Yes, as is more often than not, watch salesmen and others will weigh the pros and cons of one watch over the other by explaining water resistance to depths of which you’ll never go.  They’ll tell you about useless certifications and pretty much anything under the Sun God Ra to sell you that watch.

Well one thing that they might tell you is about how many “jewels” a movement has.

Sound familiar?

Well let me let you in on a little watch education.  You see every automatic watch is essentially powered by a tightly coiled spring that slowly unfurls and rewinds itself when you move around.  The “jewels” in a watch movement are really bearings and they essentially serve the same purpose as ball bearings.  They reduce friction within the moving parts of the watch and makes the friction a lot more predictable, thus improving the accuracy of the watch.

Too many times I encounter idiots at the water cooler who claim that because a watch has 27 jewels as opposed to 21 jewels, than it must be better because it is more valuable, and better because it is simply “more! more! more!”  They claim that in the end more jewels means a better watch.

Well let me say first of all you, you nut, that the “jewels” in a watch movement are not King Tut’s jewels and you can’t take them out and sell them if you’re in a pinch.  They are small synthetic sapphires, and the last time I checked, I believe they cost around 2/10 of one cent.

Secondly, it’s not about how many jewels you have in a movement, it’s how each jewel is being used.  You can a jillion jewel movement, but if they aren’t doing anything than what’s the point.  Too often I hear people base their high-end watch purchases in part because of the jewel count, and that’s totally wrong.

I agree to a point that it’s better to have more jewels than less.  Your basic movement, for example, has 17 jewels, but I think that pretty much any movement with 21 jewels or more is perfectly fine for an uncomplicated movement.  So in conclusion, just like with drinking, you’re good if you’re over 21.

3570.50 Speedmaster Mens Stainless Steel Watch

The Rolex Daytona fans can moan all they want, but when it comes to mechanical chronographs, how can you beat the Omega Speedmaster Professional?

This watch, after all, was the first and for the longest time, ONLY watch worn on the moon.  Its most touted use, however, was when it was very prominently used to time the afterburner rockets that allowed the crippled Apollo 13 spaceship to fly home.

There are no doubts that this is one of the most historically significant watches out there, and if you ever looked its bezel,  that is, the rim of the watch, you will probably notice that it’s got a Tachymeter (or Tachymetre, or Tachometer):

Now what exactly IS a tachymeter you might be asking?

Well a real tachymeter is certinaly more complicated than a plastic rim with some numbers on it, but when it comes to watches, a tachymeter is used to measure speed, but there are some caveats…

Here’s how it works.  It takes pretty much any unit of distance, such as a mile, a kilometer, etc. and it tells you how many of it your are doing of it in an hour.  You start the chronograph and use it to measure the elapsed time it takes you to travel a certain measure of distance such as a mile, nautical mile, and what have you.

Okay, here we go:

For all intents and purposes, please do not focus on anything else on the watch EXCEPT the hand that it is pointed directly at the 12 o’ clock position.  I know a lot of people are thinking this is probably the seconds hand, but it is not.  In most mechanical chronographs this is the hand that times stuff.  (See the sub-dial at the 9 o’clock position with the numbers ‘20,’ ‘40,’ and ‘60,’ on it?  That is what is measuring the seconds.  If the chronograph is not engaged, the hand pointing at the 12 o’clock position will not move).

Okay let’s say we are traveling in a very fast rocket powered car with no speedometer.  We want to know how fast we are going but don’t have the faintest of idea, but we do have an odometer so when a new mile starts we engage the chronograph…

After the odometer travels that one mile we stop the chronograph, and as you can now see, the chronograph hand says it took us about 37 seconds to travel that mile.  If you look at the tachymeter reading, you can see that you have been traveling at about 97 miles per hour.  That’s pretty fast!

I’m sure you can see where some problems with this lie…

First of all, you would have to know how long a certain unit of distance is.  You would have to know how long a mile is, you would have to know how long a kilometer is, etc…

Secondly, and most important, you would have to be going at least 60 of that rate of speed for the tachymeter to be of any use.  If you take longer than a minute to travel that unit of distance you are done for.

