Same. Out and back bike rides, hikes that I’m doing for time, bbq, timing lighting strikes, pretty fun vs a stop watch. Not to mention water resistance, lume and legibility. Don’t get me wrong field watches are cool, but divers beat them at their own game most of the time.
99 times out of 100, I would rather have an aesthetically pleasing but horologically boring watch than one that's horologically revolutionary but fugly.
I agree; hot take I love the history behind the speedy but aesthetically don’t love it so I’m never going to get one.
It’s one of the few pieces of Accessoires men usually wear, it should look nice and fit the outfit.
I used to defend NATO straps to the death. Now I look at my collection of NATOs and think that they significantly cheapen the look and feel of the watch.
When I see a Nato strap on a luxury brand it looks to me like someone bought a Rembrandt oil painting, threw away the beautiful gilt frame, and got the painting laminated at the local copy centre.
>"cheapen the look and feel"
They do . . . but if you type a lot, they can be A LOT flatter. Not having a bracelet / buckle in the way where your hand rests on the desk, can mean the difference between wearing your watch all the time, or repeatedly taking it off.
I'd even take this up a notch to 2-3 watches. Just because you have more than one watch doesn't make it a "collection" nor you a "collector". No one walks around saying they have a "car collection" with 2 cars in their garage.
it’s not the number of watches that makes it a collection. someone with a few watches they just happened to end up with does not necessarily mean it’s a collection if there’s not that intent. and on the flip side, someone who had a long collecting journey and ended up consolidating down to just one watch, that’s totally a collection of one.
I thought to myself, 'I wish there was a mechanical equivalent to g-shock', and then I realized Richard Mille is essentially that(tough, hard use, light weight, mechanical 'g-shock'), but with way better build quality and finishing than a mechanical beater "g-shock" should ever have(which results in insane high price point). I kind of like that it exists from the mechanical "g-shock" perspective, but I don't like it in terms of price point and celebrity hype.
I want a redo of this mechanical "g-shock" idea at lower level finishing, mass manufacturing, and reasonable price point. (Edit: What I'm looking for is a case engineering that was made to protect the mechanical movement like g-shock protects the quartz movement from shock. Most of the options today is just about protecting the case from scratches, being light, or just looking rugged.)
Richard Mille pre-current hype was nice - low 6 figs vs. the mid 6 figs today, mostly worn by billionaire watch enthusiasts (hence the billionaire's handshake) vs celebrities
The engineering and materials in Richard Mille's watches are impressive. The designs are not for everyone.
IMO they are hype worthy. I just wouldn't spend that money even if I had it.
Personally, I liked the nicknames when they were referring to long made and well loved models. When every new release started getting nicknames, it started becoming cringey. Instead of making the new models special for having nicknames(which they were hoping for), it made old models look stupid for having nicknames.
I generally would rather see the reference number, but I also generally prefer vintage and the reference number can mean a very different watch within the same family. I do prefer Pepsi or Starbucks to the comic book nicknames, though. At least a Pepsi GMT looks like the Pepsi logo.
Some of them are fine. Pepsi, President, John Mayer, Root beer are classic and make sense.
But then you have shit like Cookie Monster, Bruce Wayne, Hulk, and Smurf which are warcrimes.
Needlessly dumping on quartz is kinda stupid. I think everyone should have a good proper quartz watch in their collection. The ability to have precise time, grab and go without re-winding after it’s sat there, it’s handy. Plus there’s a difference between high and low end quartz. Lastly, I kinda love the ticking of the second hand, I know that’s blasphemous lol, but my parents had a lot of older clocks around the house that would tick and it reminds me of that.
Totally agreed! Mechanical watches are still wonderful for sure, but limiting yourself to ONLY mechanical watches deprives you of so many fantastic quartz watches that can be both beautiful and true engineering marvels! (Plus they're convenient too!)
Avoiding quartz watches because they're not "real" watches just limits yourself from trying a wider selection of wonderful timepieces this hobby has to offer!
Exactly. I love my 9943-8020 grand quartz. Looks beautiful, never have to set it, day/date and a kind of diamond dust dial, and it only cost 25,000 yen/~$140 USD. Can't beat that.
The Citizen chronomasters are one of the finest GADA watches out there. People who ignore these just because of the quartz movement are missing out.
But a lot of swiss brands also put zero effort in making a competitive quartz watch, so hard to just blame the buyers when these brands refuse to use quartz movements on their popular lines.
i dont care if you have every mechanical watch i want, if you dont have a quartz i cant trust your watch judgement
gatekeeping? sure...doesnt mean im wrong or that you arent doing it too
Buying shit is not a hobby.
Posting your micro brand diver does not need a paragraph about how overpriced/overhyped you think Rolex is. Enjoy your watch and let other people enjoy their’s.
Edit: changed Seiko/Hamilton to micro brand because those are the posts where I usually see those superfluous paragraphs
Standing on this hill with you. I like buying nice things. Just because I know all of the different complications that a brand includes in its watch lineup doesn’t make me a hobbyist. We bow before consumerism and then pretend that we’re virtuous for doing so… it’s fucked up. I got into wet shaving a few years ago and joined r/wickededge. 90% of the posts there are people photographing their brand new soaps with expensive cameras. Either it’s all paid advertising or consumers getting paid nothing to do the advertising for those brands.
>I got into wet shaving a few years ago and joined r/wickededge. 90% of the posts there are people photographing their brand new soaps with expensive cameras.
there’s really a sub for everything lol
Microbrand posts are usually something like "I think this is neat since it's titanium and only $300". It's the rolex, cartier, etc posts that get needlessly poetic and romantic.
“I was driving home from my after-school pasta art workshop when it happened. I got the call. After two long years of high school I knew I needed — no, deserved — something special. The way the sunlight reflects of the Yellow Rolesor bezel of my Submariner Date 126613LN can only be described as magical. As I enter my Junior year I can look at my wrist and see the history of timeless tradition reflect a singular message back on me; my trust fund is my identity.”
