Open Mike: If You Like Light (OT)

[Ed. note: I just added a whole bunch of new "Featured Comments" to the "Unicorn Lens" post.]

Introduction: Well, I wrote this post yesterday but I lost it. It happens. It's difficult to keep everything organized on the computer desktop, and sometimes something vanishes into the ether. I'll start over again and keep it short.

Re the discussion about collecting in last week's "Open Mike," I've decided to deliberately start a collection. My intent is to make a small collection of generally inexpensive quartz watches.

On a more meta level, I want to try collecting something seriously for once in my life—just as an experiment, to see what it's like and how I do at it*.

I've bought four watches already. Which probably sounds exactly like you should be worried for my mental health (and maybe...), except all but one is inexpensive, and the not-inexpensive one would be cheap if we were talking about a lens. Harmless. (I'll keep telling myself that.)

TOP reader Hans Andersen provided my first crucial collecting insight, which is: no impulse purchases. Three of the five watches I've bought so far already seem like they don't quite belong in the collection, and I was wondering why when Hans mentioned this. The light bulb of comprehension flickered dimly. Sure enough, all three were impulse purchases, made late at night with an itchy mouse finger after looking at watches for hours. So that's enough of that now.

My favorite so far is this Seiko. It's a deliberately old-fashioned design (I have conservative taste in watches), with a 1930s Art Deco vibe. The ID code is SGEH79P1. The original retail price was $250 but the watch is nearing the end of its availability—watch designs sell out and once they're gone, they're pretty gone—and Amazon's end-of-model-cycle price on this one is actually lower than the gray market. There was a lower price at CreationWatches but they're sold out now.

It's "just" a cheap watch, but. If you take a step back for a minute, and look at this from an historical perspective and include the technological dimension, it's a wonder of modern manufacture—it's really quite incredible that you can get something this beautiful and this accurate for a measly hundred and six bucks, only 291 years after John Harrison's first marine chronometer and 52 years after the first commercial quartz watch.

You could pay $38,000 for a Patek Philippe Calatrava, I suppose. You'd be getting a watch that resembles this Seiko quite a lot and keeps much, much worse time. One review of the Patek said it was guaranteed to gain no more than two seconds a day and lose no more than three, and that it was "hard to imagine" anything better. Which for a mechanical watch is probably true, but it made me chuckle. A $35 Casio from Wal-Mart keeps better time and yet somehow remains within the bounds of my imagination. Amount of seconds my Seiko is off per day for the first few days: 0. Absolutely zero, with a zed. It's bang on with the atomic clock app.

I'm a quartz guy, if you can't tell. And a cheapskate: for me, the value proposition here is a plus, not a minus. (For the Patek Philippe owner it would be a minus I'm sure. Who wants a cheap, trifling hundred dollar watch? But it adds to the satisfaction for me. To each his or her own.)

So the standout design feature of the SGEH79P1? Almost no one would say this or even notice it, but: no lume. That is, there's no luminous paint on the hands or the indices. And that makes the silvered accents of the watch look lovely in the light. I even posted a short video at Amazon to suggest how the light plays off the watch as you look at it. It's not the most legible watch in the world, but it sure is pretty to look at as you turn it this way and that. If you like light.

And if you want lume, then go whole-hog and get something like that Padi Diver that Dori told us about, with its great big gobs of lume and lume all over the hands. Why be shy? Don't just dip a toe, over the side you go.

It's already clear that accuracy and precision appeal to me, so I'll be timing out my new Seiko to see how this one does in terms of accuracy. Just as a point of interest: decent mechanical watches are accurate to 10–15 seconds a day; decent quartz watches to 10–15 seconds a month; and decent HAQ (high-accuracy quartz) watches to 10–15 seconds a year. Particularly good examples of all three kinds can do better (like that Patek Philippe with its claimed accuracy of three seconds a day), and many examples will do worse, but those ranges are a good ballpark.''

New band! Lizard skin. Note that the color scheme
goes nicely with you-know-who there.