It is so stupid, but it sets a perfectly reasonable speed to be the bare minimum of its use.  Whoever regularly goes up to 300 miles/hm per hour is a person I’d like to meet, and if he uses his watch as his only means of determining that speed, that’s pretty cool.

To a lesser extent a tachymeter can also be used to measure the total distance you have traveled, but that would requiring you to be traveling at a constant speed.  Bottom line is that I know why they have it the Omega Speedmaster Professional, it’s tradition, but why is it on so many automatic chronographs in this modern age still baffles me.

It is not needed, no one uses it, most people are not “speed masters,” so why can’t we just get rid of it?

What?!?

That’s right!  Your shiny new Breitling and your indestructible Omega have movements in them (or “engines” for the layperson) that are NOT made by them.

But don’t fret, they’re not the only ones…

Brands that you have learned to love such as IWC, Rado, Porsche Design, Panerai, Tag Heuer, and even my beloved Hamilton, you’ll be shocked to learn, do not function under their own steam.  Virtually all of them, and I do mean ALL of them, use some form of ETA movement in their watches.

You may not have heard of the name, but ETA is the legendary Swiss movements manufacturer whose constant supply of blank watch movements have made it possible for the Swiss watch industry to exist.

I’m not kidding either, ETA is pretty much the entire Swiss watch industry, and if it were to disappear from the Earth the very next day, the whole of the Swiss watch industry would cease to exist.

It would actually be infinitely easier for me to name all the watch “manufacturers” that DO make their own movements as opposed to those who rely solely on ETA for theirs.

(Here we go:  Rolex, Zenith, Patek Philippe, and maybe a few others…)

Here is one of ETA’s movements which you can see through the back of my beautiful Hamilton:

Hamilton H64455533 Men’s Khaki King Automatic Black Dial Strap, Free Shipping

So how does it work?

Well basically ETA ships off blank, unused movements to pretty much all the Swiss watch companies for use in their watches.  The movements are then modified and fitted into various watches.  In some cases they are very heavily modified, such as the case with Omega’s co-axial movement.  After that is done, the watch companies etch their name and logos all over the movement and ship ‘em off to the consumers, who are none the wiser.

Notice any similarities between these these three watches?

Breitling Chrono Cockpit – A1335812/C654-SP Gents Watch


Omega Speedmaster Date Chronograph Automatic Men’s Watch Stainless Steel Black Dial 3210.52

TAG Heuer Men’s Link Automatic Chronograph Watch #CJF2150.BB0595

These watches may be made by three entirely different watch companies that embody three different design characteristics, but the under-workings are exactly the same.

You’ll notice that the date window is at the 3 o’clock positions, and you’ll notice that the seconds hand is at the 9 o’ clock position sub-dial.  You operate the chronograph by pushing the pusher at the 2 o’clock position, and you reset it with the pusher at the 4 o’clock position.  Yes the workings of these watches are very similar indeed…

Coincidence?

I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out my point here, and that is that the three different watches from three very different, and well known watch companies, are based off the same chronograph movement, and yup, you guessed it…

… it’s an ETA movement!

One thing I’m doing that is very wrong, and I admit, is that I’m talking about all of this as though it were a bad thing.  But it’s not!

There’s a very good reason why the whole of Switzerland turns to ETA for their movements.  Besides the fact that it’s much easier, cheaper for you and the manufacturer, and lazier that way, ETA makes outstanding movements that is better than what most of the “watchmakers” in Switzerland can ever come up with.

They aren’t very pretty to look at, and they aren’t “handmade” or “in-house” as the watch connoisseurs like to obsess about, but they work very very well, and when it comes to building high-quality, albeit simple movements, ETA is the best in the business.

I personally don’t get it when people obsess about things being “hand made.”  It is my personal preference to have something, especially something as small as a watch, made with the microscopic precision and unwavering nature of a machine rather than the fat fingers of a fondue eating, mountain dwelling goat tender.