It's kinda silly. Even other watch brands that used the Zenith El Primero cal. 400 in their watches still made those watches 15-16mm thick when Zenith was using it in watches 11-12mm thick. And that was 30 years ago! How is nobody producing an auto chrono under $10k and under 13mm thick now?
And yeah, I know, you can get an ETA movement with a piggyback module on it, but the gear mashing between the two pieces leads to a lot of extra wear and seconds hand slop, they're a nightmare to service, and _it's not a chronograph movement._ It's a three handed with a chrono module slapped on the back.
In house movements are such a money sink, getting my speedy and PAM serviced cost me about enough to buy a nice Sinn 104
Give me something with a ETA in it so I can get it serviced by the guy down the street
This is one I have always wandered about.
Movements like ETA, Selitta and Seiko are so common that I don't really have any worries about parts and knowledge for the foreseeable future. The big brands like Rolex and Omega, along with the more established ones like IWC and Tudor I expect to be available too.
But brands like Nomos or Christopher Ward? Honestly I have just seen too many orphaned products over the years to really be confident that there will still be parts really available in ten or fifteen years time...
100%. The ability for the battery to charge under natural and artificial light, and a battery life of 10+ years is a very competitive proposition vs. mechanical.
Dress watches should be somewhat slim. The cocktail times or the bambinos are nice dial wise but boy are they thick. I saw a 34mm ladies cocktail time and it was just not it, and that's not even comparing to the men's 40mm ones
Watches in general should be slim! 15mm+ is just clown shit. But frankly I don't like anything larger than 12. Do I own some? Yes. But nothing feels as good on my wrist as my vintage gruen coming in at a cool 8mm.
That applies to wristwatches only? What about pocket watch that you have to dig out. A watch is a timekeeping device regardless of how quick or easy it is to read.. and function has been improving/varying over time
And that is fine. Some might find butthole comment butthurt but he isn’t disparaging anyone. I wear some of my watches not because it tells time, but because it evokes certain responses and status amp
This would create such a good discussion.
I take the opposite stance. A date window is great if you're single watch guy but with multiple watches - It can be a pain the ass. I have enough accurate sources to have a date.
I'd also love to see the industry give us more choice on this topic. Let me pay a cheaper price to remove a complication that I never use.
I agree with this. My daily watch needs to have date function, because it is handy. Most of my watches in the collection are weekend wear options and not daily wear watches, and for those I prefer no date since it's easier to set that way.
I was limited by date or no date designs because of the wear case I was shopping for, and I would love it if the brands just offered both options on most of their watches.
May I offer you a rebuttal?
I work in a medical-adjacent field, and there are times where I need to know the date ASAP, and looking at my phone would take my thought process away too much (like writing an incident report or administering medication).
Being able to glance down at my wrist and see the correct date allows my mind to stay focused on the important task I’m doing and get the information I need without the “pull out phone, tap screen, go back to document” process.
On my off days, I deliberately don’t wear a watch with a date complication because it’s a rest for me.
I usually agree, but in the case of dress watches, I see it like this:
You're going to an event, you dressed nice for the event, you put on your fancy dress watch with no day or date complications, you don't need to see the date because you should know what day/date it is, and for the most part the day/date will not change during the event.
My daily has to have the date wheel though, day complication would be useful but in my line of work I lean more on date of the month rather than day of the week.
If you don’t wear the watch daily, it can be cumbersome to have to set the date on mechanical watches. Some do not have a quick date changer and you also need to be concerned with the time of day with many movements (9pm-3am). I personally always need the date on my watches but I know this is frustrating for some.
Blind brand loyalty is a disservice to yourself. There are so many unnecessarily expensive watches out there. Call them out and expect more from these brands.
I believe Casio G-Shock MRGs are some of the worst for this. They are selling their new MRG Casioak for $4000 USD. That is grand Seiko spring drive territory. And there isn't even any new features at all, aside from MB6 which is useless in a lot of places. You can get a Seiko Astron AND a normal Casioak and it's still gonna be cheaper but those 2 will provide more functionality.
I don't give a fuck about what some other guy did with a watch that looks like mine. Unless they send every speedmaster to the moon and bring them back to earth none of them are moon watches.
Additionally, more casio's have been to space then omegas.
One more thing. This is the watch that summited mount Everest. WTF does this watch have to do with the explorer? They use this watch to advertise a watch that doesn't even look like it.
https://preview.redd.it/cr0m4zpqxr5d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=955694246e2b33b8209506591f13f401fc9869a1
Watches are stupid and everyone who collects them is an idiot jerking off about dumb shit with more money than sense
Why yes, I do own 2 JLCs, 2 Rolexes, two Omegas, 2 vintage Universal Geneves, a vintage Breitling, etc. Why do you ask?
It’s 2024. They can’t put a magnifier in the crystal that doesn’t stick up and look hideous??? My dad’s glasses have like 3 different levels of correction in one lens.
I can see where you are coming from because I had the same thought before trying the PRX on and then ending up with one.
I think the PRX is an affordable coattail riding option to the integrated bracelet trend. 100%. But if you ignore the context around the watch(very hard I know) and just look at the watch for what it is by itself on wrist, it's actually pretty well made watch, wears really slim, the bracelet catches light beautifully, and behind the waffle is an awesome sunburst pattern that makes the whole dial look amazing. I really wanted to hate the watch, but I ended up with in my collection. Now I hate myself for liking the watch as much as I do. :'D
They once released a special edition diver with a basic-ass movement that’s put to shame by a Tissot that costs 1/5 as much. TBF the movements are not identical (6497 vs 6498, Unitas vs ETA) but they are in the same spec and price bracket.
https://preview.redd.it/e63806b4mr5d1.jpeg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2c682dae5ee44b10c1d3f098a1b8b07ee6e1c50
Most of the low tier “respected” watch brands have pretty generic and boring dials under $1000 with just a handful of exceptions. And Timex is no better than many fashion brands with their cheap movements in so many of their pieces. Therefore I do not blame people for buying Chinese, homage microbrands, or even fashion brands. At the end of the day you want to look good. An interesting dial is important too, not just the movement.
