Also in the March-April 2008 time frame, mostly driven by the large WUS Doxa community I decided to try a Doxa. The problem was which one. This search probably started about the same time the first Ocean 7 watch was bought. Since I had the Orange Monster and did not quite understand at this time the mystique of Doxa Orange I was kind of drawn to the blue of the Caribbean models. Remember earlier when I said about GMT divers being a draw for me? So guess which one I picked? OK the GMT diver. I found the Blue and Orange quite unique and quite a standout.
Unfortunately, a few days after it arrived I found it was not winding via the rotor. So I got to experience Doxa customer support first hand. To say it sucked would be a gross understatement. Doxa determined when the got the watch back that the case was warped and this was causing the rotor to bind. Luckliy just before sending it back I had shot about a dozen pictures of the watch including the above. I asked them how if it looked like this I could have done something that damaged it so bad to warp the case yet the crystal and case back were intact. This turned into a series of calls which the final one had me screaming at them that they were insane on the phone from the parking lot of the restaurant we were at lunch at. Then all of a sudden they realized the watch they were looking at was not mine when he finally looked at my pictures(he was holding a yellow dial gmt). As it turned out they lost my return which they admitted to and refunded my money back.
After this I was a little shy about getting a watch directly from Doxa so I started to follow the Sales Corner on WUS. While doing that I came across a Sinn U1 that was being sold by a friend of mine in NJ named Glen. I decided to buy this from him, and this was the first of many watches we sold or traded each other over the coming years. The Sinn arrived and I came to really like the U1 hand setup and excellent bracelet. I had the run into the office the next day after I received it and while at the office I banged it into the metal door frame in my office twice. Not a mark. Got to love the Tagimented steel. The week point of this and all other Sinn that I tried back then was the lume. It was only good for minutes not hours no matter what you did.
The other issue I found later with the U1 was the double sided AR. No matter how I cleaned it the watch seemed to be able to suck fingerprints out of the air when no one had touched it? I've never had another double sided AR watch do this.
So by now your probably wondering what a Sinn U1 has to do with a Doxa. So I'll tell you. After getting the U1 I was so smitten with it that I asked Glen what other watches he had. In the list the Doxa 5000T MilShark (Doxa speak for Pvd case and bracelet with a black dial) popped up. I asked if he wanted to sell it? He said he just got it on a trade, and was not certain if he liked it. He did mention the lume was amazing (sorry I do not have the shot he sent or one for this watch). Apparently at this time these were temporarily sold out so they were hard to get. That made me want it more. So over the course of the next week when ever I had a spare moment I would email him a message that said in the subject line "Sell Me The" and in the body "Milshark". As it turned out Glen was a more chronic flipper than I was becoming. He rarely held onto anything more that a month. Finally at the end of the week he caved and sold me the MilShark. I loved it when it arrived, and the lume bested my monster. Most of the Doxa have printed dials but the 5000T series have applied indexes that Doxa spooned a heap of lume into so it would light up like a Torch. The hands also got an extra dose of lume. I really loved this watch, and it was easily my favorite at the time. This was my first watch with a Micro Adjust bracelet, which was a new thing at the time.
Here is a photo borrowed from the web to show the Lume:
Again my luck with Doxa watches was cursed. Apparently the watch Glen traded to someone had an issue that was covered by warranty. The person he traded with did not want to deal with a service center so he wanted the MilShark back. I asked if I could just buy it from this guy for the value he traded Glen for? He said no, so I had to return it, and Glen paid me back. When Glen got his watch back there was nothing wrong with his watch. We figure the guy really just wanted the MilShark back so he made up the issue. About this time (now summer of 2008) Doxa had some internal shake up, and new people were running the online store with a US presence. The old leadership had tried to move out of online only with the brand, and into retail stores. I believe Toppers was a Doxa AD for a few months until Doxa pulled the plug. Around July they had a sale on the 5000T models except the MilShark. It was such a deal (I think around $1599-$1699 down from the over $2K price) I ordered the Caribbean model of the 5000T. It showed up in two days and there were no issues with it. It was actually quite striking. The blue dial really gleamed in the sun, and it looked amazing under the water.
My wife and I were doing a sort of Staycation at the HardRock Casino Hotel about 15 minutes from our house. It was so close we were all most there when my wife realize she left he bathing suit on the bed. We turned around, went home to get it, and were back at the hotel 30 minutes later. The plan was to hang around the pool all day and then meet up with friends that evening for diner and a bit of clubbing. When we arrived, and while we waited for our room to be cleaned we wondered through the casino complex grounds which had shops and restaurants to find a bit of lunch. On the way back to we stopped into a multi-brand watch boutique in the complex to look around. They had about fifteen brands including Omega, UN, JLC and Rolex. I had been wanting to see a UN so that is what I started on. After looking, and trying a few things my wife asked if they had any deals since my birthday was coming up. She indicated they had a Rolex Sea Dweller that Rolex had authorized them to discount about 20% from retail. I had been looking at these and Grand Seiko divers at the time and was trying to decided which one to get. She could not get it at the moment since it was in the safe, and the store manager who could open it was at lunch. We told her we would come back later that evening, and we were going to hang out at the pool at the hotel that afternoon. She indicated her shift ended at 5pm as we walked out. By this time we got our room, and went up and changed to go to the pool. I started a cycle of reading a Clive Cussler book (Valhalla Rising...my favorite Dirk Pitt book) on my kindle and at the end of each chapter taking a dip. Ironically I was wearing the the Doxa 5000T Caribbean, just not the Dirk Pitt 600T Professional (Doxa speak for Orange Dial). I guess about two hours had passed since we left the watch store, and the girl from the watch store found my wife at the pool bar an had the Rolex SD (this was the older model with the old bracelet and before ceramic bezels on Rolex's). My wife was interested, and pointed to me in the pool to show me the watch. They came over and I looked at it at the pools edge. The only thing I did not like was it still had the old stamped clasp like my old sub did. It was kind of cheap verses the Doxa clasp I had on. She had had the jeweler pull a few links on it and she put it on my wrist, and told me to try it while swimming. I did not want to do that, but she kept insisting I should since she was trying to push the sale before she had to go home. After the third time my wife said go ahead and try it so I did. I swam out to the island in the middle of the pool and then back underwater. When I came up something look wrong. The watch appeared to have water in it but the crown looked like it was screwed in correct. When they took it back the watch maker determined the crystal seal had failed by the pressure test. Needless to say I did not buybthe SD, and when we got home the next day I ordered the GS Diver from Seiya.
