For serious unbiased reviews, don’t miss the ones on Amazon.
My dad gave me his before he died and it needed an overhaul for about $350. The guy who did it is local and was trained by Rolex in Switzerland. He had it for between one and two weeks. It does need periodic service for lubrication and so forth.
My guy whom I mentioned above recommended against using a winder for my watch. He says the motion is too repetitive and will cause uneven wear on the parts.
I have an Invicta and am not at all impressed. I paid a lot more than the price on that page but that was in 2009 so is probably on closeout now. After a couple of years the stem stopped disengaging from the date and now the date is constantly adjusting itself. It keeps good time and I got it as a novelty because I’m left-handed. It’s not self-winding; it’s battery powered.
That’s got to be a joke. $58,000? The MSRP is a third or a bit over a quarter of that. And one of the suggested links has a GMT Master II for $30,000, which is three times MSRP. No wonder so many wits are commenting.
Back to counterfeit watches, I was trying to remember a brand when we were talking about them before. The link Jackmannii provided has a link to a suggested watch, and the brand I was trying to remember was Invicta. These were heavily advertised on TV 20 or so years ago, and I keep seeing Invicta Watches listed as I scroll through my cable guide. Invicta watches are direct knock-offs of Rolexes, cost about $50 to $70, and have an automatic movement. I’d never buy a counterfeit Rolex, even if there are people who collect them. It just seems dishonest to me. But the Invicta is not a counterfeit. It doesn’t try to pass itself off as an actual Rolex. It’s a copy. So if I wanted the look of a Rolex but didn’t want to spend a lot, I’d be fine with an Invicta. Of course if I bought a ‘gold’ one, I wouldn’t expect the plating to last forever. 
ETA: Ninja’d by CookingWithGas on the Invicta.
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Mmm, not really. Your point is good and different than mine. I am not that familiar with the whole Invicta line and it does look like maybe they crib Rolex style on some models, but not the one I bought (which I linked to).
and they cost up to $2000. Very nice watches. Solid Swiss movements.
I didn’t know they went that high. The one I linked to ($56.24 and free shipping) has a Japanese automatic movement. So do my Bell-Matics.
My wife bought me a used Rolex, from a jeweler friend. It is a two-tone Datejust. I have my daily watch(s) I wear and only wear the Rolex to the occasional business meeting or special event. I work with a sales manager who is the stereotypical middle aged sales manager my with monogrammed shirts, slick smile, and he flashes his Rolex conspicuously all the time. I like to wear mine to sales meetings at a bank with him just to subtly make the point that the Sales Engineer guy… he also has a Rolex. 
Although I own and like expensive watches, I’ve never really wanted a Rolex. I don’t want to sound unappreciative but if she had asked me “You really like watches. Would you like to own a Rolex?” I would have probably told her no and pointed her to something else in that same category/price range that I’ve wanted.
It is a lovely watch and I do occasionally get compliments on it. It is old school, understated, and what I guess you could call a “classic” look. It’s just not my normal style. In the future if I ever need to pay off a bookie or something it’ll come in handy.
PS - I’ve researched the typical “tells” for a counterfeit Rolex and although mine passes the sniff test… I still sometimes wonder if it is fake. I did scratch the crystal which I’ve never done with any other higher end watch I own that has a sapphire crystal. Then again, the Rolex does have the crystal fairly exposed above the bezel whereas my other watches’ crystal tends to get protection from the bezel design. I dunno… my wife was so happy getting it for me I’d never say a word even if it did turn out to be a fake.
I drive a Ford and my clothes never cost more than $30-50 per item but I wear an Omega Speedmaster daily. Most watch people can spot a fake a mile away.
Dinsdale, if it is an automatic you will want to let your wife know that it will need to be set every week or so. Even the best mechanical watches gain or lose a few seconds everyday.
The Seiko Spring Drive mentioned up thread is fully automatic (driven only by the auto winding mechanism) and accurate to one or two seconds per month. The published specs say fifteen seconds per month just to cover themselves but ask any owner (or refer to online reviews) and you’ll see just how remarkably accurate it is.
The Seiko is a hybrid dive that uses a main spring for power but a quartz microchip for the time. It might be an automatic but it isn’t fully mechanical. However, the grand seiko’s are gorgeous watches that cost as much as a rolex/omega/tag.
Here’s a very well made video showing a fellow servicing a Rolex Submariner.
The process takes much longer, and often involves replacing fiddly parts, such as broken jewels and mainsprings and such. It’s no wonder that it costs so darned much to get one of these watches serviced.