Rantings aside,  the bottom line is that what you probably didn’t know about many of the fine watch brands you’ve been drooling about, you now know.  But don’t let that be a deterrent.  If anything, let that be an assurance that what you are buying has got one solid movement.

The ultimate goal of the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres, or C.O.S.C. for short, was to set a standard in the Swiss watch industry by subjecting the finest Swiss timepieces to a series of accuracy and durability tests. If a watch submitted to the COSC met their rigorous standards, the manufacturer could officially label the watch as a “Chronometer” and allow it to leave Switzerland with the nation’s honor intact.

You may not have heard of the organization, but if you have ever looked at the dial of a Rolex and wondered what “Superlative Chronometer” and “Officially Certified,” means, now you know:

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Sea Dweller 4000 Mens Watch 16600-BSO

The simple fact is that the only reason why COSC certification is held in such high regard is because ROLEX sends almost all of their watches to COSC, and that ALL of the popular Rolex models carry this certification. Out of the three major facilities of the COSC, TWO devote themselves almost entirely to Rolex movements.

The truth, however, is that on the whole less than 5% of all Swiss watches produced in any given year even bother getting this certification.

Why?

Because it is simply NOT necessary. Manufacturer’s own internal tests and standards tend to be just as good, if not better than COSC, so they don’t bother with the cost and the hassle.

What good is a certification anyway if many of the biggest and most respected watchmakers in the world, watchmakers such as A. Lange & Sohne, Breguet, IWC, and one of my favorites, Jaeger Le-Coultre, don’t even bother with it?

In the opinion of your humble presenter, the only reason other non-Rolex watches get “certified” in the first place is because they try to compete with Rolex by saying that because their watch passed the same kind of certification as a ROLEX, it must be just as good.

The best I could figure out though is that COSC certification is only used to offer uneducated turkeys, with a little money in his pocket mind you, some element of peace of mind. And believe me, I’ve heard the sales pitch before:

Basically some normal guy, who would normally buy his watches at Target, walks into a watch store and is duped into thinking that COSC is this magical Swiss agency that gives watches the gold standard and that all watches not certified by them must be junk.

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a HUGE Rolex fan, but if you are new to luxury wristwatches I implore you to not to let this useless certification be a factor in making your choice. The COSC certification, in the opinion of your humble presenter, does mean something, but it is by no means the gold standard in the watch industry that many claim it to be, and most watches as just as good.

You see on any normal expensive mechanical watch, every “complication” has a purpose.  A chronograph is obviously used to time things, a perpetual calendar makes it so that the user doesn’t have to worry about changing dates during leap years, a starchart can keep track of the skies, and a minute repeater makes lovely chiming noises.

So how do they do that stuff? Well it’s all by mechanical parts.  Ever wonder why watches not covered in diamonds and King Tut’s jewels can cost as much as a house?  It’s because they have an intricate system of cogs, springs, and things like that doing VERY “complicated” stuff in a very small space.

Whereas chronographs and date displays are all kiddie stuff in the watch world, some of the most complicated functions you will find on a wristwatch are perpetual calendars, skycharts, minute repeaters, and the granddaddy of them all…

The TOURBILLON!

To start things off, let’s explain what a tourbillon is…

In essence a tourbillon is a rotating cage for a watch’s “engine.”  It’s no wider or thicker than a button, yet consists of scores of very small parts.  It’s a remarkable watchmaking achievement.  In the old days almost a century ago when pocketwatches were popular, it was believed that gravity had a negative effect on the watch’s accuracy; Because of the way pocketwatch movements were built during the time, and because of the fact that pocketwatches sat in pockets virtually in the same position for most of the day (crown-up in a vest pocket), it was believed that if you rotated the watch’s escapement and the watch’s balance wheel, or watch’s “engine,” for simplicity’s sake, you could then negate the negative effects of gravity.