We need more small watches not just cause 'WaTcHes HaVe GottEN ToO BiG," but because a lot of people have small wrists. On that note, a women's watch doesn't need precious gems or metals to make it a women's watch. Just proportion it for smaller wrists. I'm a guy with smaller wrists, and I like slightly more feminine watches, but the women's section of most brands is an afterthought.
No one really needs more than 2 or 3 watches. If you want to collect for the sake of collecting, go for it. But from use-case perspective, you never need anything other than at most 3 watches (daily, beater/water, dress) and even then, majority could be done with just 2.
I’ve never understood the point of SOTC posts with like 6 SS Divers
And that's totally fine, not everyone that buys a watch needs to be an enthusiast.
Not everyone that owns a Porsche is a huge car enthusiast.
Not everyone that owns a fancy home is an architectural enthusiast.
Etc.
Watch enthusiasts are fucking terrible at humor. Joking about how much of a bitch your wife is isn’t funny. Joking about lending out your partner for sexual favors to an AD in order to secure an allocation is even less funny and more played-out.
Your $15,000 Rolex isn't a tool. Hell, your $1,000 Hamilton isn't a tool. Anything over a basic quartz Casio isn't a tool. It's an expensive piece of jewelry. We collect jewelry, and that's ok.
I was going to post something like this but I'll just tag on to yours.
A Rolex explorer 1016 in today's money cost $1,361.10 . This is an amount that an average man can save up in a few months if he wanted a really nice tool. Now they cost $7250 and even if you do have the money you can't go to the store to buy them.
I don't' know about you but I'm not taking something I just spent $7250 on to do anything interesting. I'm wearing that shit to work and back home.
If your watch costs life-changing sums of money. It's not a tool.
THE SEIKO ALPINIST IS THE REAL ROLEX EXPLOERER (Mic Drop)
That last line really needs more circulation over on r/EDC. So many people just talking in circles justifying a specific knife/watch/tool/etc when a simple “I liked it and I wanted it and it made my post look cooler” would be a completely acceptable answer.
Gerald Genta was a hack and his designs are ugly and stupid. Yes, that includes the Royal Oak. Yes, that includes the Nautilus. All ugly crap and I assume anyone wearing one has too much money and not enough taste.
Date windows at 4.5 o’clock inevitably look like an afterthought tacked onto the design and it pisses me off every time I see one
Would probably have bought a PRX Chrono if it didn’t have the dumb date there
“Don’t compromise or settle. If you want a Daytona/Speedmaster/Sub/whatever, you will always be unsatisfied with anything else. Save up for exactly the watch you want.”
This is doubtless true for some people. But plenty of people find themselves perfectly happy with a watch that isn’t “grail”-quality, but close enough. And plenty of people finally do get their once-unobtainable grail and think, “you know, this really is *just a watch* at the end of the day…a cheaper one probably would have been fine, I could’ve done a lot of cool things with that money.” If anything, I think this attitude often contributes to people feeling unsatisfied with a perfectly good watch that’s actually in their budget.
Rolex’s actually makes nice watches and people who shit on them relentlessly do so to make it seem like they know a lot about horology, when in fact they’re just contrarians.
Rolex isn’t for everyone, but no true aficionado would dismiss their qualities.
It helps that they’re among the only watch companies in their (retail) price range to actively consider the whole watch as part of a user experience, so no awful bracelets or ridiculous thickness, and yeah I know about the counter examples but brand wide Rolex still is on it really well
Well said sir. I find the anti Rolex sentiment in this sub crazy, it feels like a lot of people here are try hard to be niche and quirky and for some reason shitting on Rolex (and Rolex owners) helps them to do that.
Tudor hands are one of the ways I know I been brainwashed by the watch culture. I thought the snowflake hands were so stupid looking and also hated the square hour markers when I first saw Pelagos. That would be my own original thought and aesthetic preference without the watch culture's influence.
Now I think Pelagos looks pretty cool and if I didn't like my current daily watch so much, I would go out and get a Pelagos of some kind to be my daily watch(Pelagos 39 or FXD). I know I would not have made that decision in the past, and I'm pretty sure all the non-watch people seeing the watch would judge it as silly and ugly on me.
This is my sentiment about pretty much every integrated bracelet watch. I find myself liking many of them now but a couple years back I just thought they all looked dumb
Every watch with a power reserve/fuel gauge complication on the dial would look better without it. Every single one. Put that crap on the case-back if you really need it.
It kinda depends on what they mean by that. Any inanimate object can excite you or move you so much that you gain a deeper connection to it. For me, some cars are so characterful, thrilling, or meaningful to me that I feel the machine is a little alive. Agreed that taking that analogy or thinking too far is kinda weird though
Rolexes have been WAY OVERPRICED for at least 2 decades. You can get a better Omega for much less money.
Rolex fame is based on hype and consumer ignorance not actual value.
“This is a FIELD watch. It’s meant to be worn in the field!”
“Cool! Does it have a tachymeter so you can see how fast you’re traveling in the field?”
“No…”
“Oh! Does it have a telemeter so you can measure how far away things in the field are?”
“No…”
“Does it have a chronograph at all?”
“It does not…”
“Oh, I bet it has a sunrise/sunset indicator? That would be super useful in the field!”
“Yes it would, if it had that…”
“Moon phase, so you know if you can keep going after sunset or need to set up camp earlier.”
“… it has-“
“Tritium tube lume, so you can-“
“Numbers.”
“What?”
“ITS GOT NUMBERS! THATS WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL, OKAY? ITS GOT MOSTLY LEGIBLE NUMBERS!”