Here we go
Anyway, I wrote out my "principles of collection," and I bought a watch case to keep everything organized, and I'm keeping all the boxes and tags and receipts, and I hope I'll have the discipline to cull the collection and keep it optimized as I go. I'm giving myself a five-to-10-year window to complete the process.

The only thing I wonder about is whether watches will hold my interest enough; unlike photography, there's not that much of an intellectual tradition associated with quartz watches. Appreciation seems to be mostly based on design taste. Is that going to be enough for me, or I am the perfect candidate for a "one-watch collection"? Time, as they say, will tell.

Mike

["Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial page of TOP. It appears on Wednesdays, if it's on time.]

ADDENDUM: I'm already wondering how this is going to work...I have five watches, only three of which can be considered "part of the collection," yet they're already competing for "wrist time." I'm wondering how it's going to be when I have more. Frankly, I'm pretty sure I could be happy with one watch, and four might be overkill. On the other hand (everything becomes a pun when it comes to watches), I absolutely love all three of these. They're just beautiful objects. Maybe I should imitate like the late Swatch Group Chairman Nicolas Hayek (scroll down to the second picture)(!).

Book o' the Week:

Byways: Photographs by Roger A Deakins. Damiani, September 2021. Note: PRE-ORDER ONLY. The little birdies are telling me that these will go fast. This is the first monograph by the legendary Oscar-winning cinematographer Sir Roger A. Deakins (born 1949), best known for his collaborations with directors such as the Coen brothers, Sam Mendes and Denis Villeneuve.

Original contents copyright 2021 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Christopher May: "Somewhere at the intersection of the collection post and the favorite prime post, a spark was lit and I'm sort of contemplating starting an 8x10 Tessar-based lens collection. My most used lens for the format is my 12" Commercial Ektar. However, I've already added a few other Tessar derived lenses almost by osmosis:

— 14" ƒ/6.3 Bausch and Lomb Tessar IIb
— 12" ƒ/4.5 Wollensak Series II (tweaked for a little soft focus glow by Jim Galli)
— 12" ƒ/6.3 Ilex Acutar (supposedly designed to emulate the Commercial Ektar)
— 12" ƒ/4.5 Gundlach Radar (which Gundlach tried to claim wasn't a Tessar because it was five elements in three groups but this was just a patent evasion tactic)

"There seems to be no shortage of Tessar derived formulae lenses out there and in the 8x10 lens realm, these are generally on the affordable end of the spectrum. I've always liked the rendering of Tessars and even uncoated examples do all right with a hood thanks to their simple designs and lack of air-to-glass surfaces.

"I really should just spend more time taking photos but the desire to build a specific and focused collection does appeal...."

Mike replies: Ooh, good idea for a collection. Very focused, pardon pun. And I like the Jim Galli association, that's a nice touch for that lens.

Mike Chisholm: "A collection of watches?? Surely not...I sincerely trust you have ring-fenced your Patreon dollars for food, coffee, and the occasional camera or lens.

"That 'one watch collection' sounds perfectly adequate to me. All collectors (except book collectors) are insane. Have you seen Martin Parr's collection of Saddam Hussein watches? Mental! Although in a fun, kitsch kind of way. If it's light you like, though, why not collect light meters, rather than time meters? Besides, you could always replace your one watch whenever time itself gets an upgrade, or the watch wears out, whichever is the sooner."

Mike J. replies: Saddam Hussein watches!? Did you just make that up?

Mike C. replies: "Make it up? Martin's collection is firmly in the category of 'you couldn't make it up.' Exhibit A. Now there you have a collectible of a collection...."

Zyni Möe: "I do not know quite what 'intellectual tradition' means. Also I do not know if there is any kind of intellectual tradition (any meaning) around watch collecting: I suspect you may be right and there is only very small amount of it and it is mostly just shiny jewels for (mostly) men.

"However there is very certainly an intellectual tradition around timekeepers in general. Mostly of course for current timekeepers this is a scientific and mathematical tradition: to understand how an atomic clock works and what limits its accuracy you need good understanding of quite deep physics (I have passing interest in this as very accurate clocks are one thing which can help test General Relativity). To build such a thing, and maybe to fly it in a spacecraft to Mars where it can never fail and never need maintenance, requires extraordinary engineering skill: I know nothing of this but engineering of this kind certainly has its own intellectual tradition.