Below is a modern-day tourbillon from Breguet, the company that practically invented the wristwatch and made the very first example of the tourbillon:

It was never really sure if a tourbillon actually improved a watch’s accuracy even back in those days, but one thing that IS certain is that it has NO practical use in this day of modern-day wristwatches.

First of all, wristwatches don’t sit idle in a vest pocket all day long so the “engine” of a watch is constantly moving and in different positions (as long as you wear it), secondly, a tourbillon’s effect, even back then, was questionable at best, and movements in luxury automatic watches are already as accurate as can be.

In watchmaking, however, it is considered the most difficult thing a watchmaker could hope to do, and even in its most basic form, it can costs many TENS of THOUSANDS of dollars and many man hours to complete.  The fact that it is a masterpiece of achievement, of course, is what makes it desirable.

What can I say, it is the Mt. Everest of all watch complications, and when watchmakers make a tourbillon, they make it for all the world to see in a beautiful spinning display.  Take for example this Corum:

Corum Tourbillon 18K White Gold Silver Dial Men’s Watch

The tourbillon which you can of course see in the 10 o’ clock position will continue to spin in all of its glory as long as it is wound.  In the watch world it is the very definition of excess.  It is spending well into the 5 to 6 figures for a beautiful rotating button-sized contraption that does NOTHING.  The rarity and exclusively of tourbillon watches is eclipsed only by their price tags.

What can I say, these watches are ONLY for the super rich, and embody the very definition of art.

Believe it or not watchmakers saw this potential problem many decades ago and have certain protective clutches preventing the over-winding of watches.  So if you have a watch made in the past few decades you do not have to worry about over-winding.

To offer an example, the back of my own Khaki King Automatic makes a claim of water resistance to 50M:

Hamilton H64455533 Men’s Khaki King Automatic Black Dial Strap, Free Shipping

Now what does this actually mean? Does it mean that this watch can go 50 meters underwater?

The short answer is, NO!

If you think about it, what does “water resistant” really mean? I mean would you buy body armor that is simply “bullet resistance” rather than “bullet proof?” I mean I can claim that my car is elephant resistant, but if an elephant hurls its mass toward the side of my car, I doubt it would fare very well.

The truth is that the advertised water resistance of most watches is an outright lie, and that any watch that claims any degree of water resistant is not capable of going to the depths it advertises. If a watch claims 50-100 meters of water resistant it may be suitable for wading in the kiddie pool and things like water skiing, but I would be wary to take it even to 1/10th of its advertised depth. And while I may concede that 200 meters of water resistance can maybe handle some light dives, it can’t go anywhere near 200 meters of depth.

I know that this doesn’t apply to the vast majority of you desk jockeys out there, but if you seriously want to go to great depths you have to get a watch that can handle it.

So how do you know?

It’s simple, all you have to do is look for the “DIVERS” mark on the watch:

Seiko Diver’s Automatic 200M – Black Dial – Stainless Bracelet

If you are having trouble reading it, reads:

SEIKO

AUTOMATIC

DIVER’S 200m

Watches that make the bold “DIVERS,” or “DIVER’S” claim means that it has met a certain set of standards and is actually suitable for diving to depths that you may never go and then some. These watches can take the punishment so have at it.

The watch world has a similar type of stereotype, and it isn’t particularly harmful, but it is an element of ignorance that I wish to clarify today. That being that while watches serve the ultimate purpose of telling the time, the inner workings of the watch cannot be assumed to be the same. In other words, the way a Timex operates and the way Rolex function are very different and it’s important to know that difference if you wish to enjoy watches to their fullest.

You see the vast vast majority of watches you see on the wrists of ordinary people these days are quartz powered watches. They use a battery, they tick, they’re cheap, you can leave them in a drawer and it will still be running fine months later. Besides that they are very accurate, and they require minimal maintenance. To the layperson a quartz watch is the obvious choice, and rightfully so. They are cheap, reliable, and a breeze to maintain.

