My Watch Journey

[Samanator]

Let's add one more for 2015 in blue. When the Pelagos was introduced with the ETA movement I could not justify the price, plus the complication that Tudor had not established a AD network yet in the US so the could only come from out of country. The black version originally released just seemed too flat, and turned me around several times from buying it. Add that the bracelet seemed like a gimmick. Seeing the changes Rolex made to the sub bracelet this just seemed too excessive. On the plus side is the simple, but unique lines Tudor incorporated into the watch are near perfect. If you miss the thinner lugs of the old Sub look at these. My favorites is how the crown guard tapers to a near chisel point, and the coin edge bezel. Only that on little precise beveled top edge is polished, while the rest of the watch is satin finished with the greenish glow of Titanium.

When the blue came out with the new 70 power reserve in-house movement I got over the large amount text on the dial rathe quickly, concentrated on the blue. It's very unique when you see it in that it is a bright color with a flat finish. No gloss on the bezel or dial. While I still think the wetsuit expansion system (that does what the waves do on some rubber straps) is still a gimmick, the micro adjust is not. While the case gives the illusion of being very straight they do curve down more than you think. Flat lug watches generally never fit my round wrist very well. On the way hame that evening under the stars with the convertible top open I noticed one other amazing thing. The watch had only been exposed to so really subdued light in the store, yet the hands, indexes and bezel were glowing brightly in a nice blue quite similar in color to the newer Rolex sport watches have. Where the current Subs have 2 clicks per second this has one on the excellent bezel action. With the HEV valve the Tudor is rated for 500m. This is 100m less than a current PO, but it is also less than half the price of the Titanium PO which Omega seems to use +$2000 as it's mark up for Ti over SS. The Pelagos is one of my favorite all time divers, and I could not see my collection being without one. I really do like it that much. I see this watch more as a equal to the Sub, and not it's little brother. The only place the sub passes the Pelagos is it dresses up better if that matters? Mark this one as lifetime watch 316.

[Samanator]

I missed one for 2014 that was rather significant. I bought this one right at the time we deciding to start this place. I was kinda in a two tone mood near the end of this year. While my first choice for the new Seamaster 300 Master Co-Axial would have been the Titanium with the Sedna gold and the blue dial, I could not resist the charm of the black and rose gold look with the aged lume. I had seen all of these at an Omega event here in Florida at the Aventura Boutique. This would be lifetime watch 316.

[Samanator]

Back to 2015. Again the dress watch idea came in my head, only this time I had this idea that maybe a less expensive quartz watch would work. After reading all of the hype and stories about Shinola I decided to give one a try. In all honesty I really liked the design of the Runwell model watch. Not really as dressy as I thought. It did wear a bit big for it's size so I did plan to buy the next case size down, but that never happened.





The second Runwell never happened since I was lured by another. I've been interested for years about tuning fork watches. The old Accutron Spaceview was always so interesting since it had an electronic movement you wanted to see. When Bulova brought out the precisionist quartz movement with the smooth sweep, and created Alpha series that paid homage to the Spaceview. These came with croc straps and a deployant and were pretty sharp. Like all dress watches for me this got worn the day it arrived and then sat in the box, It became a contest prize for the hairy arm contest here at IWL.



As most of us here know having insomnia and browsing the web late at night is a dangerous thing. The next morning I had convinced myself to buy two Orient. This was possibly spurned on by my great experience with the Orient Star 300m Saturation diver. The first was the SS Orient M-Force with the bright orange dial. The second was the Titanium M-Force in yellow and black that I believe was a JDM watch from Seiya. Both are automatic Seiko based movements. The Ti one was a prize for one of our 1st anniversary events. Henry had won this one and has posted pictures of it that mine are nowhere near as nice. I remember the orange one going to the UK, but don't recall if it was as a prize or not?






It was a good match for the IWL strap.

With this group we are up to lifetime watches 317-320.

