alterego

Heres' my Breguet Type XX

Grat shots. Make me feel like we all should do this on a lazy Sunday sometime. Thanks for sharing.

That was great piece of information on the topic. Thank you. In a way, it corroborates the Jewel myth I was mentioning, and I quote : "As a historical note, there was a "jewel craze" about 50 years ago, where manufacturers, under the belief that the public thought more was always better, came up with 75 or even 100 jewel movements. Most of these jewels were not functional in any way, and the results looked ludicrous to an informed eye." Looks that 17 and 25 is the average number fo a manual wind and automatic, according to the article. Unless we think of a highly complicate movement.

I read somewhere that manufacturers ad jewels to certain calibers so as to mke their movements look pretier. I know jewels are used to prevent execive wear in certain surfaces where friction takes place, like the blance the staff, seconds hand mechanisms, etc.So the obvious question: Is a 35 jewel movement "better" than a 27 or 17 because it has more jewels, or is it just cosmetics ?

Vintage Certina DS

have you heard of texting ?

This is great information on Castro's and Guevara's rolexes. Thank you for sharing. Aledgedly world knowledge duplicates every 57 days. In this case my knowledge on the matter is about 10 times more than before reading the information from the link you shared.

Che Guevara wore a Rolex GMT. Both in very opposite ideological stands wore the this horological icons. I was reading some reports on the watch Guevara wore at the time of his death and it seems this in his captor's hands, who took it from Guevara's wrist after he was executed in Bolivia in 1967. Fact or myth ?

Omega Chronostop

I guess that if they can afford it, people would go for the Grand Seiko because there many Omega Geneva designs and hundreds of thousands of pieces around the world, whereas the GS is produced in smaller quantities and has very few variants.

Think your equivalence chart is pretty good. My only discrepancy would be the Opel/Breitling match. I'm not crazy about the brand (Breitleing) but Opels in this country are pretty much synnonym of Chevy, which is a good car but more like a Tissot or Citizen ?

Like I said, you are the perfect example that corroborates the norm. You wanted to be like your Dad and - legitimaly - chose to wear your watches on the right hand. Likewise, the great majority of us chose (were "told" to by our mentors) to wear the watch on the left. The next question would be what percentage of the popularion choses left or right.

In your case it's a matter of choice, but in general, my guess is that this iscultural. If one is right handed as the majority of people, chances are when our dad gave us our first watch, he suggsetd to wear it on our left wrist. As stated in this thread, because most people are right handed I feel that 50 years ago, when people had to wind up their watches, many didn't even remove them wfrom their wrists, and did it using their right hand. Later, with the advent of automatic movements, they just kept their watches on their lef hand. The quartz revolution, could have changed this habit, but it didn't, as 99.99 % of watches today have the crown on the right hand side of the case. So, all things considered, in my humble opinion, the decision about what wrist the watch will be worn has been made by the manufacture, as at the time you buy your timepiece, the crown willhave been placed to satisfy the demands of social/cultural -not technical- demands . Of course, you can always go against the norm if you are willing to accept the consecuences, like damaging your watch by bumping it against solid surfaces when using you right arm.

I think you a have perfect match there. The Grand Seiko is clearly way more than the average watch of that brand selling at department stores, as the Lexus is a luxury car that is not available for purchase at the average Toyota deaaler. I wonder if nore people own Lexus cars than Grand Seiko watches, or is it the opposite ?

Here's a shot of my vintage Seiko 5

How Interesting that most replies tend to identify/compare Rolex with Mercedes. Both of them are top quality and as far as I know pretty much along the same lines in customer satisfaction. Maybe that's true if we look at the price and status symbol quality of both products. I've seen Mercedes cars racing at various types of competitions (a demanding mechanical test for any car looking for recognition in the world) and they generally come out with very good performance. I've seen Rolex watches taking all kinds of punishment in the wrists of as many types of men and women in just about any profession or trade you can think of, and they generally come out in one piece, after 50 , 60 or more years of flawless performance. I've Never seen a Rolls in a race nor a Patek on the wrist of a tennis player, diver, pilot, firefighter, soldier or coach. Maybe these are extreme luxury items that can afford skipping the demands of the real world, shielded by their social economic prestige.

I know Rolls Royce will never build a million cars per year, bercause there are not enough customers to buy such a production. I own a Rolex and probably I'll never be able to afford a Rolls. But the point is: are both products comparable when it comes to quality and durability and status ?

I have a number of gen and rep watches on both categories. In my opinion sometimes a non date dial is more appealing. Just a feeling hard to explain. I wonder what you prefer. Here's one of my favorites. MBW dated Submariner 1680

This thread is back and it looks it'll go on and on for sometime. The topic is hot because it addreses a serious issue: genuine interest in watches, regardless their origin versus watches as proof economic success. Rep and gen collectors is a small community, comparaed to the millions and millions who buy gens and reps for social recognition. Our adventage over the other guys is that we have watches because we love them, whereas most of the other people do it to play the "you are what you own" game, which moves the world today. Incidentally, my next car is going to be a MINI Cooper. Whch I'll buy for the fun of having it nd driving it, and obviously not for it's socio economic signigicance. Cheers!!!

I have always wonder what's so special about the Tudor Snowflake and why so many look for it for adding it to their collections. I particularly feel much closer to the conventional dial and hands, than the blunt shape of hour markers and hour hand in the flake.

Here's a question I ask myself now that I have the chance of getting a mehanical 6694 Precision Rolex Oyster. I assume the power reserve must be about 36 hours, that is winding the watch every other day. How long will the threasd in the cown and tube will work until they need to be replaced ?

Tudor gen on a replica bracelet

I think Freddy's point is well made. Fashion is perishable (take a look at a five year old magazine like Vogue ) as it represents the standards of a certain moment in time (remember the the brand new worn and torn jeans people would buy some years ago ? That's gone.) In the watch world, few years back, Panerai introduced the large case wrist watch and 10 yeras later, every single manufacturer has gone that way. Even Rolex enlarged its cases by 2/4 mm (fashion). Nevertheless they contunue to manufacture the smaller versuin of the classic, as many people prefer them, bacause of a tradition that remained unchanged for more than 50 years (style). I wonder how long the large wristwatch standard will last. ?

I started a thread on genuine watches that "copy" famous watches designs as a marketing strategy a couple of days ago about. The feedback contained in the comments to my question suggest that many of us own genuine watches that are inspired on horological milestones costing a fraction of what we'd pay for the original icons. For examaple, this version of the Roloex Yachtmaster by German manufacturer DAVOSA.