"As interesting as this is the tradition around mechanical clocks. People still make and study these long after they were replaced by quartz and then atomic clocks. And how a really good electro-mechanical 'free pendulum' clock works is a marvelous wonder: if you just look at one it is not clear at all how they work at all. And there are long disputes between people who think Harrison's ideas are good and those who think he did not understand things (he did not understand things...but his clocks keep very good time, so clearly he understood something else). The nature of errors in clocks was not understood until quite recently: a simple person like me would expect the error to go quite differently than horologists know it really does, and how that works was not sorted out until Philip Woodward did so I think. And some of the clocks made in the early 20th century were very good: someone measured a preserved Shortt clock against an atomic clock and found it was accurate to one second in twelve years and indeed that it was probably as accurate as such a clock could be, since its accuracy may well be limited by the gravitational influence of the water table which can't really be controlled (Sun and Moon tides were both easily seen but can be controlled for).

"Well, all of that is a scientific / mathematical tradition, but these are not less than artistic traditions. And there artistic traditions as well: mechanical timekeepers are often extremely beautiful, and you can go and see galleries of them in museums, and marvel at the beauty of the designs, only some of which is functional, and understand who influenced whom and who worked in whose workshop and so on. And this still goes on: I can not find good pictures of Philip Woodward's W5, but it is described in his book My Own Right Time which is itself a major work in both the scientific and artistic traditions. There is a clock derived from W5 described here. (I think it is not as beautiful, but astonishingly this is a clock you can, I think, buy).

"So, I don't know about watch collecting and I believe you may be correct. But about timekeeping and about mechanical and electromechanical timekeeping yes, there are intellectual traditions here.

"While writing this I discovered that Philip Woodward has died."

Mike replies: After getting your comment I modified the text of the post to state there's not much intellectual interest in quartz watches...at least that I can find so far. It seems barren next to the history and traditions of mechanicals. But I'm happy the original statement inspired this comment, thanks for this.

Al C.: "I was going to submit a list of disparaging comments on your favorite quartz 'dress' Seiko, but managed to catch myself just in time. I am instead going to defend the much-maligned quartz movement.

"There is no question the history of the development of the mechanical movement is rich with inspirations, innovations, and lore. On the other hand, imagine the inspirations and innovations that went into replacing the complications of the balance wheel, escapement etc. with a vibrate-when-excited tiny chip of an abundant, natural crystal! Why do we venerate the former, but not the latter? Because we can mass manufacture cheap and perfect units of the latter but not the former? Which is the greater achievement in time-keeping? Yes, the former allowed us to navigate the longitudes. But the latter has enabled us to explore the universe!

"When we collect something (for 'value,' not personal quirks), what are we saying? A thing is lust-worthy chiefly because it is rare, and impossible or difficult to reproduce? Congrats. The reductio ad absurdum to that logic has given us Bitcoins, and NFTs.

"Compounding the phenomenon is our strange attachment to analog and prejudice against digital. Static-prone LPs doomed by inner-groove distortions are prized over well recorded/remastered CDs. Mechanical movements, even crappy Soviet or Chinese copies become collectibles. Film is preferred over perfectly exposed, perfectly focused digital.

"It appears that none of us is immune to this odd prejudice/nostalgia. Mea culpa. But, it's nuts."

Mike replies: Re your initial point, you kinda did slag my Seiko, via apophasis—that's when you bring something up by saying you're not going to bring it up, as when a politician might say, "I'm not going to mention all the scandals that have plagued my opponent in recent years." But that's okay.