[Samanator]

The last watches I had to add for 2015 are two Topper anniversary watches. The first of these were the Bremont MB 2.5 that combined a few element of a MB that was limited issued in the UK to some early Bremont owners. It had the MB1 second hand and a few other elements that made it different from the MBII. The Topper edition added different lume and dial colors to the 7 and 5 on the dial for the 75 anniversary.



The second was the Topper Nomos 75th anniversary edition which had as the elements that made it special a white lacquer dial, lume tips on the hands and lume on the 5 minute index marks on the dial. Like the Bremont the Nomos had different lume colors on the 7 and 5. This was a very significant watch for me since it was the first hand wind and no date watch I liked. I bought a few Perlon straps to allow it to be slightly exposed to water. This was a watch that you could truly pull it out of the box , and while walking down the steps wind it and set it by the time you reached the garage. Totally brilliant in it's ease of use. I learned that now that I was nearly 100% working from home that no date works for me now. Also this seemed to meet my needs on the OEM strap for a dress watch.


So mark these as lifetime watches 321 and 322.

[Samanator]

In the later part of 2015, and through out 2016 I was really focused on getting what I really wanted to wear and having satisfaction in my collection. A few watches set my template. The most significant of these was the Rolex Explorer II. It was easy to read, had great lume, durable and could take getting wet. The Nomos would continue to show me that no date, and hand wind were things I could use, and even like a great deal. It was just not that great on the durable and WR front. The bronze watch thing came into play in 2016 which by the end of the year I pretty much decided my position on that. No dress watches were pretty much final rule. This function can be addressed by a sport watch just fine for the two to three days I have a need for this. In a way about 310 of my life time watches were experiments for what I really want to be content with my collection. A few surprises came in 2016, and a few old friends (sort of) returned. Things were very dynamic and chaotic this year, but it established what I'm pretty much settled on in the end.

Nearly every watch we talked about so far was gone except for the Topper Nomos, Omega DSOTM, Hulk, Explorer II, and Pelagos. My lost G-Shock was found of all places on a vent pipe on my roof during this time. The Snoopy would not arrive until April of this year. So I had six watches that made it to this point, and one on order.

[Samanator]

The first watch to come in for 2016 was a compromise of a dressy Sport watch. It's cousin had been serving our own Geoff as a soul watch for a bit now, and seemed to work as a multi role watch. Since I wanted something a bit different I chose to get the AT Skyfall model. I had no issue with the beautiful blue dial with the repeating Bond family crest on the dial. The bullet and rifled look rotor on the back and the family crest tiped second hands also worked for me. The big question again were the minute hand with just lume on the arrow tip and the hour hand with just a small dash of lume. The watch came with a bracelet and a rubber/nylon strap with deployant. I quickly determined I liked the strap better.










Again IMO this watch is a great watch that is in need of a proper set of hour and minute hands. Put a set of Speedy stick hands or the older Seamaster sword hands and it was set to go. I think the lack of readability in the dark kills it the most for me. By May 2016 it was gone.

This would be lifetime watch 323.

[Samanator]

The second watch of the year was something I had been collaborating on with Toppers and Eric Singer for about a year now. This was the Topper Oris Diver 65. We tried to build a no date version that was closer to the original watch. This included a slightly different font, SS non black bezel with insert, orange dot on the pip and the tip of the hand. As we looked at the dial in the renderings it was decided that the text could be moved around or removed to make a cleaner dial and not interfere with the minute track(note the Swiss Made is out of the track). It is subtle other than the missing date to see the differences. I think all involved were very happy with the end results. This is the only watch currently in my collection that does not have an in-house manufactured movement. I'll talk about this more later when I summarize things, but In-house is very important to me. Rob decided to ship these with both the Oris riveted bracelet (Probably not surprising by now my bracelet is still in the bag, in the watch box unsized), and the rubber strap. I believe these are all sold out. From Oris's side the they were not sure how to do a no date version since they had not done one before. This takes a bit more than pulling the date wheel. Some lesser attempts by others with ND watches have a false crown stop for the date setting position. The Topper Oris does not have this and only has set (time)and wind positions. The crown does screw in. The profile of this watch is my favorite feature. The thin case and bezel, domed crystal (which distorts the edge of the dial a bit ...in a good way)which looks to be almost as thick as the case of the watch. i'm not really quite certain why Oris does not get more than 100m WR out of these. It seems like it should easily make double that and be a true dive watch. I have number 62 which is my birth year so this is kinda my birth year watch since the other one I had been seeking may not exist. Count this one as lifetime watch 324.