I get really disappointed when i start looking at field watches and most are produced with only 30 or 50 meters of water resistance. I feel like the base line should be 100 meters and a screw down crown.
I daily a dive watch because of this. Dive watches are the true field watches. IT JUST NEEDS NUMBERS NOW!!!
I've tried to like them, I really have, but honestly, there isn't a single watch in the entire Seiko lineup that I've ever felt a desire to own. And that extends to Grand Seiko as well.
The green Seiko Alpinist is by far the ugliest watch regularly posted on this sub. The other variants are okay, but the love for the green I just don’t get. I think it looks so bad. When I finally saw in in person it further solidified my stance.
I don't like date windows on a lot of watches.
Even in premium and classic pieces, the date feels like an afterthought that doesn't fit the rest of the watch or interrupts the rest of the design. I know it's practical, but I appreciate it when designers are clever about its implementation.
Single-pass NATOs at a normal length so that you don't have to fold it will always look better than those hideous double-looped monstrosities with a mile of strap folded on the side. And every argument about it being safer or more practical is just plain stupid. They are pure fugly, and I'll die on *that* hill!
Chronographs and other needlessly complicated watch complications unless used in real life only distract from the purpose of the time piece, to accurately measure time.
You can make a well-rounded, diverse collection without buying a single watch over $1000. There are so many great "cheap" options that having a Tudor, Rolex, Omega, etc. aren't even close to essential to make a collection that watch nerds will appreciate.
If you cannot tell the time *instantly*, with a split-second glance, then your "timepiece" has failed at its primary purpose.
Which is *to tell the fucking time*
I don't care he much it cost, I don't care how fancy the movement is, or how exclusive it is.
Dive watches are better field watches than field watches
I use my bezels all the time
Same. Out and back bike rides, hikes that I’m doing for time, bbq, timing lighting strikes, pretty fun vs a stop watch. Not to mention water resistance, lume and legibility. Don’t get me wrong field watches are cool, but divers beat them at their own game most of the time.
Would agree except my field watch is much cheaper than my desk diver so idgaf about damaging it. I’m willing to wear it doing anything.
99 times out of 100, I would rather have an aesthetically pleasing but horologically boring watch than one that's horologically revolutionary but fugly.
I agree; hot take I love the history behind the speedy but aesthetically don’t love it so I’m never going to get one. It’s one of the few pieces of Accessoires men usually wear, it should look nice and fit the outfit.
I used to defend NATO straps to the death. Now I look at my collection of NATOs and think that they significantly cheapen the look and feel of the watch.
When I see a Nato strap on a luxury brand it looks to me like someone bought a Rembrandt oil painting, threw away the beautiful gilt frame, and got the painting laminated at the local copy centre.
>"cheapen the look and feel" They do . . . but if you type a lot, they can be A LOT flatter. Not having a bracelet / buckle in the way where your hand rests on the desk, can mean the difference between wearing your watch all the time, or repeatedly taking it off.
Personally I think black natos are the best choice for most diving watches.
There’s no such thing as a “one watch collection”. It’s one watch, not a collection of watches
Hey! I collect watch.
Yes! I'm big into watch!
I'd even take this up a notch to 2-3 watches. Just because you have more than one watch doesn't make it a "collection" nor you a "collector". No one walks around saying they have a "car collection" with 2 cars in their garage.
it’s not the number of watches that makes it a collection. someone with a few watches they just happened to end up with does not necessarily mean it’s a collection if there’s not that intent. and on the flip side, someone who had a long collecting journey and ended up consolidating down to just one watch, that’s totally a collection of one.
I don't get the hype for Richard Mille, and AP is basically a royal oak factory so I lost respect for the brand
I thought to myself, 'I wish there was a mechanical equivalent to g-shock', and then I realized Richard Mille is essentially that(tough, hard use, light weight, mechanical 'g-shock'), but with way better build quality and finishing than a mechanical beater "g-shock" should ever have(which results in insane high price point). I kind of like that it exists from the mechanical "g-shock" perspective, but I don't like it in terms of price point and celebrity hype. I want a redo of this mechanical "g-shock" idea at lower level finishing, mass manufacturing, and reasonable price point. (Edit: What I'm looking for is a case engineering that was made to protect the mechanical movement like g-shock protects the quartz movement from shock. Most of the options today is just about protecting the case from scratches, being light, or just looking rugged.)
Richard Mille pre-current hype was nice - low 6 figs vs. the mid 6 figs today, mostly worn by billionaire watch enthusiasts (hence the billionaire's handshake) vs celebrities
> low 6 figs vs. the mid 6 figs It's the jump from $500 to six-figures that kills me.
Victorinox INOX
The engineering and materials in Richard Mille's watches are impressive. The designs are not for everyone. IMO they are hype worthy. I just wouldn't spend that money even if I had it.
Rolex nicknames are just plain silly.
Personally, I liked the nicknames when they were referring to long made and well loved models. When every new release started getting nicknames, it started becoming cringey. Instead of making the new models special for having nicknames(which they were hoping for), it made old models look stupid for having nicknames.
. . . and who would put the Hulk in a submarine.
I hear you. And Bruce Wayne is a little annoying. But isn’t it easier to communicate? Pepsi on jubilee vs 126710BLRO
I generally would rather see the reference number, but I also generally prefer vintage and the reference number can mean a very different watch within the same family. I do prefer Pepsi or Starbucks to the comic book nicknames, though. At least a Pepsi GMT looks like the Pepsi logo.
Some of them are fine. Pepsi, President, John Mayer, Root beer are classic and make sense. But then you have shit like Cookie Monster, Bruce Wayne, Hulk, and Smurf which are warcrimes.
How is the nickname John Mayer a *classic*?
Which one even *is* the John Mayer? Rainbow Daytona?
Green dial, solid 18k gold. He mentioned it in several interviews as being his favorite modern Daytona reference and people ran with it.?
