Ugly Rado

While Tiff was looking at some jewelery, I was looking at some watches.
Very few Automatics out there now. All quartz. It’s a shame, really.
Quartz watches have close to zero collectors’ value. Saw a bass
ackwards Automatic ‘divers’ watch today. It was a Rado, 300m, but it
did not have a rotating bezel, had a small, hard to read face, yet had a helium
release valve. Just to let you know, helium release valves are only
used for truly hard core diving, where you breath a helium/oxygen mix.
The watch was $1150 and ugly as sin. I think it was this model:


Some people love Rado. I think they are ugly and overpriced. Rado was the pioneer in scratch resistance, but is it the most important feature of a watch?
I think almost all modern watches above $75 are pretty tough now.

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Ahh, the Orange Bullet is on my wrist.

Went to the Mother In Law’s today and got my Christmas gift from her, a Seiko “Orange Bullet” Diver’s watch.
It’s a real beauty. Even though it is 42mm in diameter, the lug to lug distance is about 43mm, so no annoying overhang on my dainty wrists.

You can see it changing the date in this photo.  It changes between 10:30 and midnight.  I did take it out of the box a few weeks ago to resize the band, but now I can really wear it. I did miss wearing it. I did get the perfect accessory from Tiffany, a valet with a watch drawer to hold my slowly growing collection. I’ll take a photo of it when I get a chance.

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Ah, the mechanical watch

Disjointed, drug influenced post below:

Tiff bought me a lovely mechanical Seiko watch a few weeks ago as an early Christmas present. Living with it for a month has really given me respect for mechanical watches. I used to wear a hand wound watch for several years, somewhere around 1989 to 1993. I remember I bought it at Target. It don’t remember the brand, but it worked well until it was lost during a snow shoveling experience outside my second apartment. I found it the next spring, but by then, it was rusted and ruined. I am sure if it was a Seiko it 1) wouldn’t of come of my wrist (strap failed) 2) if it did, the Stainless Steel body would not of rusted.

I remember when I was a kid, bugging Mom and Dad to get a watch. I wanted a analog watch. At the time, it was probably 1986 or 87. Everything was digital. I eventually found an all black, I believe it was a Casio Quartz, plastic watch. It was my first analog quartz. I wore that watch for years until one of the plastic lugs cracked. To this day, I can’t buy a plastic watch, no matter how cool it looks. I think Mom and Dad probably paid $30 or $40 or more for that watch, which was no small sum 20 years ago.

Back to my current watch. I really do enjoy wearing an automatic watch. It is much more ‘alive’ than my other watches. I still watch the second hand sweep across the dial. I like the fact it will probably outlive me, and I can pass it down to Glenn some day. The watch is starting to settle down, it is about +10 seconds a day fast. It was about 15 seconds a day fast in the beginning. I kind of like the fact I have to reset the time every now and then.  Now I realize, you really don’t need super exact time. +/- 1 minute isn’t going to kill you.

Ahh, drugs, sweet drugs.

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