Re your point about quartz, I agree. I do like a lot of older, mechanical/physical things, from stick shifts to paper books to the very physical game of billiards as opposed to electronic and computer gaming. But I was just short of 13 when Seiko introduced the first commercial quartz watch, the Astron, and it wowed me—the technology seemed both mysterious and miraculous. I remember reading everything I could find about it and being frustrated that there wasn't more. Then I worked at the local pharmacy starting when I was 16, which sold watches, and that was right at the time—which turned out to be transient!—when "quartz" was the magic marketing word everybody wanted. I finally got my first quartz watch in '83, as a gift from my Mom. I know many people are fascinated by mechanical watch and clock movements, but I find quartz to be far more fascinating. It's got the magic, in my mind.

I found figures for 2015, according to which, 97% of all watches sold are quartz, but that a large percentage of the profits of watch sales were in luxury mechanical watches. (I would have had to pay to get the exact figures). Money usually drives perception, in my view. If those who make the most money have a vested interest in people believing mechanical watches are superior, then that's what people will believe.

Jayanand Govindaraj: "Welcome to the club. You are hooked for life, whether you know it or not. You will end up like me, collecting JLC and IWC, and seriously considering a foray into Grand Seiko. The only point I am extremely happy about is that I did not get hooked on to collecting cars, which is prohibitive both in terms of cash outflow and storage space, being content with physically small stuff like fountain pens and mechanical watches."

Mike replies: Check out this guy. Whew.

Comments

[DavidB]

I have a "one watch collection." It's a Zodiac Sea Wolf given to me in 1972 as a graduation gift. I had it repaired a few years ago and it works just fine. It's a beautiful watch but I only wear it a few times a year.

When it was new it was my daily watch which included a lot of time in the ocean. Waterproof, after all.

[Bob Rosinsky]

I've got three mechanical watches sitting in my bedside drawer, none of which work. They're pretty to look at, but serve no purpose. They weren't cheap, say around the neighborhood of $500 each, inflation adjusted. Oh well...

Around Y2K, I bought a used Accutron Spaceview ca. 1963 on eBay. I'd always wanted a see through tuning fork watch. Well, it hummed along nicely for about a week or two. Then it started humming off key like a mosquito in distress. Shortly thereafter, it died.

The last watch I purchased, a Casio atomic model for less than $50, worked great until the permanently attached band broke in half.

Then I got an Android phone, then an iPhone, then another iPhone. The phone keeps perfect time, except it's always bugging me to check for texts, calls and updates.

A few months ago, I found the ca. 1959 Baume and Mercier watch that my dad gave my mom for an anniversary present. The dial is less than half the size of a dime. My mom's eyes couldn't focus on the tiny hands, so she'd sometimes ask me to read the time for her. Once I purposely told her it was 4:30 instead of 3:30. I was bored with having to be on another seemingly endless shopping trip, and I was eager to get home to watch another rerun of Stingray on TV. My ploy worked.

The old Baume and Mercier still ticks. I could take it in and have it cleaned, or I could put it on eBay... Time will tell.

[Bob Johnston]

If you ever go to London be sure to see Harrisons clocks H1 to H4 at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Oh boy, I could have watched H1 all day.

[Dan Khong]

Mike

Your discourse on interest in collecting watches resonated with me. I occasionally buy a fully manual winding watch if I happen to walk by a flea mart and find a cheap one. Yes, no impulse purchase. But if it's cheap, one cannot help it.

Why fully manual? Because I don't like to spend money on batteries. And some batteries go out of fashion.

The Seiko on your hairy wrist doesn't look like a quartz watch. It's manual, no?

Dan K.

[Classic utilitarian Seiko quartz, from the "Essentials" collection. Battery powered, no monkey business (i.e., solar, kinetic, etc.). --Mike]

[Howard]

Mike- Don't let the Seiko name fool you into thinking it only produces "affordable" timepieces. Their Grand Seiko line is highly sought after by collectors and the prices reflect and compare to those Swiss made brands. Visit Hodinkee's website and see for yourself.

[Peter Williams]

Why don't you write the blog posts as documents in the file system of your computer?
That way you can save as you go and don't risk losing the whole thing to the whims of the blog editor/website as you've stated has happened multiple times.
When you're ready to put a post on the blog, just copy and paste the pre-written text from the document to the blog editor and submit it.
Thiswould also give you an offline archive of your blog posts.

