Yes so if you are ordinary man with a little cash to burn and have an yearing to purchase a “pure” wristwatch, that is, an automatic wristwatch, than you may be enamored over this concept called “jewels”

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.

This is a little known fact, but if you walk into any given store that sells luxury wristwatches, it is a virtual guarantee that MOST of the watches there are NOT powered by their own movements.

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.

To those who have ever overinflated a tire until it burst, or put so much food in a fish that it bursted, you may have concerns whether or not you can over-wind a watch to the point where springs break loose and steam starts shooting out from various areas of your mechanical watch.

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.

Many people in this great planet are guilty of looking at one type of thing and then automatically assuming that a similar thing must operate in the exact same way, like the same things, or just be the same overall. This kind of stereotyping has obviously caused some problems in history, the schoolyard, and wherever this kind of stuff goes on, but we are not going to get into that…

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!

If you have read my previous comments about the Seiko Black Monster you will know that I am a HUGE fan of this watch. The first thing that hits you about this watch is the astounding amount of quality you get for such a low price. That value, in turn, comes freedom, and here’s how…

Having a watch like a Black Monster takes away any consideration you might have for that watch. You KNOW that this watch can handle ANYTHING, and what’s great is that if you knock it around to destruction, just buy another one! Get it stolen? buy another one! They are SO cheap and yet have the accuracy and all the features you’d find in a $5,000 Rolex. Their luminous treatment is the brightest I’ve ever seen, it has a diver’s extension, bezel, both a push-button clasp and a foldover clasp for added security, and it’s an AUTOMATIC.

Here’s a picture of the little guy here in the office:

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

If it’s raining, snowing, or if I’m going snowboarding or rock climbing, the first and ONLY watch I consider is my Seiko Black Monster. When one of my buddies and I saw Radiohead at Nissan Pavilion this past Sunday, the rain was treacherous and we were soaked to the bone. My Black Monster, however, was immaculate!

What can I say, it’s a trooper, and unlike my Rolex Submariner I can take it anywhere without the awareness of having a $5,000 watch on my wrist that some junta would gladly chop my arm off for.

But while that sounds all well and good, one thing to keep in mind is that you are not ALWAYS doing things that are EXTREME!!! In fact most of the time I’m usually just sitting around and being a lazy pig. And to me wearing such a chunky diving watch while watching TV or getting comfy with your best girl is just a little too much. To me it’s like taking a Humvee and trying to thread it through New York City traffic. It’s just not necessary!

I love the watch when I’m off being a adrenaline junkie, but in the civilized world it is a little much. First of all, it is VERY heavy and really chunky. The case is as thick as a sandwich and the weight really makes itself known when you are mellowing out.

The weight, however, is not so bad. The most important gripe I have with this watch is that it is an automatic watch that cannot be manually wound. In other words it means that in order to keep the watch wound and powered I have to wear it for a certain amount of time or else it will stop when left alone.  This is one reason why the Seiko Black Monster can afford to be so cheap.
In contrast, a “normal” automatic watch allows you to manually wind a watch by rotating the crown and thus bypasses the need to use the rotor to wind the watch. For comparisons sake let’s compare the use of a whisk to a blender in creating a batter. The Seiko Black Monster would be the whisk in that you need high energy movements for a longer period time to make a batter. A “normal” automatic watch, however, would be like a blender in that you just simply press a button and it does the work for you.

If the Seiko Black Monster were my only watch that would not be much of a problem as my wearing it every day would power it enough, but the problem is that it is not my only watch, and as of yet I do not own a watch winder, so the end result is that I wear the Black Monster a whole lot more than I want to, and just end up manually winding and neglecting my other watches.

When it’s all said and done, the Seiko Black Monster may be as tough as Sylvester Stallone and my personal choice if there should ever be a nuclear holocaust, but has the downside in that it hogs your attention just like a newborn baby.