But unbeknown to the public at large there is another type of watch that, before the introduction of the quartz watch in the 1970’s, adorned the wrists of the people long before. This is the mechanical watch. As a machine it is similar to a music box. You keep it wound = it works, you don’t = it stops. The drawbacks of a mechanical watch compared to a quartz are plenty. To start a mechanical watch is much less accurate, they cost a whole lot more, they are expensive to maintain, and you need to constantly keep them wound. You can “tune” a mechanical watch to be as accurate as a quartz, but generally speaking a mechanical watch almost never has the out-of-box accuracy of a quartz watch. Whereas an average quartz watch can keep an accuracy within +-15 seconds a month, for a mechanical watch to keep an accuracy within +- 2 minutes is considered to be quite good. On top of that, while a mechanical watch doesn’t use any batteries, or any electricity for that matter, you need to constantly worry about keeping them wound and keeping all those moving parts maintained costs a whole heck of a lot more.

The introduction of the quartz by Seiko delivered a knockout punch to the Swiss watch industry. And why not? They offered a more accurate and less fussy alternative for a whole lot less.

So did the mechanical watch go the way of the dodo? Hardly…

It seems that mechanical watches enjoy a sense of prestige in that all the major high-end watches almost exclusively offer mechanical watches. Whether it be Rolex, Patek Philippe, Panerai, they largely do away with the quartz. So all of you who wish to breathe the rarefied air in the watch world can invest in one of these watches. On top of that watch enthusiasts like me find a deep sense of passion having those small machines adorn our wrists everyday. They are short on sense, but high in passion!

I know that you may think that just because you wear your Rolex everywhere in your cushy suburb without incident that it is just as fine to wear your Rolex everywhere and anywhere else in the world without incident as well. You may even have one of those “discreet” Rolex models, and you may think to yourself that no criminal could possibly distinguish this watch from the ordinary. That, unfortunately, is not the case.

Well to state the obvious for all you golf playing, SUV driving, Polo shirt wearing, big house dwelling Blackberry jockeys out there! While we may think that our affluent suburb may, or should represent the status quo for all the parts in the world, that is very far from the truth. While your high-priced watch may seem like just an expensive trinket to you, to many of the bad elements in other parts of world that watch is their meal ticket, and they will gladly chop off your hand to get at it. If you put things in perspective, a Rolex watch represents more than the annual income of a huge percentage of the worlds’ population so the temptation for evildoers is very high indeed.

So why is it particularly dangerous to wear a Rolex as opposed to another high dollar watch brand?

Well as much as I hate to admit it, Rolex is the most highly regarded watch brand in the world. And it is made particularly valuable by the fact that Rolex is one of few brands that NEVER discount, and also by the fact that Rolex frequently increase their prices. The end result is a watch that retains their value like no other brand can.

On top of that, for all intents and purposes it is very easy to recognize a Rolex, because short of the obscure Rolex Cellini line, the Rolex Oyster line, which consists of the vast majority of Rolex watches bought and sold in the world, have very distinguishing features that even the most blurry-eyed of bandits can recognize.

One dead giveaway is the date magnification bubble, or as we watch enthusiasts like to call it, the “cyclops lens.”

Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner Date Steel Mens Watch 16610

This useless lens used only by Rolex (and imitators) magnifies the date excactly 2.5 times. Honestly I find it more distracting than helpful, but if your Rolex has a date function, than unless your watch is a Rolex Sea-Dweller, your watch has got this very recognizable feature.

On top of that Rolex watches really only use TWO bracelet patterns. They may have leather straps on some models and a “President” bracelet for their really high-end models, but for all intents and purposes you will find the vast majority of Rolex watches sporting a bracelet that looks either like this “Oyster” band:

Or like this Rolex “Jubilee” band:

They may have different polishes and may be made of different metals such as gold or whatever, but the patterns are still easily recognizable to those who are lurking about.

The fact that there are so many imitations and fakes out there may help your chances a little bit if you dare to venture to area unknown with such an expensive watch on your wrist. I heard stories in which a Rolex was used to get tourists out of a tight situation abroad, but the stories of tourists being mugged,hurt, or even killed far outweigh those. It is just not worth the risk.