[Ramón Acosta]

Mike, losing written articles is not normal. Consider using iCloud on some of your main folders ( I have it activated on the desktop and the documents folder) or maybe using google docs, when you create a document, it instantly is being saved, and you can retrieve deleted documents. Talking about watches I have a thing for titanium, I already have two, but I want a Seiko or a Citizen, and now also am leaning towards a Russian dive watch.

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

TOP pool aficionados are like: "What? Another post about watches?"

[V.I. Voltz]

Mike Chisholm is not joking:
https://designbyvictoria.com/project/saddam-hussein-watches-2/

Voltz

[darlene]

My ex bought me a Breitling watch early in our 25 year marriage. It’s been almost 15 years since our departure and that watch is still beautiful even if I can’t read the tiny dial without glasses now. I stopped wearing a watch when a smart phone entered my life. Have fun with your collecting endeavor!

[Stan B.]

Thought I'd have no problem resisting this, but down the rabbit hole I did go. I love small vintage watches and absolutely loathe the big, clumsy, oversized watches of today. Of course, price keeps me from having anywhere near a collection of the former. I did settle on a new 36mm beauty- a quartz microbrand field watch for $160. Love the utilitarian, compact styling of WWll field watches!

Previously, I would only gander over the overall gestalt, not having any clue as to what I was actually looking at- this time I actually waded into what actually makes watches... tick. Quartz, mechanical, automatic- and what you are actually paying for in luxury (mechanical) watches. Was also intrigued by the counterintuitiveness of quartz vs. mechanical- the movement of the second hand sweep of a mechanical watch is velvety smooth and just oozes precise perfection- yet, a clunky, robotic, second hand sweep is an instant give away of a cheaper, but more accurate quartz movement. As Spock would say- "Fascinating."

It was also a kick to compare and contrast the parallel world of the numerous watch videos and their own unique terminology, culture and aficionados. Last and not least, are the one of a kind luxury watches-ones in which different colored liquids are employed, or a 3D solar system timepiece encased in an actual wrist worn globe- all of which are from moderately to intensely hideous and expensive! "The Freak" featured below however, I found both uniquely innovative and beautiful...

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

[jp41]

Episode 37 of the Time Sensitive podcast (https://www.alange-soehne.com/en/timepieces/lange1-timezone) has a rich verbal advertisement for the A. Lange & Shone Lange 1 Time Zone watch (T-mark 2:30): "...its Lange 1 family of watches, which have an asymmetrical dial face, that follows the Golden Ratio principal." (https://www.amazon.com/Lange-Sohne-Mechanical-Worldtimer-116-032/dp/B002FK70MO)

This sounds expensive.

[Marc Gibeault]

You’re interested in precision?
Quartz doesn’t cut it, go directly for the atomic clock. A radio-controlled watch will regularly synchronize with the nearest atomic clock signal.
A model like this one, https://www.junghans.de/en/collection/watches/junghans-max-bill-mega/max-bill-mega-solar/59202248?c=29, doesn’t even need a battery, the dial is solar panel.
Available in classic or contemporary styles…

[I can't use radio-controlled watches because I'm too far from Fort Collins and I live just East of a 600-foot bluff. The signals don't come in. At least not when I tried it. But I have a Casio that syncs to Internet time four times a day using bluetooth, so theoretically it should always be accurate to about 1/8th of a second, worst case. It's dead bang on with the atomic clock app. --Mike]

[Tom Burke]

On accuracy, I bought a couple of mechanical ('automatic') watches some years ago from an English company, Christopher Ward - Swiss watches/movements, English specification & supply. I was quite surprised to find that, as you say, they weren't actually accurate - one of them would gain about 5 seconds a day. On-line forums for the brand told me that this was within tolerances.

My Apple Watch, on the other hand, is absolutely accurate, as far as I'm aware. That's because in addition to the basic accuracy of electronics, it synchronises with my iPhone, on which the time is ultimately controlled by the Master Timekeeper at One Infinity Loop (or somewhere of that ilk). If it's accuracy you're after, then the Apple Watch is it.