[Samanator]

At Basel that year a few significant pieces were announced. From the Omega Side they showed the Blue/White panda like CK 2998 LE that used the other smaller FOIS like case. I liked it but I was still waiting on Snoopy so i did not jump on it, and let other get in line. Omega also showed the Deep Black versions of the PO and a Black and White GMT PO, but these were not until later in the year. The other watch was the Annual Calendar Globemaster.

From Rolex there were two that I was very interested in. Initially the rose gold/SS Yachtmaster with the brown dial was a favorite. I even put myself briefly on the waiting list for it. Hidden in the background was a rhodium Dial (Platinum bezel) version with a powder blue second hand. As time proceeded this became more interesting, and I took myself off of the list for the TT version. The other one that took a bit of time to come around on was the new 40mm AirKing. I hated it at first. After a month it started to look better. In my area no one actually had one so seeing it was not a possibility. I think it was November just before Thanksgiving when I was out at Toppers for an Omega Event (launch of the Deep Black, and opening of the remodeled store) as i was flying home someone passed me in the San Fransisco Airport with one on there wrist. It looked great, just like the Explorer II did years before in Singapore. I had put my name on the list for this also that summer at the same time I put myself on for the DSSD Deep Blue and the Ceramic Panda (Black bezel, white dial) Daytona. These two were from the previous year, but I still had not seen either in the steel.

Tudor showed a larger cased Bronze version of the Black Bay with a chocolate brown starburst dial. It came with a distressed leather strap and a canvas strap. No rubber strap option. This was in the back of my mind as a possible candidate.

At the same time Zodiac announced a Bronze cased Super Seawolf also with a chocolate brown starburst dial. This had a STP COSC movement (Also a Fossil company like Zodiac) which kind of made it the in-house for this brand. It was an 80 piece LE. Zodiac also had a few other LE versions of the Super Seawolf that were also 80 piece LE with the STP COSC movement. More food for thought along with the new Seawolf.

Panerai announced (at SIHH not Basel)the 1940 Radiomir model 619 which was a thinner 45mm Titanium case version, brown sandwich dial with aged lume, and the micro rotor automatic movement. I had secretly been shopping these for about four years now waiting for something like this. Add that I was more forgiving to No Date configurations. There were other models announced, but this was the big one of interest that could bring me back to the brand.

Blancpain announced a grey ceramic Bathyscape with a Blue dial and Bezel (Ocean Commitment model I believe) that was interesting and we'll get to soon. I'm certain there where others, but this was my forcus area in that brand.

There were probably a few more, but these were the primary for me that year.

[Samanator]