There are many similar videos out there–Johnny L.A., here’s a guy showing a full servicing of your GMT: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
I like this guy’s channel because he narrates what he is doing as he goes along.
That’s amazing. He is doing this all from memory without referencing any type of service manual. The most amazing thing is that he puts it all back together from just a pile of parts, without having arranged them in any particular way on disassembly.
The Spring Drive replaces the escarpment found in a ‘standard’ mechanical watch with a ‘tri-synchro regulator’ which acts as a brake on the mainspring.
Hodinkee has been running an excellent series on Grand Seiko, including this one which explains how the Spring Drive Works.
I may be biased, as I have one, but I think that the Snowflake is a modern classic up there with names such as the Submariner, Moonwatch, Reverso etc.
At one time a few years ago I seriously was considering getting into watchmaking as a hobby–I watched tons of videos by various folks, and was ready to go for the TimeZone Watch School…I had visions of fixing old Seikos and such.
In all of that study I found that all of those random parts in the Rolex are fairly easy to understand, recognize, and see where they go, once you learn the various component groups (e.g. keyless work, motion work). It’s kind of like looking at the parts of an engine with the familiarity of a mechanic.
Seiko watches such as the Seiko 5 use this system but the spring drive is different.
That’s a very nice video, gives one a great sense of the “occasion”. Here’s another video from Long Island Watch that nicely describes the spring drive mechanism.
Wow - you guys are NUTS! Who’dathunk this would be on its way to be one of the longest threads I ever started!
Really eager for her to open - and wear - the watch come x-mas.
I’ve been looking over some watch sites, seeing whether I would be interested in upgrading, but nothing has really grabbed me. Man, (IMO) Hamilton makes some fugly watches - Ventura, Pulsamatic… But, for the foreseeable future, I imagine I’ll stick with my Seiko quartz for dress, and Timex Ironman for beating around.
I like the Hamilton Ventura! 
If you get a Rolex Submariner, you can use it as your dress watch (Hey, it was good enough for James Bond!) and your beating around watch! (If you’re only going to get one, I’d go for the one with the date. It’s a chronograph, which the non-date isn’t.)
Yeah - but it mostly comes down to taste, doesn’t it?
Right now I’ve got an old Seamaster DeVille from my dad, light face with lines instead of numbers, from my dad.
And a rectangular Lord Elgin from my mom, light face w/ gold numbers.
And my Seiko - which my wife gave me - is dark face w/ gold lines, and day/date. I tend to wear it the most, because at one point she asked me why I was wearing the old ones I inherited, rather than the one she gave me. It is a nice looking, comfortable watch, does the job, and I’ve gotten compliments on it, so I’m happy to wear it.
Now that she’s bought this Rolex, I’ve wondered about getting a nicer watch, but it just isn’t something that I’m interested enough in. I have a hard time replacing something that looks good and works well, and am not interested in “collecting” multiple watches.
When I look at Rolexes/Omegas/etc, I immediately knock out the chronographs. If I want to keep splits or something, I’ll slap on a Timex. And I don’t want a watch that has a bunch of functions I’m not going to use - movable bezel etc.
I already have 2 watches with lines. I tend to like the looks of Arabic numerals, and I find the date useful. So that really narrows down the offerings. And I haven’t seen anything that grabs me enough to make me want to look harder or pull the trigger. As I said above, some of the Shinola watches look nice, but I don’t know that they would really be an improvement over my Seiko. I also like the Hamilton Khakis - also NOT luxury watches.
We’ll see. Maybe I’ll pay more attention on the rare instances that I find myself in jewelry shops. But I don’t tend to shop for things I don’t perceive myself as needing.
I agree with this part, plus her thank you might last longer 
Yep. My tastes run toward ‘utilitarian’ stainless steel. (But I still like the Ventura.)
I love my Bell-Matics. I have three, all the same. One belonged to dad, and is put away. I wanted one to wear, so I bid on two of them almost two decades ago. Won them both. They look like this. (Actually, dad’s and one of the others have the flatter bracelet. I mostly wear the one with the nicer bracelet.) Man, I hate when I have to set the day and date! Forward, back, forward, back, forward, back…
Sounds like you’re mildly interested ;).
A chronometer (which is the term I should have used) does not necessarily have a lot of functions. If a watch is a ‘chronometer’, that just means that it has been designed, built, and tested for greater accuracy than non-chronometers. For example, this is an officially-certified chronometer.
