are the next level up. Motorcycles or cars are also good choices.

[Revan]

Gshock