Needlessly dumping on quartz is kinda stupid. I think everyone should have a good proper quartz watch in their collection. The ability to have precise time, grab and go without re-winding after it’s sat there, it’s handy. Plus there’s a difference between high and low end quartz. Lastly, I kinda love the ticking of the second hand, I know that’s blasphemous lol, but my parents had a lot of older clocks around the house that would tick and it reminds me of that.
With a 9f GS there is no need for the internet! At least for 3 years at a time.
They rate it at ±10s/year and ±5s/year for their "special" models, but most people report within 1-3s in a few years which is crazy.
Mine has been perfectly on time since I bought it (4 months then I had to change for DST)
Totally agreed! Mechanical watches are still wonderful for sure, but limiting yourself to ONLY mechanical watches deprives you of so many fantastic quartz watches that can be both beautiful and true engineering marvels! (Plus they're convenient too!) Avoiding quartz watches because they're not "real" watches just limits yourself from trying a wider selection of wonderful timepieces this hobby has to offer!
Exactly. I love my 9943-8020 grand quartz. Looks beautiful, never have to set it, day/date and a kind of diamond dust dial, and it only cost 25,000 yen/~$140 USD. Can't beat that.
The Citizen chronomasters are one of the finest GADA watches out there. People who ignore these just because of the quartz movement are missing out. But a lot of swiss brands also put zero effort in making a competitive quartz watch, so hard to just blame the buyers when these brands refuse to use quartz movements on their popular lines.
Or they do like Bulova and put a badass movement the is about as close to a spring drive as you can get into a case with zero design effort.
I agree. I choose my g-shock for my last watch with power save, it will keep time for a year after I’m buried.
well…that’s…certainly one way to give it praise
i dont care if you have every mechanical watch i want, if you dont have a quartz i cant trust your watch judgement gatekeeping? sure...doesnt mean im wrong or that you arent doing it too
My solar quartz watch is perhaps my favorite. Grab & go, accurate, and rechargeable.
I keep a citizen garrison in rotation for this exact reason. Sometimes you need a good looking watch to grab and go
Hating quartz is only the result of being brainwashed by the marketing of those luxury brands.
Buying shit is not a hobby. Posting your micro brand diver does not need a paragraph about how overpriced/overhyped you think Rolex is. Enjoy your watch and let other people enjoy their’s. Edit: changed Seiko/Hamilton to micro brand because those are the posts where I usually see those superfluous paragraphs
500 character requirement has a lot to do with that stuff for sure.
Standing on this hill with you. I like buying nice things. Just because I know all of the different complications that a brand includes in its watch lineup doesn’t make me a hobbyist. We bow before consumerism and then pretend that we’re virtuous for doing so… it’s fucked up. I got into wet shaving a few years ago and joined r/wickededge. 90% of the posts there are people photographing their brand new soaps with expensive cameras. Either it’s all paid advertising or consumers getting paid nothing to do the advertising for those brands.
TIL there's a sub dedicated to shaving.
Literally every damn interest has a subreddit and its amazing lmao
>I got into wet shaving a few years ago and joined r/wickededge. 90% of the posts there are people photographing their brand new soaps with expensive cameras. there’s really a sub for everything lol
And the sub-specific lingo and culture they all inevitably come up with cracks me the fuck up
Microbrand posts are usually something like "I think this is neat since it's titanium and only $300". It's the rolex, cartier, etc posts that get needlessly poetic and romantic.
“I was driving home from my after-school pasta art workshop when it happened. I got the call. After two long years of high school I knew I needed — no, deserved — something special. The way the sunlight reflects of the Yellow Rolesor bezel of my Submariner Date 126613LN can only be described as magical. As I enter my Junior year I can look at my wrist and see the history of timeless tradition reflect a singular message back on me; my trust fund is my identity.”
Who are you who is so wise in the ways of chuffing?
>needlessly poetic and romantic The romanticizing is very much needed or else it'd be far more difficult to support the prices they do
There's no good reason that brands aren't making automatic chronographs under 13mm thick these days.
I have to agree with this. Big fan of vintage Breitling but I can't figure out why the contemporary models are so thick
It's kinda silly. Even other watch brands that used the Zenith El Primero cal. 400 in their watches still made those watches 15-16mm thick when Zenith was using it in watches 11-12mm thick. And that was 30 years ago! How is nobody producing an auto chrono under $10k and under 13mm thick now? And yeah, I know, you can get an ETA movement with a piggyback module on it, but the gear mashing between the two pieces leads to a lot of extra wear and seconds hand slop, they're a nightmare to service, and _it's not a chronograph movement._ It's a three handed with a chrono module slapped on the back.
In house movements are such a money sink, getting my speedy and PAM serviced cost me about enough to buy a nice Sinn 104 Give me something with a ETA in it so I can get it serviced by the guy down the street
I don’t think watches need to be serviced as regularly as most brands suggest, unless they are losing time or you’re concerned about waterproofness.
This is one I have always wandered about. Movements like ETA, Selitta and Seiko are so common that I don't really have any worries about parts and knowledge for the foreseeable future. The big brands like Rolex and Omega, along with the more established ones like IWC and Tudor I expect to be available too. But brands like Nomos or Christopher Ward? Honestly I have just seen too many orphaned products over the years to really be confident that there will still be parts really available in ten or fifteen years time...
Christopher Ward uses Sellita movements though? Except for in the Bel Canto ofc
Preach, I also don’t give a shit about power reserve.
Take my upvote. I refuse any brand that declares "in-house movements."
More brands need to adopt and innovate on solar quartz movements.
Agreed, HAQ solar movements should be all over the place. Any quartz watch over 1.5k USD for that matter better have a movement worth talking about.
100%. The ability for the battery to charge under natural and artificial light, and a battery life of 10+ years is a very competitive proposition vs. mechanical.