My friends father, a scientist and world explorer has always advised travelers to look impoverished while traveling abroad, and that’s a policy I think we should all live by. So my advice to the travelers of the world is to save your showing off for the local mall and enjoy your vacation without the worries.

Well let me just say, if you feel stupid because you don’t know how to operate this thing, that’s because you probably are.

Seriously, even a monkey can do this:

Seiko Men’s “Black Monster” Automatic Dive Watch #SKX779K3

IS A MONKEY SMARTER THAT YOU?!?!

If you don’t know what I am talking about I’ll show you what I mean using my Seiko Black Monster:

Seiko Men’s “Black Monster” Automatic Dive Watch #SKX779K3

This is a typical dive watch, and if you’ve read some of my earlier posts you know that I love this watch even though it does weigh a ton. It’s got everything that a typical dive watch has got. It has luminous hands and markers, great depth rating, tough steel case and bracelet, rugged looks, and most importantly of all for the purposes of this tutorial, it has a diving bezel.

If you still don’t know what I’m going on about I have singled out the diving bezel just for you:

Seiko Men’s “Black Monster” Automatic Dive Watch #SKX779K3

Now as you see the bezel has minute (or seconds if you will) increments that goes up to the number 60. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that because there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in a hour, and the fact that a diving bezel is on a bloody WATCH, probably means that its purpose has got something to do with measuring time.

Well you guessed right genius, a diving bezel is used to measure time, and its purpose, diving of course.

I won’t bore you with the details of diving but the purpose of a diving bezel is typically for divers to time their decompression stops. You see, when a diver goes deep underwater they have to endure a great deal of pressure. Going down to great depths, however, is not quite the same as coming back up. A diver can get down to great depths relatively fast, but when coming back they can’t do it too fast or they might get sick or even die.

To overcome this, divers have to come up in carefully-timed stages, and in this situation a watch becomes as important a diving tool as a wet suit and a scuba tank. You ever notice how the increments on a diving bezel are different from the 0-15 minute position as opposed to the rest of a bezel? That is because the typical decompression stop for most diving situations is 15 minutes. Ever wonder why you can only turn the darn thing counterclockwise? That is because it is safer for the diver not to perceive a shorter elapsed time if the bezel should accidentally get turned after it is set.

Well now that you know a little more, it’s time to learn how to operate the thing.

Well here is my Seiko Black Monster sitting on the wrist of your humble presenter. As you notice the bezel is set so that the ‘zero’ mark is set at the 60 minute, or 12 o’clock position:

Seiko Men’s “Black Monster” Automatic Dive Watch #SKX779K3

Let’s just say we are underwater on a dive. Actually forget that! I want to use a more real-world situation, so let’s say we want to know how long it takes for my cake to bake. Disregarding the above shot of my Black Monster, the current time on my watch is 11:40, so what we want to do is turn the bezel so that the ‘zero’ mark, or the big triangle, is hovering right over my minute hand like so:

Seiko Men’s “Black Monster” Automatic Dive Watch #SKX779K3

So now that my bezel is set I just leave it there until I need it again. When my minute hand reaches 11:55 that would mean that 15 minutes has elapsed, when the watch hits 12:00 that would mean 20 minutes have passed and so on and so on…

Well I’m smelling a burning from the office oven so that must mean that my cake is done. I read my watch and it looks like this:

Seiko Men’s “Black Monster” Automatic Dive Watch #SKX779K3

Now pay attention. How long was my cake in the oven? Look at the time, it is now 12:18.

If haven’t figured it out at this point, than you have problems. Here is the solution:

Seiko Men’s “Black Monster” Automatic Dive Watch #SKX779K3

Main purpose of a diving watch is diving, but I suspect that diving bezels all across the world will do just as well timing steaks on the grill as well.

Well there you have it monkey. That is how you use a diving bezel:

Seiko Men’s “Black Monster” Automatic Dive Watch #SKX779K3