$500 work Tissot, usually.
Seiko Owns Me.
I’ve had this Seiko Kinetic watch for close to 10 years. It is the only watch I have never been able to break. It doesn’t have a battery to explode after 3 months of ownership. It never needs winding (although on lazy days, I may have to shake it a minute or so). It doesn’t seem as if they make it any more, however, I see them all the time, although always it is a man’s version. (Yes, the pimp that comes to my place of work has the man’s version of my watch, I haven’t quite figured out what that says about me.)
I love this watch.
However, If the gods ever decide that I get this watch: Page Not Found - 404 Error
I may have to wear one on each arm. Please don’t buy the second one.
I have two watches, each of which says something different about me.
My beat up, scratched up, cheap Timex digital wrist watch I usually wear shows my casual, laid back, functional and slightly lazy.
My other watch is a faux antique replica of Edward Elric’s pocket watch from Fullmetal Alchemist. As I gather from the compliments I’ve received about it (mostly from people who have no clue of it’s significance), I clean up nicely (can be non-casual, non-laid back etc when it matters) and am a massive nerd.
All of this is stuff is easy enough to tell without ever seeing my watches.
I wore a watch from age 10 til about 16 when the battery died (Dad gave me a beautiful thin ladies watch for Christmas) and I had a great watch tan for ages. Then I was nobody for quite some time and now I have a Gucci watch with blue leather strap, silver rectangular face with no numbers and a diamond where the 12 should be. So I’m a precious little flower apparently.
Citizen Eco-Drive with round mother-of-pearl face. Solar powered. Water resistent. For the woman who always forgets to take her watch off when she showers and who needs to curl up in the sun from time to time.
Well, since you asked, let’s see. My first “nice” watch, and still one of my favorites, is my Breitling Chronomat, with a deep blue face, a two-tone gold and steel body and a black band. Self-winding. I’ve had it for 10 years, and replaced the band twice.
My second watch is a Baume and Mercher, with a rust face, cut into bevels. It’s one of the last tall thin B&M’s before they went into their short and fat years. Brown, alligator band. Self-winding. Similar to the Hampton series.
Next is the Rado, and one of the three watches I own with batteries. It has a scratchproof sapphire crystal, and a steel case and band. I had had my eye on Rado from years ago.
Then there is the Tag Kirium, self winding, in steel. This is my golf watch.
I’ve got a Rolex Oyster, a gift which I rarely wear. Gold and steel band.
Another of my favorites is my IWC, hand-winding and ultra thin dress watch. I got married in it so it will always have pleasant memories. White with a black crocodile band.
Before I get to my “baby”, I’ve got a Casio triple sensor Pro Treck. A fun watch.
Finally, I’m most proud of my Piaget, which I was fortunately enough to buy at a ridiculously low price, which brought in down into my price-range, although that still is the most I’ve spent on a watch.
I’ll try to post some pics if I can take some this weekend.
So, what does that say about me? “Here’s a man who wasn’t bright enough to pick a cheaper hobby.” Except that I’ve started golfing in Japan now. :smack:
I own two watches but only use one. I’m kind of surprised whenever I run into the other one, actually…
A couple months back I changed the battery on my watch. The jeweler told me that I should take it off when I get into water, specially the sea. I said “oh, you mean because of the bits that are peeled? It’s nine years old, I take it off too often, never get it wet if I can help it… but I’m afraid that it’s been subjected to all kinds of organic and inorganic fumes nevertheless.”
So, my watch (round white face with no numbers and with dots that don’t really glow in the dark, metal strap, no stupid wannabe-brilliants, metal strap that doesn’t try to give me a waxing) says I’m a chemist and was a lab tech for many years…
That would bug me, having the digital display say it was 33 seconds past the minute, but the analogue say 55 seconds :dubious:
Nothing special in my “watch drawer”.
I have a blue-faced Lorus (isn’t that really a Timex?) with a metal band, and a dressier Kenneth Cole watch that has a calendar dial but I never bother with it because I don’t need a watch to tell me what day it is and it’s way too small to read. That one needs a battery. I’ve also got a Colibri alarm pocket watch that has its own little easel so you can set it up on the nightstand. Unfortunately I can’t use it that way because I have a cat who loves to knock things off nightstands. Even more unfortunately I can’t really use it as a pocketwatch anymore. Since I always have a cell phone on my belt, and a blackberry 50% of the time, it’s just too much hardware around my hips as it is, so no pocketwatch.
There is one relatively expensive kind of watch I’d like to own. I’d like one of those motion-activated watches that never need battery replacements.