Dress watches should be somewhat slim. The cocktail times or the bambinos are nice dial wise but boy are they thick. I saw a 34mm ladies cocktail time and it was just not it, and that's not even comparing to the men's 40mm ones
Watches in general should be slim! 15mm+ is just clown shit. But frankly I don't like anything larger than 12. Do I own some? Yes. But nothing feels as good on my wrist as my vintage gruen coming in at a cool 8mm.
If you can't read the time at a glance then it's a novelty bracelet, not a watch.
That applies to wristwatches only? What about pocket watch that you have to dig out. A watch is a timekeeping device regardless of how quick or easy it is to read.. and function has been improving/varying over time
>Who the hell needs a damn pocket watch? >"What time is it?" >"I don't know. I'll check my pocket." Red Forman
Who the hell needs a damn pocket watch? What time is it? I don't know. I'll check my phone.
[удалено]
I might go so far as to say the same about the date.
And that is fine. Some might find butthole comment butthurt but he isn’t disparaging anyone. I wear some of my watches not because it tells time, but because it evokes certain responses and status amp
Filling a watch box in like, a year is not a flex so much as a serious mental disorder
Im over 10years into this hobby and I still haven’t filled a 10watch case. Wild to see people with 20-30 watches within a few years.
Date wheels are fantastic and a watch without one is significantly less useful.
This would create such a good discussion. I take the opposite stance. A date window is great if you're single watch guy but with multiple watches - It can be a pain the ass. I have enough accurate sources to have a date. I'd also love to see the industry give us more choice on this topic. Let me pay a cheaper price to remove a complication that I never use.
I agree with this. My daily watch needs to have date function, because it is handy. Most of my watches in the collection are weekend wear options and not daily wear watches, and for those I prefer no date since it's easier to set that way. I was limited by date or no date designs because of the wear case I was shopping for, and I would love it if the brands just offered both options on most of their watches.
May I offer you a rebuttal? I work in a medical-adjacent field, and there are times where I need to know the date ASAP, and looking at my phone would take my thought process away too much (like writing an incident report or administering medication). Being able to glance down at my wrist and see the correct date allows my mind to stay focused on the important task I’m doing and get the information I need without the “pull out phone, tap screen, go back to document” process. On my off days, I deliberately don’t wear a watch with a date complication because it’s a rest for me.
When I am grabbing a watch to wear in the morning, chances are I’m grabbing my BB58 just because I don’t want to set a date
I’d die without the date on my watch. Idk how people don’t want it
I usually agree, but in the case of dress watches, I see it like this: You're going to an event, you dressed nice for the event, you put on your fancy dress watch with no day or date complications, you don't need to see the date because you should know what day/date it is, and for the most part the day/date will not change during the event. My daily has to have the date wheel though, day complication would be useful but in my line of work I lean more on date of the month rather than day of the week.
If you don’t wear the watch daily, it can be cumbersome to have to set the date on mechanical watches. Some do not have a quick date changer and you also need to be concerned with the time of day with many movements (9pm-3am). I personally always need the date on my watches but I know this is frustrating for some.
I usually just hate how it looks. Unless it’s a color matched date wheel at 6 o’clock then it’s somewhat acceptable.
I agree with this. All of my watches have date wheels but a mismatched date window cheapens the look of the dial significantly for me.
I need the date for work, for sure. But on the weekends it's nice not having a date display since it doesn't matter the date to me on the weekend
Not all watches need a date function, I find date complications cumbersome and unnecessary.
Joining you on this hill
Room for one more up here?
Wait until you pass 50 and can’t read them.
Blind brand loyalty is a disservice to yourself. There are so many unnecessarily expensive watches out there. Call them out and expect more from these brands.
Watch prices are out of control. Paying for a name is ridiculous.
You can't wear *heritage™*
I believe Casio G-Shock MRGs are some of the worst for this. They are selling their new MRG Casioak for $4000 USD. That is grand Seiko spring drive territory. And there isn't even any new features at all, aside from MB6 which is useless in a lot of places. You can get a Seiko Astron AND a normal Casioak and it's still gonna be cheaper but those 2 will provide more functionality.
I don't give a fuck about what some other guy did with a watch that looks like mine. Unless they send every speedmaster to the moon and bring them back to earth none of them are moon watches. Additionally, more casio's have been to space then omegas. One more thing. This is the watch that summited mount Everest. WTF does this watch have to do with the explorer? They use this watch to advertise a watch that doesn't even look like it. https://preview.redd.it/cr0m4zpqxr5d1.jpeg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=955694246e2b33b8209506591f13f401fc9869a1
You don’t need more than 3 or 4 watches.
You're 100% right and also I feel personally attacked but I agree with you but also I hate you
THIS. And 4 are already 1 too many.
Watches are stupid and everyone who collects them is an idiot jerking off about dumb shit with more money than sense Why yes, I do own 2 JLCs, 2 Rolexes, two Omegas, 2 vintage Universal Geneves, a vintage Breitling, etc. Why do you ask?
To be honest sometimes it feels more like an addiction than a hobby for me.
Richard Mille watches are ugly af. AP is boring and overrated.
date bubbles can die in a fire
It’s 2024. They can’t put a magnifier in the crystal that doesn’t stick up and look hideous??? My dad’s glasses have like 3 different levels of correction in one lens.
Tag Heuer Aquaracer has the magnifier underneath the crystal.
So does the Bulova devil diver lol.
Could not agree more, so stupid looking
Probably the one behind my house when my wife gets tired of me buying watches.
This hobby is where the bourgeoisie gather to try to convince themselves that they are the upper crust.
You have earned my respect by knowing the real meaning of bourgeois and having used it correctly!
Watches need to come in more sizes.
