The dogs

[jkerouac]

We all like to talk about shiny new watches delivered to our door, how they are "spot on" and exceed our expectations.

But we seldom talk about the watches that turn out to be of poor quality or that simply make us ask the question "What was I thinking when I imagined I could wear this thing or fully appreciate it?"

So I thought it might be interesting and instructive for people to comment on their least favorite watches, biggest disappointments, or watches that the purchased that they realized for one reason or another are not right for them.

Here are my nominees:

1) Black Seamaster GMT -- Strike one is that it turned out to be a faux GMT. It has a strange moray in the wave pattern, a misaligned bezel, and other visual inaccuracies. It's saving grace, and chief selling point, is that it was on sale for under $100 and I purchased it as a What the F**k (WTF) impulse item, and learned that I really like the black Seamaster GMT. For a few months it served me very well as my designated beater. Unfortunately it died after a few months , and isn't worth servicing.

2) is a JLC fantasy "Master Geographic" that I also bought as a WTF during an RWG charity auction. I started off bidding on an AP chrono, but decided that I didn't really want to take a chance on a cheap chrono. Rather than weasel out of a charity auction, I changed my bid to this watch. In many respects it's a nice watch, it's heavy and has a superb custom bracelet and a rich, reflective blue dial -- plus an unusual date indicator, as well as month and day of week dials, plus a moon phase dial -- but this watch is not designed for readability; it's hard to read. Plus, after a few months it stopped turning over at midnight -- I suspect that this is a function of an inexpensive movement trying to drive too many subdials. But this watch also was under $100 and supported several good causes. I'm sure that it could be serviced and returned to reliable service. But I don't think the service cost would be realistic.

Two otherwise good watches that are somewhat disappointing:

1) My first rep, an Omega Speedmaster from abay/Aspire. This watch has an excellent Venus/Lemania movement, and I wanted a white dial and sapphire crystal. It turns out that the white hands against a white background bug me and are hard to read. This watch keeps great time, and is comfortable to wear. But my tastes have evolved. This watch now looks ordinary to me. This has become my weekend chore/beater.

2) VC Perpetual Calendar in Rose Gold from Neil. Nice watch. Good price. But I have few occasions to wear it, find it slightly hard to read (the date, day of week, and month hands stand out more than the hour and minutes hands), and one of the pusher dials stopped functioning. I also prefer watches that have seconds hands.

[by the way, I don't include abay/Aspire or Neil in this report as commentary on their quality or service, because my experiences with both has been positive. I include them just to provide reference points that board members can relate to. Abay/aspire has provided me with good reps at many price points. Neil offers wonderful watch designs at (in my opinion) remarkable price points.]

So what are your "dogs" or disappointing watches -- and why do they disappoint you? After all, no one makes all perfect choices, and we learn as much from each others' mistakes as from our successes.

Cheers.

[offshore]

Dogs?? I’ve got a kennel full!!

From time to time I buy a “lot” of 30-50 or 100 watches.

Its amazing what turns up in these lots.

My favourites are the 1st pair- matching his and hers Ralex's, and you’ll see in another shot I have a duplicate of the ladies… veeerrrry popular!

The rest are assorted whoofers that would make a Canal St vendor cringe.

Should I post these in Offers?? All working with new batteries!

What am I offered for the lot ??

Think $1.89 would be far too much- and any freight would kill a deal.

Excuse the quality of photo- just rushed 'em thru- and they don't deserve any more effort.

Offshore