And I would echo the comment about seeing the Harrison Chronometers at Greenwich. I'd read about them, and the years of work and experience that went into making them - and then to see the actual objects in that room, ticking away.....

[Pi Manson]

I know I have no right to feel this way: but having read your blog for years and years, I feel I know you, and I feel a bit disappointed. This watch kick just seems like a mindless slide into consumerism for consumerism’s sake.

That probably says more about me though: I am definitely not a collector!

[I'm a pretty sad guy right now, if I'm honest. I just lost my kid brother who was one of the people closest to me and dearest to me in the whole world. I need a distraction. It might pass; in fact I kinda hope it does, eventually. --Mike]

[marcin wuu]

Yes, but it's all things. It's so sad we get so hung up on things, items. My watch is a forty years old Casio Data Bank DB-510 - it recently ran out of calendar, nobody expected anyone to wear it for so long you see, and it happily wrapped back to 1981, which is something I would like to do too, and no mistake. Anyway, it still works, and looks kinda cool if you're into retro tech vibe. Won't be replacing it anytime soon.
Funny thing is, you can still get one new, or the near identical DB-520, for a measle $45.99. I wonder what do they say to the customers when they ask how to set the calendar to anything past 2020.
https://www.amazon.com/Casio-Digital-Stainless-Watch-DB520A-1/dp/B00427OLS4

[Kye Wood]

The top left link on your site "http://michaeltapesdesign.com/fusion_b_land.html"is broken. Or has been down for ages?

[Keith S]

People start collecting things for personal and often unique reasons and I think it usually happens without them making plans to do it in advance. Your approach seems strange. It’s as if you were given a school assignment of starting a “serious” collection of something, anything, and you quickly decided that something will be watches.

It’s difficult for me to imagine this becoming a lasting endeavor with your current criteria, especially if you acquire each piece simply by purchasing it new from an online store.

[Zyni Moë]

+2 -3 seconds a day is stupidly bad for a good mechanical clock. If the watch you mention really is that bad it is a toy.

In 1761, John Harrison's H4 (a watch, although quite a large one) went from Portsmouth (the one in England) to Kingston Jamaica. The voyage took 81 days, and during that 81 days H4 lost 5 seconds. This was longitude error of a little over 2km at latitude of Kingston. That was quite good ... for 1761. The watch you mention would mean you lost track of where you are by about 2km each day (at latitude of Kingston: about 1.4km/day at latitude of London). Marine chronometers following H4 were probably at least as good and were usually the size of large watches (being small is an advantage for a timekeeper which is going to be thrown about in a ship or spaceship). They were not so good as really good larger mechanical clock, which in turn was less good than quartz (than ovened quartz anyway) which in turn is far less good than atomic clock.

But if the mechanical watch you mention is +2 -3 secs/day is is cheap rubbish (well: expensive rubbish): Harrison could do much better than that quarter of a millennium ago.

Note: there is a complication with timekeeping for clocks especially mechanical ones. It is generally very bad indeed to muck around inside a clock as they take a long time to settle down again after being perturbed like that. So what to do is to set the clock going and to measure how much time it gains or loses over time (based either on better clock or astronomical observations if it is the best clock you have). This tells you the 'rate' of the clock, which is how many seconds/second it is out (usually measured as seconds/day). Apparently rate of H4 for the first trial was -24/9 seconds/day. Once you know the rate then you can use this to compute the real time from the indicated time. This is small matter to horologists who do not expect to be able to read the time from their clocks but rather read the indicated time and then do a small calculation to compute the actual time. Not so small to people who want to actually use their watch without aid of pen and paper perhaps, but who does that? It is the unknown variation in the rate which is what matters (to horologist or scientist) for accuracy, not the rate itself.

