Selling Wave Sweeps Across Asia

And that was the headline from Edge today. Bursa and other Asian share markets suffered a dip yesterday from the selling wave. Add in the 1MDB woes and the depreciation of RM of late, and the general sentiment in the local economy was increasingly less positive these few months. Sigh...

Since this was a watch blog after all, a recent visit to some watch boutiques revealed that sales had been sluggish. And with the depreciating RM and 6% GST, the resellers had no choice but to mark up their watches as their purchase costs had increased too. Discounts were much more controlled too in view that they needed to generate the bare minimum to keep the mortar and brick businesses in check.

My concerns were generally on business and economy these days, and choosing my daily wear had been a very straightforward affair. I would choose either of the Rollie siblings to accompany me through the daily challenges. The Sub on days when I could do with a bit of bling (the green dial was a beauty to look at), and the Explorer 2 on every other day.

The Pelagos sees some action on weekends, as I charged up its lume in the day and my sons loved watching the lume at night in the dark.

The Speedy Panda was my wife's de-facto sports watch since the day I brought it home- as it seemed to be too small on me and just just nice for my wife, bearing in mind that it was a growing fad for ladies to adorn larger watches these days.

The other watches generally see no action at all and just sit pretty in the winders and cases.

Going forward, I am considering flipping the Pelagos and ProMaster DepthMeter, to top-up for another Speedy. That way, both my wife and me could wear his-and-hers Speedy during some of our dates. I have the 42mm Moonwatch in mind, but let's just see until after the watches were flipped. 

As I frequently travel abroad, I could get the Speedy at the overseas ADs and save some monies in the process.

With the economy and local share market in the current sentiments, another WIS shared with me this morning that he would be mainly looking for good pre-owned watches in the secondary market instead of buying new watches. This way, he could still get his satisfaction from flipping watches, which was his second nature.

Let's all cross our fingers and hope that our economy pulls through intact. In the meantime, it could be best to listen to our beloved Deputy Finance Minister Ahmad Maslan's advice to self-cook non-GST fried rice at home for the additional savings. He could really goreng pretty well, couldn't he?

Queries from Readers About Citizen ProMaster DepthMeter

I received 3 e-mails over 2 weeks with regards to the 2014 Baselworld-released Citizen ProMaster DepthMeter from fellow readers whom were interested in the said watch, and thought that I would take a bit of time to write about this watch.

I had earlier wrote a first impression about this watch @ http://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2015/01/first-impression-citizen-promaster.html. Lately, there were a few overseas watch blogs and reviews that highlighted great watches to get for the summer and amongst the highly-recommended fellas were Tudor Pelagos and Citizen ProMaster DepthMeter.

For a watch that costs a mere 20% of the Tudor Pelagos' RRP yet armed with more sophisticated diving mechanisms, the Citizen ProMaster DepthMeter was indeed a great buy for the summer. And Malaysia being a country with all-year-round summer, getting the DepthMeter was then, a no-brainer decision really.

I frequently checked out ADs for new arrivals and I dare say that this DepthMeter had not be seen much in the ADs. One of the rarer AD that I have chanced upon this DepthMeter was at KLIA back in March, where I was offered the watch (they received 3 pieces, and 2 pieces were sold within the week when I saw the 3rd one they had) for RM3,220 nett. Of course, the watch would have long been sold by now and anyway, expect the price to have increased with the imposition of the 6% GST at circa RM190 extra.

Given its relatively-rare status, getting a unit at ADs was an issue; and ordering it online from overseas had its fair bit of risks. As such, the readers directed me to 3 adverts on a local site and asked if these were genuine pieces by my reckoning.

Advert 1 : Citizen Professional Master Diver Computer @ RM3,500

Advert 2 : Citizen Professional Depth Meter from Japan @ RM3,300

Advert 3 : Citizen ProMaster DepthMeter BN2024 + Suppa Adapter + Zulu Strap @ RM2,900

As far as I knew, there were no replicas for this DepthMeter so there should only be genuine Citizen Japan-issued examples in the market. Anyway, this watch has diving depth measurement and in-built memory, so you could easily test it out (factory standard memory was at 60m) and gauge if the rapid descent alarm was working as it should. Fake watches would not have these functions for sure, as these were costly modules made for real diving usages.

Given that the watch was Japan-made and our Malaysian currency had been depreciating (currently at its lowest in the last 9 years, if I remembered correctly), it was only expected that the price of the DepthMeter would be on an increasing trend given that its cost in Yen would translate to more RM necessary these days.

And from the 3 adverts above, I may be biased but I would chose to get from Alternative Channels simply because it was offering the most competitive price, and its offer came complete with the Suppa USA adapter and Zulu strap.

The lume of the DepthMeter was simply crazy and charges up very easily. If you were a soldier engaged in combat warfare, you don't want to wear this watch as its bright lume would easily give your position away. Period.

Another query asked by one of the readers was whether the size of the watch was liveable. Well, I used to own the Citizen EcoZilla and Omega Planet Ocean XL, both of which were well-known large diver watches, so I would deemed the DepthMeter as being wearable. However, it was better to get the Suppa adaptor so that you could match more comfortable aftermarket 22mm straps on this watch as the original rubber strap was rather hard and unwieldy. Not an issue if it was strapped on your diving suit, but if you were an office diver only, you would want to match the watch with softer options such as Nato, Zulu, leather or Isofrane rubber.

I would give you a relative size comparison in the below pictures for the DepthMeter compared to the 40mm Rolex Submariner, 42mm Rolex Explorer2, and 42mm Tudor Pelagos.

The DepthMeter is 49mm without sensor and crown, and 52.5mm with sensor and crown. Height is 18mm and weight is a hefty 178g. No one would call you a sissy when you have this Hulk of a diver strapped to your wrist, that was for sure.

At the end of the day, I believe that if you were a fan of macho diver watches, the DepthMeter should rightfully earn its place in your collection. Period.