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!

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.