(For pendulum clocks a nice trick is to be able to add and remove small weights from a little platform on the pendulum. This changes effective length of pendulum (adding weights makes it shorter) and you can do it without ever stopping the clock and almost without perturbing it if you do it with tweezers. So quite often for pendulum clock you can adjust the rate like this. Of course if it is serious pendulum clock you will need a spacesuit to do this. And also, since vacuum chambers for these are usually quite small, you will need to train a cat or mouse to do it: these are small problems for clock people who all have army of trained animals in various sizes of course.)

[Rick Reed]

https://www.benswatchclub.com/blog/casio-lineage-titanium-review

I’ve got to say, in terms of effectively achieving what is (for me at least) a watch’s primary function, that is to say, telling me the correct time, this ones a winner. Solar powered, sets itself every night to one of several atomic clocks depending on where in the world one is, and doesn’t even look half bad. No tech heavy smart watch distractions, just the time (and date)

I’ve owned one for several years, and it just works….

A great watch…

Rick

[James C.]

On the Saddam watches, Parr actually put out a book: https://www.setantabooks.com/product/saddam-hussein-watches/

Not one that has made it into my collection, but yes: they're real.

[gary bliss]

Mike --

i have two comments concerning analog dial watches, which are items surely in the idiosyncratic category now (but i have five). Firstly and most importantly: when your quartz watch needs a new battery do NOT replace it for $15 at a mall kiosk or other quickee source. Bundle it up and send it to Seiko or Citizen or whomever for a new battery and . . . replacement factory seals. Those gaskets dry out and lose sealing after four or five years and need to be correctly replaced with exact parts. It may cost $35 or so; so what? $20 extra to avoid a fogged dial and ruined movement seems cheap to me.

"Gray market" watches in particular need their seals replaced early since many of them are "new-old stock" and may be five or six years old when bought from, say, Jay-shop (ask me how i know).

Secondly, you have discussed collecting strategies. For professional reasons dial watches are appropriate for me so i need at least both gold and silver dress models to match various suits. Everyone needs an indestructible diver for outdoor work. I find those a bit heavy for constant casual wear so a pilot watch is a more comfortable off-hour alternative. For reasons having purely to do with fascinating fun a mechanical chronograph with an open back is a joy as a conversation starter on occasion.

See! it is easy to get to five watches . . .

-- gary

[MikeK]

I find it borderline hysterical that in the space of a few weeks you've gone from a post about the inherent pointlessness of watches in the modern world, to becoming a collector with a 5-10 year plan.

Not quite as hysterical as the Saddam Hussein watches though...

[Øyvind Hansen]

So what is the exit strategy, Mike. When is the collection complete? Do you plan to accumulate a large number of cheap quartz dress watches? If so I would think twice. If the plan is to resell them I think you’ll find they’ll be pretty much worthless on the second hand market as they are usually not particularly collectible

The first watches you buy will rarely be long time keepers and it may be difficult to keep up the interest if you only collect inexpensive watches. They can offer great variety, but tend to be unremarkable.

You will probably find that your taste in watches will develop. For outsiders a watch is a watch, much as a camera is a camera for the average person, but when you get into the hobby there are all kinds of distinctions to explore. A lot of the watches that I thought I should own when I started out I don’t even like anymore. I thought for instance that I should have a chronograph, but now I find that I have no interest in them, they tend to be too thick, I don’t like the aesthetics and have no use for the functionality. I thought I should own a flieger since they were cool and historically significant, but now I find them monochrome and austere and anachronistic. I don’t “get” the Patek Calatrava either by the way.

I should complement you on your Seiko, it is a nice design, Seiko has a way with dials. If it was my watch I would have a problem with the date window placement in no man’s land, and I bet the bracelet is pretty jangly (inexpensive Seikos generally have bad bracelets, and bracelet quality and comfort is something that greatly improves as you move up in price, with Rolex as the gold standard). And does it have Seiko’s trademark slow date change? Sorry for the drive-by critique, but these are just examples of the details that matter a lot to watch people while being completely off the radar of everyone else.

I say this as someone who has been through a short journey with inexpensive watches and I would definitely rather buy one $1000 watch than ten $100 watches. If you buy fewer and nicer watches they will also get more actual use. Only problem is that you probably need to make the journey to establish your taste.