For about three years Rob talked about adding the Blancpain line to the store. In 2016 around May it finally happened. Rob asked in April if If i wanted a specific model in his first stocking order. I told him to to give me a day or two to decide. For nearly six years every time I was in DC I would go by the one Blancpain dealer and see the BP FF 5015-1130-52b in the window. I've probably drooled an the glass a few times looking at the watch in the window. I had passed on this back when I was looking for my ultimate diver by the narrowest margin. Many times I had second guessed this decision. My regard for this watch is equal to what many here think of the APRO. This should have been an easy choice, but something just did not feel right. I was aware of the Bathyscaphe line, but many played it down against the 45mm Fifty. As I tried to pin down my concern with the 45mm FF I just felt like it was too nice. This would translate to I probably would not wear it much which was not what I wanted in a watch. That was when I started looking more at the Bathyscaphe line in depth. After a bunch of reviews I had determined that the 43mm Titanium Bathyscaphe 500-1230-k52 was the right choice. I did consider one of the ceramics, but felt having the DSOTM was enough. So this is what I asked Rob to order for me. I was expecting this to at least take a month or two to show up. When Rob called and said he got the first shipment in a few days, and mine would be there the following Monday I almost fell on the floor. When it showed up and I wore it for the first day it was love at first sight. As I wore it more the watch just continued to blow me away. The Titanium models get the black starburst dial that adds to the subtle beauty. The dial is just so precise and clean that it looks bigger than it is. The indexes are like little jewels, and at night they have a good thick helping of lume that they easily glow through the night. The date is in the perfect location (4:30) so it does not mess up the symmetry of the dial markings like so many others get wrong with their date placement. The hands are different, and just work perfect with the dial day or night. The case harkens back to the original FF so it just so nice and precise. The lines and finish are perfect. I chose the green sailcloth strap that I feel adds a nice bit of color to the watch while still being water proof. The movement is art in an industrial way with the finish being perfect and subtle. Even the solid 18K gold rotor is PVD coated charcoal to make it a bit more subtle. As a I wore the watch I really appreciated the watch held power for 5 days off the wrist which was not happening much. The watch is comfortable to the point you forget it is on your wrist. This is mostly due to it only weighing 78grams even with the solid gold rotor. I now would consider this in a tie with my Explorer II as my favorite watch. This is due to being so readable in any light just like the Rolex is. I am just blown away how much I like this watch. I've recommended it to a few friends and those that bought one also feel the same way I do. To own this is to love it. Not much more that I can say. The watch is pretty dam near perfect IMO. Mark this as lifetime watch 325.

[Samanator]

So next up was the return to an old friend. I think the seed was set for this as far back as 2012 when my wife and I were on a cruise with a stop in St Thomas. There is a very nice Panerai boutique there that having time to waste I was browsing in. From time to time when I came across a store with Panerai like in Singapore I would stop in and try on a few. The 1940 and 1950 series really did not exist back when I was last collecting these. So I had a lot of new things. Also a whole host of movements (I believe they now have 19 different in-house movements) gave a lot of new things to consider and try. When the 619 was announced at SIHH my ears perked up, and I had to just wait for them to be around to try. When mlcor bought the little brother to the 619 it had me go look again and sure enough I found one. Having never owned a Radiomir (Since I like the lever on the the Luminor better) this would be a first, but not a traditional one since it did not have the hooped lugs. The 619 was nearly a catalog of the new Panerai Items I wanted: Brown sandwich dial, aged lume, stick hands (Although I would have preferred the gold accents not black), no date with second hand configuration, 45mm and 13mm thick titanium case, and to top it off the micro-rotor automatic movement all on a buffalo strap(24mm). This did not wear like a Panerai. It was far too balanced, and actually fit under a shirt cuff. They use two types of titanium for the brushed and polished surfaces (Grade 2 and grade 5). The retail price was almost what the Blancpain was so this was staggering. Luckily the only place I could find it was grey market so that helped a bit. Dealers did not seem to have them yet for some reason.











I decided I need a Luminor also to have one with a crown guard, and maybe even the more traditional Radiomir with the hooped lugs. One try off the traditional Radiomir reminded me why I never had one. Flat lugs do not work well on round wrists so the traditional Radiomir was out. So then which Luninor. I actually consulted my friend Anu who was much more up on things. We narrowed it down to the 422 or the 372. She made a great final call wholly endorsing the 372 since it was more authentic to the original 1950. I had never had a 47mm Pam so this was a bit Intimidating, but it looked good on the wrist. You really have to experience the warm glow on the dial of the plexiglass crystal on these . You'll want one on everything with a black dial. Watch wise this is just the time. My wife feels this is the best looking watch on me that I've ever had. I've never got an unsolicited comment about a watch from her like that before(Well at least not a complimentary one).










these are lifetime watches 326 and 327.