FlyPenFly has show us some fine timekeeping pieces in the past. But what about your work-a-day watches.
A little glory for a watch so cheap the makers were to embarrassed to put a name on the face. $11.95 at WalMart in 2003. At one time it looked good, good enough to go out on the town, fooling many with it's deep gold bezel, a fine pleather band and accurate to about 2 minutes/year. But being a working watch meant a tough life around the house, abused by chain saws, hammers, yard work, digging in the garden, immersed in the pond; just tough all around.
A tough life means things give out. First the band, fixed with superglue. But the watch keeps working. When the superglue gives out its time for Gorilla glue, not good looking but tough. The gold is the next thing to go showing its base metal, then pitting occurs; but the watch keeps going. Finally after 8 years the battery gives out and its time for a new work watch ($15.95 at WalMart). With luck it too will last 8 years.
Fortunately I do have a dress watch so all is not lost.
I've had this one for five years or so now. I bought it in Singapore where they are realistically priced (unlike in Germany where, being hipster/retro items, I found them for 2-3 times that price).
I've had other more expensive (not by FlyPenFly's standard for sure) watches but they all broke pretty quickly, last one being a Swatch where the plastic buckle didn't last but two weeks
I had a timex for 25 years, changed the battery every 5 years, and it sent the last 10 as a work watch on a fob, I now have a new Timex for work on the same fob.
My other watches are a Citizen Eco-Drive, and a Movado Sport.
I wear the much less fancy sibling of jotdeh's fine timepiece: http://praetoriusphoto.images.s3.amazonaws.com/fmforums/20120410_watch.jpg
I got lucky on the parts tolerance lottery --- I haven't set this watch for several months, and it's currently only +1.5s fast. I wonder how well this will hold once the warmer summer weather hits.
As a bonus, according to Wikileaks, possession of this watch model was one of the criteria used to qualify for indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay.
mpmendenhall wrote:
I wear the much less fancy sibling of jotdeh's fine timepiece:
I got lucky on the parts tolerance lottery --- I haven't set this watch for several months, and it's currently only +1.5s fast. I wonder how well this will hold once the warmer summer weather hits.
As a bonus, according to Wikileaks, possession of this watch model was one of the criteria used to qualify for indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay.
Hey, I own that same watch too. I often like to wear it during my day-to-day activities. Although mine has also scratched, since it only cost $15, I don't really care.
If there is a watch that doesn't scratch so easily, I would pay more for it.
About the detention at Guantanamo, the reason is that it is quite easy to use the Casio in time bombs. Not only is it cheap, but it is readily available. That's why Guantanamo-types love it.
blackbird3216 wrote:
About the detention at Guantanamo, the reason is that it is quite easy to use the Casio in time bombs. Not only is it cheap, but it is readily available. That's why Guantanamo-types love it.
Yep. Of course, because it's so popular across the world, including being very common in many middle-East countries, using it as evidence for who the terrorists are is stupid (immense false positive rate), unless it comes with the bomb attached (in which case, you don't need the watch as evidence). I hear "Guantanamo-types" also love breathing air during their attacks, so you could use that as grounds for suspicion too.
But I typically don't wear one.