But think about this: If you end up buying 20 cheap quartz watches the money would probably add up to this super nice Grand Seiko HAQ with a grammar of design case:
https://www.fratellowatches.com/hands-on-with-the-new-grand-seiko-sbgp003-quartz-watch/#gref

[Scott]

Back in the day, I worked in an office where people could buy luxuries like expensive mechanical watches, many of which I found quite attractive. So I bought some over some years - a Breitling, a Cartier, a Baume & Mercier, a Jaeger-LeCoutre. Interestingly, I liked the Breitling - all steel - better than the others, which were “dressier” and gold.

None of them ever kept time well enough to meet my needs; I detested having to set the time each morning to combat the inevitable drift. But they looked good on my cuff-linked wrist. And the thought of a cheap yet accurate quartz watch held negative appeal to me.

Then I stopped working and had less need to follow a schedule throughout the day.

Then I got an iPhone, which had an extremely accurate clock, and which would also conveniently remind me of the few appointments without my having to continually check my watch.

So the watches went into the drawer, where they sit today. Perhaps someday a grandchild will want to wear those old-fashioned devices.

Incidentally, I have thus far resisted getting an Apple Watch or similar device, although the attraction of health and fitness tracking in real time is calling to me.

[Joe Cartwright]

Mike, I have a few watches, and no interest of collecting them. I tried that with typewriters but they take too much of my darkrooms space, so I have weeded them out to just 5...beautiful classic machines from 1924 to 1963. I wear a '62 Omega Constellation as my daily wear and it runs perfectly. But one watch I have is a real beauty. It is a 1948 Hamilton 992b...a railroad pocket watch that gets comments whenever I pull it out. The story of the railroad grade pocket watch is fascinating and I urge you to look it up.

[Michael Perini]

Mike, Beware Segal’s Law you are in serious violation…..;-))

[James]

This may be dangerous for you, Mike.

Citizen's Calibre 0100

Austere, elegant, accurate to 1 second a year.

Physics and movement, it turns out, is very important to Quartz watches.

I'm safe, as I like watches that are accurate forever (or as much ever as I'll see) -- Casio solar quarz radio controlled.

[C.R. Marshall]

I have also gone down the rabbit hole. I ordered two watches that are as opposite as can be (almost, they both have analog hands).
The first is a Vostok Amphibia. It is a Russian made mechanical diving watch, designed in 1967 and and relatively unchanged except for the addition of a self-winding mechanism in the '80's. It gains about a minute a day and drops a bout a minute overnight, so it keeps good time for a mechanical movement. It has been called a vintage watch that is still in production.
The second is a Casio Wave-Ceptor. Quartz analog movement with a digital chronograph in a window at the bottom of the face. Solar charging. Links to the Atomic Clock. It should always be within a second or less of the correct time. Stopwatch, 5 alarms, world time, will chime on the hour (or not)...

[Richard Parkin]

Regarding Kye Wood’s comment,. For me there are no links under “Patrons” (just a feint square) and only B&H under “Portals”. This, or similar, has been true for some time, the links vanish for some time and then reappear. I assumed it was my system since no one else had remarked on it.

(IPad Safari, latest iPadOS, but it’s the same on Firefox, Chrome etc.)

[T. Edwards]

If you're looking for lumes in a watch, take a look at ones offering T100 tritium tubes, such a Ball or Deep Blue. Luminox has a large line, but I think they are of the slightly less bright T25 variety.

The tritium tubes on the face and hands glow without the need to expose them to light to "charge up" so to speak. When you look at the watch in the middle of the night, it will still be bright and visible.

[Dave]

Mike,

Here's my first "collectible", bought back in '83 or so:

https://wornandwound.com/seiko-7a28-pt-2-quiet-beauty/

I just liked how it looked and worked. I wasn't aware it was the first analog quartz chronograph.

Maybe I was tired of seeing all the digital displays.

P.S.

I'll send you a report of my weekend watch purchases during a "Christmas in July" sales event -- the best part of which doesn't have to do with watches. (you mac address)