This was my first Spring Drive watch, after following the release of the SD movements on the web since they came out. These were new this year, at that time the prices was $4600 USD. A few weeks later after I received the GS Japan adjusted their currency and the price shot up to over $7800 and then by years end $8400. My second bit of watch buying luck. The GS was so much more the the SD at that time. It was Titanium with the famous GS finish, sapphire bezel insert to the Rolex's printed Al, and had a micro adjust clasp. It was a 45mm which was much bigger than the Rolex SD, had huge indexes and those unique hands.
Just after the GS arrived my friend Glen had gotten a pre-owned Seiko 600 Marine Master SD GMT from someone. He was not jelling with it so he asked if I wanted it. Of course I said yes since I was on a high-end Seiko high from the GS diver. Again I will mention that GMT diver trend that came up again with this watch. The 600MM has a true GMT movement, which at that time I really did not understand what that meant until I tried setting it. The hour hand moved back or forward when the crown is at the first detent out from the wind position. This moves the date back and forward without moving the GMT hand. In this case Seiko played a little optical trick on the eyes. They made the GMT hand white which for some reason unless you are looking for it specifically you do not see it when on your wrist. If you have never had or seen a Spring Drive watch all I can say is the sweep smoothness is mesmerizing. Seiko also put a bevel on the edge of the sapphire crystal which if you look at some of the pictures it paints a unique dot for each of the hands on the bevel. The indexes also show on the bevel. I discovered this while bored in a meeting just staring at my watch to stay awake. The 600MM has these hex screws between each lug that allow you to remove the bezel for cleaning without a watch knife, and also as I discovered you can tune the feel of the bezel rotation to your liking.
I loved this watch and it became my go to for a few years. I was a bit afraid to wear the GS since it seemed scratch a bit too easy just from Sunday wear. The 600MM also introduced me to a 72 hour power reserve ( the GS had it also, but I did not wear it enough to appreciate it). Now I could take it off on Friday night, and put it back on Monday morning with no loss of time or winding required. It also showed me what accuracy was. Between time changes there was no greater than 1 second lost over a 6 month period. So 2 second per year (And that was overstating it a bit...it was more like 1 second per year).
So I was on a roll with higher end Seiko. I wanted to see a 300MM. There was a guy on WUS who lived in Boca Raton just up the road from me. He had the 600MM, the 300MM and at that time Seiko had a high end Kinetic Diver that had a Ion plated black bezel (Saw tooth I believe)and case. His 600MM he had modified a Sinn U1 rubber strap with a the U1 clasp that he was touting on WUS. We decided to meet at the Starbucks in Boca on a Friday afternoon. He showed up with the 600MM, and the Kinetic, but no 300MM. Turns out he sold it between the time we set up the meet and the day of the meet. He assured me that the 300MM was as nice as the 600MM. So I went home and order one. Huge disappointment when it arrived. The balance was horrible, the accuracy was non-existant, and it looked way too tall on the wrist. It went right back, and I added a name to my list of people not to listen to. Sorry if your a 300MM fan. Save your money and buy the 600MM.
One last watch to close out August 2008. Glen was on a tear buying Anonimo watches that lasted him a year or two(the tear that is). I had never heard of them, but after talking with him a few times I learned of the link to Panerai. He was posting all these outrageous Anonimo like the 6000 professional that had the clamping screw buckles that held the bezel of the watch to the case back. Anonimo's are all about the cases, dials and hands. They also used water proof leather straps called Kodiak Straps. This started me hunting on the bay since there were several at good discounts there. I found a white dialed WayFarer II with the Ox Pro case finish from a seller near Miami. Ox Pro was a black coating that was said to be what Beretta used on their pistols. Anonimo also had a mutli-step sandblasting finish call Drass that yielded a greenish bronze color to the cases that you cold get on this model with a different dial color. After a bit of haggling we agreed to a price and I met him the next morning. Again here is a Diver GMT with a very unique dial setup. The extra crown is the HEV valve. This was also my first watch with a power reserve meter. Love the odd 51 ATM WR rating.
So my lifetime total stands at 78 including the few hours I owned the 300MM, but not including the SD which I did not buy.
At this point the collection stands at the following:
Seiko Orange Monster
Breitling Avenger Seawolf
O7 LM-2
O7 LM-2 24hr GMT
O7 LM-3
O7 LM-5 LE Carbon
O7 American
Seiko 600MM GMT SD
GS Titanium Diver SD
Anonimo WayFarer II Ox Pro
Sinn U1
RT Airspeed Chronograph
12 watches.