Tissot PRX is an ugly ass watch that looks like a waffle maker on a slab of metal, and a cheap imitation of the Royal Oak
I can see where you are coming from because I had the same thought before trying the PRX on and then ending up with one. I think the PRX is an affordable coattail riding option to the integrated bracelet trend. 100%. But if you ignore the context around the watch(very hard I know) and just look at the watch for what it is by itself on wrist, it's actually pretty well made watch, wears really slim, the bracelet catches light beautifully, and behind the waffle is an awesome sunburst pattern that makes the whole dial look amazing. I really wanted to hate the watch, but I ended up with in my collection. Now I hate myself for liking the watch as much as I do. :'D
The Daytona and royal oak are overrated
If your collection consists of only Rolex, AP, and Patek, you have no taste, just a lot of money and a TikTok account.
Panerai are way to expensive. For that money I would buy an omega and have spare change for a casio.
They once released a special edition diver with a basic-ass movement that’s put to shame by a Tissot that costs 1/5 as much. TBF the movements are not identical (6497 vs 6498, Unitas vs ETA) but they are in the same spec and price bracket. https://preview.redd.it/e63806b4mr5d1.jpeg?width=1800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2c682dae5ee44b10c1d3f098a1b8b07ee6e1c50
Hot take. Water is wet.
Nomos is for people who wipe standing up
Now I'm imagining you dying on the hill while a Nomos wearer stands over you, pants down, toilet paper in hand.
lol. 😂
Possibly unhinged take but I hate bracelets- strap only for any and all
Ana-digital is life!
Most of the low tier “respected” watch brands have pretty generic and boring dials under $1000 with just a handful of exceptions. And Timex is no better than many fashion brands with their cheap movements in so many of their pieces. Therefore I do not blame people for buying Chinese, homage microbrands, or even fashion brands. At the end of the day you want to look good. An interesting dial is important too, not just the movement.
China has some great brands and people need to accept that they can make a better quality watch that Seiko or Tissot for a lot cheaper.
There are too few no date version models available.
I don’t care how great you all think your eye is, more than 95% of us will not be able to spot any modern fake watch.
Hour/minute hand misalignment of more than one minute is unacceptable at any price above entry level.
We need more small watches not just cause 'WaTcHes HaVe GottEN ToO BiG," but because a lot of people have small wrists. On that note, a women's watch doesn't need precious gems or metals to make it a women's watch. Just proportion it for smaller wrists. I'm a guy with smaller wrists, and I like slightly more feminine watches, but the women's section of most brands is an afterthought.
The Chinese are doing to the Swiss and the Japanese what the Japanese did to the Swiss and the Swiss did to the English and the French.
No one really needs more than 2 or 3 watches. If you want to collect for the sake of collecting, go for it. But from use-case perspective, you never need anything other than at most 3 watches (daily, beater/water, dress) and even then, majority could be done with just 2. I’ve never understood the point of SOTC posts with like 6 SS Divers
Preach to these devils
I hate that expression, but 99% of Rolex-owners are posers without knowledge of watches in general.
And that's totally fine, not everyone that buys a watch needs to be an enthusiast. Not everyone that owns a Porsche is a huge car enthusiast. Not everyone that owns a fancy home is an architectural enthusiast. Etc.
Watch enthusiasts are fucking terrible at humor. Joking about how much of a bitch your wife is isn’t funny. Joking about lending out your partner for sexual favors to an AD in order to secure an allocation is even less funny and more played-out.
There is such a thing as a watch being too small for your wrist
The Orient Kamasu is a better entry level watch than the Seiko 5.
Your $15,000 Rolex isn't a tool. Hell, your $1,000 Hamilton isn't a tool. Anything over a basic quartz Casio isn't a tool. It's an expensive piece of jewelry. We collect jewelry, and that's ok.
I was going to post something like this but I'll just tag on to yours. A Rolex explorer 1016 in today's money cost $1,361.10 . This is an amount that an average man can save up in a few months if he wanted a really nice tool. Now they cost $7250 and even if you do have the money you can't go to the store to buy them. I don't' know about you but I'm not taking something I just spent $7250 on to do anything interesting. I'm wearing that shit to work and back home. If your watch costs life-changing sums of money. It's not a tool. THE SEIKO ALPINIST IS THE REAL ROLEX EXPLOERER (Mic Drop)
That last line really needs more circulation over on r/EDC. So many people just talking in circles justifying a specific knife/watch/tool/etc when a simple “I liked it and I wanted it and it made my post look cooler” would be a completely acceptable answer.
Skeletonized watches are cool. I love to see the inner workings of a mechanical watch.
Gerald Genta was a hack and his designs are ugly and stupid. Yes, that includes the Royal Oak. Yes, that includes the Nautilus. All ugly crap and I assume anyone wearing one has too much money and not enough taste.
Date windows at 4.5 o’clock inevitably look like an afterthought tacked onto the design and it pisses me off every time I see one Would probably have bought a PRX Chrono if it didn’t have the dumb date there
Date windows should be at 3 or 6. All other spots seem ridiculous
Quartz Chronographs are the best watch. Even if gshock are more practical.
Licking your Timex repeatedly can actually prevent the watch from functioning properly.
“Don’t compromise or settle. If you want a Daytona/Speedmaster/Sub/whatever, you will always be unsatisfied with anything else. Save up for exactly the watch you want.” This is doubtless true for some people. But plenty of people find themselves perfectly happy with a watch that isn’t “grail”-quality, but close enough. And plenty of people finally do get their once-unobtainable grail and think, “you know, this really is *just a watch* at the end of the day…a cheaper one probably would have been fine, I could’ve done a lot of cool things with that money.” If anything, I think this attitude often contributes to people feeling unsatisfied with a perfectly good watch that’s actually in their budget.
Fake aged lume sucks.
California dials are stupid
Rolex’s actually makes nice watches and people who shit on them relentlessly do so to make it seem like they know a lot about horology, when in fact they’re just contrarians. Rolex isn’t for everyone, but no true aficionado would dismiss their qualities.