I am a huge fan of the TV series “Lost.” It is so unique in the fact that unlike most series, which are scripted from episode to episode, or in the case of shows like “24,” season by season, “Lost” has its entire series charted out so it plays out like a very very long miniseries. The twists have you going, “WHHHUUUAAATTT?!?” and the cliffhangers have you begging for the summer to pass so that you can sit down in front of your TV and get your next fix.

Well yesterday’s episode was business as usual, and there was actually a scene where one of the main characters trades a white dial Rolex Daytona for a gun. I think it was the stainless steel Rolex Daytona, but it could’ve just as well been a two-toned (Gold and Steel) model.

Either way, what a beauty:

Rolex Daytona Oyster Perpetual Men’s Watch White 116520

If you are unfamiliar with the premise behind the show “Lost” I won’t spoil anything for you but just to say that it is largely about a group of people stuck on a remote island in the middle of nowhere. In the show a Rolex Daytona was actually kind of significant in that it was a peace offering between two characters, but I’m here to tell you why a Rolex Daytona, while beautiful, is just as “Lost” on a remote island as the characters are.

First of all, the Daytona has a chronograph, which is good. You can use it to race sea turtles or maybe time how long it takes for the sun to get from one point of the sky to another. All good stuff, but I would imagine that having a date function would be even better so you can at least keep track of the days?

It’s pretty easy to tell that a day has passed by a big noticeable thing called day and night, but the Rolex Daytona has no date function to speak of so I guess you are just left carving tallies on a tree stump.

Another thing about the Daytona is that it is an automatic watch. That means that as the days go by the watch will become more and more inaccurate. The fact that it’s an automatic also means that after five years or so the gears inside will be so crammed full of gunk that it will be inoperable, and should you die or leave it alone for more than a couple days, the watch will stop and you will have no idea how to set it right again.

Well, all this talk has got me thinking as to what watch constitutes the perfect watch for such a desert island, stranded in the middle of nowhere scenario, and I concluded that it must have these characteristics:

1. Solar Powered – Even though I’m a watch purist and only have mechanical watches, a desert island watch would have to be a solar-powered quartz watch. Batteries die and automatics fail, so the obvious choice is a Citizen Eco-Drive because they are the best solar-powered quartz watches that I know of.

2. Metal or Rubber Strap – Leather is a big no no in this case. I need a steel or rubber strap that can take the knocks of desert island life.

3. Good Water Resistance – A watch with good water resistance means that it’ll keep out all the dirt and stuff that might get in the way. You ain’t going scuba diving so it doesn’t have to be that high.

4. Perpetual Calendar – Basically a function that can keep track of your months and days and also account for leap years is a good thing to have. Let’s you know what date it is at all times.

5. Attractive – You are going to have lots of time to be bored so you might as well have something nice to look at, just in case there aren’t any volleyballs around.

So what watch is the perfect desert island watch?

THIS:

Citizen Eco-Drive Calibre 8700 – BL8000-54L Gents Watch

As far as desert island living goes this watch has got it all. As long as there is a sun this thing should last longer than you. You can keep track of the date, and while quartz watches of course lose and/or gain time, it won’t be as bad as a mechanical watch. And as I said it before, what’s the use of time in the middle of nowhere?

It’s also got an alarm. What possible use it could have is beyond me, but it’s nice to no it’s there, and what’s more is that it’s really really attractive. Looks kind of like a Breitling.

I must’ve tried this watch on at least 20 times. You will find this in malls EVERYWHERE I guarantee. I love this watch, but because it’s not mechanical I just can’t pull the trigger on it, but if you plan on being stuck in the middle of nowhere, go for it!

Not too long ago your humble presenter rolled over the quarter century mark and celebrated his 25th birthday, so to celebrate the occasion my beautiful fiancee presented me with this stunning new Hamilton Khaki King Automatic:

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

I’m not going to beat around the bush, this watch is absolutely fantastic; And having it for just about a month now I have to concede that this watch is utterly flawless. I love how the dial has millisecond markers, I love the day/date display, I love how the numerals light up at night, I love the stitching on the leather strap, and above all I love how the accuracy of the watch is the same as the accuracy I got out of my much-higher priced Rolex.

