Pick Of The Day

I didn't realised it until my missus remarked that I seemed to spend no time in picking my morning watches these days. She was a gym junkie and wakes up early every morning to hit the gym. While she was getting dressed, I would have dressed up in my work attire and would ponder for a couple of minutes on which watch was to adorn my wrist for the day. 

But of late, it had been more of a reflex action- I would inevitably pick the Rolex Hulk as my daily-beater; or the Rolex SDc if there was a more important meeting. The reason for the latter was because I noticed that every other person in the meetings would sport a Submariner on their wrists; but I have yet to see anyone with the more elusive SDc. So it inevitably became my personal choice during such meetings.

The funny thing was, many people remarked that the SDc was too thick to fit under the cuffs, and too heavy to wear comfortably. But those whom were critical of the SDc were also the same ones whom don't own this model. Most of them were Sub owners. I could understand the prejudice towards SDc. After all, both these watches utilise Rolex caliber 3135, had date functions, were of the 40mm genre, and were relatively similar to the untrained eyes. Yet, the Sub retails at USD8,550 while the SDc retails at USD10,800- so it was relatively easy to say that SDc was not worth the additional USD2,550 premium over the Sub. 

But the SDc was a champion in its own right. It could be used for diving depths 4 times to that of the Sub's, although that was irrelevant to most of us desk-divers. Further, real divers commonly use dive computer watches to assist their dives these days. It had a more symmetrical dial like that of the SubND, without the cyclops protruding like a sore thumb. It's matt dial looked deep and different- more toolish compared to the reflective Sub dial. And it's lug case looked so much more refined and smoother- not as though it was on steroids like the Sub's. It was heavier, no doubt about that- but I liked the heft and the domed crystal so all was well. And my SDc was still without a nary of a scratch (touch wood!), so that showed that you could wear it in good fashion too and it would fit under the cuffs.

With this insight, I also realised that I have yet to wear the Ball Engineer ii Genesis since the day I received it. It was still sitting brand new in the watch winder. Although, at nights, I would often walk over casually to see the Genesis spinning lazily in the winder. The 1mm-thick micro-tubes were simply like torches in the dark. Bright doesn't quite describe them. Hmmm...

My Versatile SDc.

My versatile SDc. At home on the wrist, whether at work or sitting in traffic.

E-mail from Reader : Keep Calm & Buy Watches

I received an e-mail from a "reader" whom complained that she saw my blogspot bookmarked on her husband and her shared MacBook, and she was worried that her husband may be picking up this hobby that might be detrimental on their shared savings. She rationalised that her husband and her already had a pair of Omega Constellation; so she saw no reason that he should be thinking of getting additional watches.

I thought that it was an interesting e-mail and therefore chose it as part of the "E-mail from Reader" series to be shared with the rest of the readers. If Mr and Mrs MacBook was reading this post, then it would be all the more interesting.

I wrote this blog as part of a shared journal on my watch-collecting journey. Over the years, I could literally see my directional changes as my taste got more refined and selective, and my preferences got further reinforced. If I knew as much as what I had known right now, my collection would have been very much more focused and I may have saved more monies from lesser flips. But then again, this would have been a really simple blog with just a couple of entries over the years then.

From memory, my first watch looked kinda like this- an Eagle 7 from Citizen Japan.

My Dad was a watch smith, so I was intrigued by watches from a very young age. I remembered the first watch that my Dad got me- a boy-size Citizen Eagle 7 automatic watch when I was in my primary school. All the other boys had electronic Casio watches with stop-watch function, and I thought that mine was an old-man watch being a chunk of metal and all. But I liked it as Dad was wearing a similar watch, and I thought that it was cool that father-and-son were wearing similar watches. And so began my love towards mechanical watches.

The Casio Edifice that I had looked kinda like this.

When I started working, and pay was a paltry RM1,500 per month, which with I made allocations towards mortgage, car hire-purchase, room rental, monthly subsistence and some (not much really after the earlier deductibles) token sum for my parents; Dad bought me a watch that I thought was pretty cool then- a Casio Edifice. I still remembered that it was the first time Casio came out with that series in 2000, and I wore the watch as my daily-beater for the next few years.

Swatch had cheap and cheerful alternatives!

Then, I got to know about affordable Swiss watches in the form of Swatch watches; and then perpetual calendar watch (yeah, no need to set the dates no more!) in the form of Seiko; and each watch that I bought or was gifted was a serious daily-beater. In all instances, they were all quartz watches.

As I climbed the corporate ladder and became more matured, I found that I had started thinking about getting back to mechanical watches. I remembered the first watch that Dad had given me. And so in 2012, I started tinkering in mechanical watches as could be tracked from entries in My Flipped List. I dabbled in various brands, and across many genres; before I found myself settling down towards Automatic watches and of the Diver genre. And from a list of 54 watches that I had or still own today, I found that the ones that I really liked could be summarised to Tudor Pelagos, Rolex Submariner, and Rolex Sea-Dweller Ceramic. The Sea-Dweller Ceramic, was in a way, really a blend of the Pelagos and Submariner- having both their strengths minus the cyclops and plus the heft; so it was my fave go-to watch these days.

If I hadn't started on my horological journey, I might not have found my personal preferences in watches and would still be ignorant about the complexities of the movements, brands, materials, etc. I am, therefore, glad that I had ventured this path and learnt so much in the process. And I will continue learning on, although my purchases would be more selective as time goes on, all pun intended.

So to Mr Macbook, keep calm and explore more watches... In doing so, you may just discover your true self :)