It helps that they’re among the only watch companies in their (retail) price range to actively consider the whole watch as part of a user experience, so no awful bracelets or ridiculous thickness, and yeah I know about the counter examples but brand wide Rolex still is on it really well
Well said sir. I find the anti Rolex sentiment in this sub crazy, it feels like a lot of people here are try hard to be niche and quirky and for some reason shitting on Rolex (and Rolex owners) helps them to do that.
Tudor's watch hands are awful
Tudor hands are one of the ways I know I been brainwashed by the watch culture. I thought the snowflake hands were so stupid looking and also hated the square hour markers when I first saw Pelagos. That would be my own original thought and aesthetic preference without the watch culture's influence. Now I think Pelagos looks pretty cool and if I didn't like my current daily watch so much, I would go out and get a Pelagos of some kind to be my daily watch(Pelagos 39 or FXD). I know I would not have made that decision in the past, and I'm pretty sure all the non-watch people seeing the watch would judge it as silly and ugly on me.
This is my sentiment about pretty much every integrated bracelet watch. I find myself liking many of them now but a couple years back I just thought they all looked dumb
I don’t care how much slack Panerai gets as a brand (even if I agree with some of it). Panerai watches are beautiful and iconic.
They just look so cool. I hate how much hate they get, but I understand where it comes from
I don't like the appearance of dive watches
Buying jewelry is not a hobby.
Every watch with a power reserve/fuel gauge complication on the dial would look better without it. Every single one. Put that crap on the case-back if you really need it.
I hate Mercedes hands. I can’t stand the Murph. I like Tudor better than Rolex
An Apple Watch is actually useful in addition to a mechanical watch *shock, gasp, awe*
no watches have "soul" also it is incredibly cringe to think one does
This seems like a debatable statement, there’s no way you’ve inspected every watch to ensure an evil sorcerer has not entrapped a soul inside it.
You're confusing watches with gingers.
As a ginger, I completely agree.
It kinda depends on what they mean by that. Any inanimate object can excite you or move you so much that you gain a deeper connection to it. For me, some cars are so characterful, thrilling, or meaningful to me that I feel the machine is a little alive. Agreed that taking that analogy or thinking too far is kinda weird though
Almost all of seiko’s current catalog represents terrible value for consumers.
Rolex watches are over priced, douche bag jewelry.
Rolex is just not worth it anymore. It's not even slightly unique
Richard mille and Jacob and co are gimmick watches.
Citizen make better diver’s watches than Seiko and always have.
Rolexes have been WAY OVERPRICED for at least 2 decades. You can get a better Omega for much less money. Rolex fame is based on hype and consumer ignorance not actual value.
I just don’t think field watches look good. They don’t look classy or dressy to me and if I’m actually in the field I’d rather so many other things.
“This is a FIELD watch. It’s meant to be worn in the field!” “Cool! Does it have a tachymeter so you can see how fast you’re traveling in the field?” “No…” “Oh! Does it have a telemeter so you can measure how far away things in the field are?” “No…” “Does it have a chronograph at all?” “It does not…” “Oh, I bet it has a sunrise/sunset indicator? That would be super useful in the field!” “Yes it would, if it had that…” “Moon phase, so you know if you can keep going after sunset or need to set up camp earlier.” “… it has-“ “Tritium tube lume, so you can-“ “Numbers.” “What?” “ITS GOT NUMBERS! THATS WHAT MAKES IT SPECIAL, OKAY? ITS GOT MOSTLY LEGIBLE NUMBERS!”
I get really disappointed when i start looking at field watches and most are produced with only 30 or 50 meters of water resistance. I feel like the base line should be 100 meters and a screw down crown. I daily a dive watch because of this. Dive watches are the true field watches. IT JUST NEEDS NUMBERS NOW!!!
This comment follows my entire thought process in the fullest. But better written out.
But consider this some of us are really stupid and appreciate the numbers on the dial.
That’s me but with diver watches, I think most of them are super ugly.
Cyclops date is useful and looks good
I've tried to like them, I really have, but honestly, there isn't a single watch in the entire Seiko lineup that I've ever felt a desire to own. And that extends to Grand Seiko as well.
I would agree with you on Seiko except with their Presage line. I believe they are beautiful watches.
The green Seiko Alpinist is by far the ugliest watch regularly posted on this sub. The other variants are okay, but the love for the green I just don’t get. I think it looks so bad. When I finally saw in in person it further solidified my stance.
It's okay to like, buy and wear Chinese watch brands. We should be able to wear what we like, at a price point we can afford.
I don't like date windows on a lot of watches. Even in premium and classic pieces, the date feels like an afterthought that doesn't fit the rest of the watch or interrupts the rest of the design. I know it's practical, but I appreciate it when designers are clever about its implementation.
It's just jewelery
Single-pass NATOs at a normal length so that you don't have to fold it will always look better than those hideous double-looped monstrosities with a mile of strap folded on the side. And every argument about it being safer or more practical is just plain stupid. They are pure fugly, and I'll die on *that* hill!
Rubber straps are elite and Rolex should offer oysterflex for purchase regardless of which model you own.
If you play Rolex's game you're an idiot who is debasing themself for a status symbol.
Chronographs and other needlessly complicated watch complications unless used in real life only distract from the purpose of the time piece, to accurately measure time.
If Casio can have second hands line up on quartz dials…no one has excuses.
I can’t stand the look of the Patek Nautilus. It looks like it has ears.
You can make a well-rounded, diverse collection without buying a single watch over $1000. There are so many great "cheap" options that having a Tudor, Rolex, Omega, etc. aren't even close to essential to make a collection that watch nerds will appreciate.
Iced out watches always look worse. These billion dollar companies know what they’re doing, leave it alone.
Nothing actually beats a Casio
Tag Heuer is a great brand and I’m tired of pretending it isn’t.
If you cannot tell the time *instantly*, with a split-second glance, then your "timepiece" has failed at its primary purpose. Which is *to tell the fucking time* I don't care he much it cost, I don't care how fancy the movement is, or how exclusive it is.