I have always seen Hamilton watches at stores though and have always wondered where within the watch the “catch” lies. They are so affordable that I thought there had to be some cracks, but after having for just about a month now I’m pleased to say that I have not found a single chink in its armor.

I even took it down to the southwest with me on a recent business trip and I have to say that with that watch and with my beautiful fiancee at my side, everything felt just right. Here is a shot of this beautiful watch looking down from the top of the Hoover Dam:

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

And even at breakfast it is just absolutely brilliant:

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

I love this watch! And I can tell you right now that it will be a watch I will pass down to my future grandchildren should I ever have any.

Now for a little brand history, I will tell you that if you have not heard of Hamilton watches, than that’s fine, but whether or not you are aware of it, Hamilton watches are all around you. They may receive publicity by being peppered on the wrists of famous actors in countless Hollywood films, but what I’m interested in is how they helped build 20th century America. Hamilton may now belong to the Swatch Group, but make no doubts about it, Hamilton is an AMERICAN watch.

Along with Ball and other American watch manufacturer’s of the time, Hamilton watches were designed to be railroad grade watches, and that meant ACCURACY through and through. When a man or woman in 19th and early 20th century wanted to know the time, they asked a train conductor because he knew the score (or in this case, the time), and one of the watches they tended to carry was a Hamilton. Later on in the 20th century, however, they tended to be become more known more as military watches than anything else. Being slapped on the wrists of one million soldiers during World War II meant that the Hamilton watches were as instrumental to winning the war as the M-1 Garand rifle. Chances are that your grandfather or grandfather’s father has probably once owned a Hamilton. Chances are that in your granny’s house you may find one lying around. I have always equated Hamilton watches as being as American as apple pie. When I think America, one of the things I think of are Hamilton watches.

Furthermore, I have always thought that Hamilton watches represented watches that belonged in a different time. Their design and styling isn’t classy or sophisticated, it is just a style that is unique to Hamilton, and I’ve never known a style like it, and what’s more is that they are affordable and can be bought by anyone. Hamilton watches are worn when you want to escape your world somehow. Say you are sitting at your office (as I’m doing right now) and want an excursion. You can just look at your Hamilton watch and somehow transcend yourself to a different America, an America where things are simpler and where values were more true. Maybe I’m getting a little carried away here, but they are truly a magnificent watch, and I respect it hugely.

Sorry I couldn’t resist. Happy Valentine’s Day to all. Here is another picture I dug up of my tough as nails Seiko automatic Diver’s watch called the BLACK MONSTER. I hope you all have a love as strong as the love I have for my Black Monster:

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

No it’s not what you think. Although it’s not far off, but… Oh never mind! This is the Seiko Black Monster I’m talking about here. It is a diving watch from the far east with a small but loyal cult following. Originally available only in Japan it has made it’s way overseas and your humble presenter was able to scoop one up. Without further adieu, here is my Black Monster:

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

When I first picked this up I immediately knew why this watch is nicknamed the Black Monster. It’s big, it’s thick, and it’s heavy. (Hmm…) This is a big chunk of metal no doubt. It’s not the biggest Diver’s watch you will find, but for me and most people it’s more than enough watch. Its nighttime illumination is top-notch. It’s accuracy is unheard of at this price level, and I have a feeling this automatic watch will last many many years without the need for servicing. Here it is sitting on the wrist of your humble presenter:

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

It’s big, it’s heavy, and it’s ugly, but I absolutely love this thing. The clasp is an especially nice touch with both push button and deployment adding two layers of security to the thing. The bracelet is super-solid and honestly I’m hard-pressed to find much of a difference between this and something like a Rolex Submariner. I suppose you won’t feel such a loss if you should happen to drop this thing in the ocean, but as far as I know, this watch is the best value, best bang for your buck. However you want to put it, it’s a steal. I love my Black Monster.