My favorite watch (I have a few) is my 1924 WALTHAM wristwatch. I am always amazed after a good cleaning, it keeps excellent time (as good as a modern high-quality mechanical watch, loses about a minute per week). Its always a joy to open the back up, and see the exquisitely machined parts, gold-staked jwelled bearings, and it looks like it came off the assembly line yesterday-truly a work of art. Who knows-i may well run into the next century! I also wonder about who owned this watch, and where it has been since 1924…and who will own it after me!
Citizen Elegance, with gold and silver two-tone band.
Let’s see, I have an old Seiko automatic divers watch. I have a Casio, Sea Pathfinder, Titanium, Solar-powerd, Triple Sensor, that can tell the time, be a stop watch, thermometer, barometer, compass, and depth gauge and syncs with the radio signal from the atomic clock an obnoxious number of times a day automatically. I got that as a present.
But, the watch I wear every day and have for about ten years is The Omega Seamaster Divers chronograph.
This is one better than James Bonds’ watch because it also has a stopwatch. It’s good to about 300M underwater. It has a helium escape valve which I’m sure will be massively useful if I’m ever trapped by helium. It is huge, clunky, heavy, self-winding, and basically indestructible. I’ve worn it doing all kinds of stuff, from diving to doing masonry and I’ve never scratched the face of it.
I bought it under the operating theory that I needed to rebel against the disposable culture. The time used to be before Ikea and gillette that things were built to last for generations. They were expensive, but if you took care of them and maintained them they would last forever. So, little by little, I’ve been trying to buy absolute top-quality things. It keeps really good time
Last year I took it in and had it serviced. You’re supposed to get it serviced every year or so but that was the first time. It was fine. The steel band is perfect, and the watch looks like new. This is pretty amazing considering how how I’ve abused it and how much it’s been through. Once every six months I take it the bathtub with me, soap it up and scrub it with a toothbrush to get all the yuk out of it that it accumulates. It is one tough sonovabitch.
One of the things that sold me on the watch was the dealer telling me a story about an Omega Seamaster that he had sold to a man who was a pilot. He crashed and the plane exploded and the pilot was killed. About a year later, aguy comes into his store with an Omega he wants serviced. The watch looks to be in bad shape but he cleans it up and it cleans up fine. and works perfectly. On a hunch he opens up the back and checks the serial number and sure enough it’s the watch that he sold to the pilot. He calls the guy and asks him where he got the watch and the guy confesses that he found it. Turns out he found it right in the woods where the plane crashed. The dealer explains what happened and that he’s keeping the watch to return it to the family of the pilot, which he does.
Imagine that. The guy was wearing the watch when he crashed the plane and was basically vaporized but the watch survived. It lay buried for a year, and other than being dirty was perfectly fine.
I don’t know if that’s a true story but it got me to buy a Seamaster, and I’ve been impressed though I have not been blown up while wearing it yet.
It’s a great watch, and I’m really happy with it.
I have three watches that I wear regularly…and several that need batteries.
In current rotation, I have a black Citizen Eco-drive that I wear for work and dressier occasions. I also have two swatches–this one
and this one .
My watch, which I only wear for work, is a smooth face, and the straps are actually a pin ribbon with a paisley pattern, with a loop backing on it. Bought it at Target, cheap. It says I’m only that responsible at work, but that I like whimsy, and pretty things. It whispers that I don’t fit regular women’s watches and am too vain for men’s. It also screams that I’m ultra - girly, and not afraid to show that, even when I’m in scrubs at work.
I have several watches, but only two see regular use. The dress watch is a Seiko with a gold and silver case, a blue face, traditional handed design. Simple, yet elegant looking. A Christmas gift from a former girlfriend. I can clean up nicely from time to time, too.
The everyday watch is also a Seiko-bought ~30 years ago for $40. LCD, military time with day/date/alarm and stopwatch functions. Stainless steel case. It’s scratched and well-worn, but continues to get the job done in a dependable manner. Like me. 
I can’t stand to wear anything on my wrists, but I forget this every now and ten when I see a watch with Roman numerals on which 4(four) is expressed as “IV” instead of “IIII”. I have a collection of barely-worn wristwatches with non-faulty fours.
Tabby
I have three watches, all three windup-with-mainspring classics from the 30s, two Elgins and a Waltham. All pocketwatches.
Pseikoanalysis of AHunter3’s watch choices: Likes the idea of having a collectible/fancy watch of the sort that watch afficionados own, except doesn’t want to be just another watch afficionado with the same kind of collectible/fancy watch that the rest of them have, and therefore find a different way of doing what they’re doing without doing what they’re doing.
Fight my ignorance, here–what are half hunter and full hunter pocket watches?