Happy Chinese New Year 2019

It has been a hectic few days, travelling to and fro the hometowns for me and my spouse and generally enjoying the camaraderie of family, relatives, and friends. As with the norm with Chinese New Year, the kids were the happiest with all the angpow packets that they received; while we adults just savour the moment. 

My main watch for CNY was one of my fave timepieces- the Daytona TT Diamonds. It's a TT, so it suited formal and informal dinners; it has brilliant diamonds, just enough to bring out the extra sparkle; and when matched with a pair of leather strap, it looked differentiated enough to stand out by its own.

There were lots of gifts from family and relatives- and depending on whom you asked, the best gift would differ between the top-grade Moutai (for me!), or that handbag. Well, my spouse would argue that it's not just a handbag but the latest Chanel design- so I guess that's why we are into watches and they are into handbags. Although I can't fathom the reason to spend Rolex monies on a Chanel handbag, I know enough to keep my mouth shut when the situation calls for it so that's that then.

 

I had a bottle of prized Moutai that I had kept aside for 10 years, and my spouse gave it as a Christmas gift to her friend whom mentioned that her husband tried looking everywhere for a good bottle and couldn't find one. I had kept that bottle aside for my children's wedding dinner actually! 

Well, I'm going to hide this bottle away, that's for sure. See you, Moutai in some 10 years' time!

Hmmm, the Omega Speedy Apollo 17 has not seen action since its purchase before CNY... Perhaps I should have it accompany me for the dinner tomorrow :)

Disco Day-Date

I'm a serial flipper- readers would knew about that. But all these while, I had been keeping an eye for collectible vintage pieces from the 70s - 80s disco golden era. The ones that I had included the Datejust and Submariner.

So when I was informed that a vintage Day-Date in unpolished condition was currently under-going a full servicing and its owner intended to flip it thereafter, I knew that I had to make a quick offer towards that piece. However, I made sure that it was using Caliber 3055, which was more current, reliable, and had the quickset function for easier date usage.

The fact that it had the more tasteful Roman white dial instead of the typical gold-on-gold Uncle dial, was an added bonus. In a way, this piece actually looked the combination of both of Dad's Seiko Fives @ https://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2019/02/dads-seiko-fives.html.

I made a quick research on how much would a similar vintage piece fetched in the current market. Fellow watchsmiths shared with me that while modern Day-Date pieces tend to take a beating in terms of secondary market value, vintage ones had been enjoying a surge in market value given the trend towards collecting vintage pieces in recent years.

That's that then. Pretty excited about adding this piece into my collection soon. Keep your eyes posted on the updates in due course, dear readers.

Dad's Seiko Fives

These are old friends. I saw these Seiko 5s on my Dad's table, which brought back memories. 

The silver piece was purchased some 30 years ago, when my siblings and I pooled together an amount of RM90 to purchase the piece for my Dad's birthday. Since he was a watchsmith and one of his fave brands was Seiko, I figured that he would appreciate a Seiko 5 gift from us.

I knew that Seiko 5 was a good watch then, but I was still young and did not know that it was named so for its 5 attributes :

1. Automatic-winding;
2. Day-Date window;
3. Water resistant;
4. Unbreakable mainspring (Diaflex);
5. Shock resistant (Diashock).

So after we emptied our piggy banks, I remembered us counting the coins (yes, 10 sen, 20 sen, and 50 sen coins) and it amounted to exactly RM90. I kept all the coins in my pockets and could hardly walked, as the weight of the coins were pulling my pants down with every step. I mounted my BMX and cycled 40 mins to town, afterwhich I stopped by his friend's watch shop. This piece caught my eye at first glance, and his friend was willing to let me have it for all the money that I had in my pockets although it was priced higher. He laughed when he saw me emptying out the coins on his counter.

Dad had quite a collection of watches; but he sold them all off and made the silver piece as his daily-beater. It's in the meaning, I guess. The watch might not be valuable in terms of its monetary value; but it meant the world to him. In fact, it had stopped running a few times in recent years and he had spent more than our purchased price to repair and had it running again and again.

The gold piece was purchased some 20 years back, with some of my first paycheques. I knew that the Seiko 5 that we gifted Dad was 10 years old and running slow, so I wanted to get a newer Seiko 5 for him. I was earning some RM1,000 those days- take off my car instalment, house instalment, room rent, daily expenses, and token sum to family; and I had no spare monies at all. So it took a few paycheques to put together a decent sum to go towards this piece. I told Dad that it was the only Datejust that I could afford just then; and he kept it under lock and key for many years, keeping it pristine until I literally had to coerce him into wearing it in the wild.

Over the years, I have been able to afford better watches for him; but he had kept these 2 pieces as his daily-beaters. They followed him everywhere. They are old friends indeed.

May he continue wearing them in good health always, Amen...

Next Franken Mod : Seiko Apocalypse Sumo

Given my next mod @ http://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2019/02/next-franken-mod-seiko-blumo-great-wave.html, I would soon be harvesting the Blumo dial and hands. And some readers  might remember that I have an in-coming Seiko @ http://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2019/01/seiko-trivia-seiko-turtle-apocalypse-now.html.

Therefore, put 2 and 2 together and you could probably guess that I would soon have the Apocalypse matched with the Blumo dial and hands soon. So sit tight and we shall soon have another Franken Mod in the works.

Next Franken Mod : Seiko Blumo "Great Wave Off Kanagawa"

I have been back at my hometown over the last few days in preparation for Chinese New Year, and it had been good times with the family indeed. Anyway, I was at the mall today and chanced upon a Seiko shop. As per the norm, I had to go in to browse around and it was packed with SKX007, Sumo, and Turtle Re-issue pieces. Discount was at the typical 20-25% given the CNY sale.

And suddenly, I realised that I had found a suitable piece for the Great Wave Off Kanagawa ("GWOK") mod. I chanced upon a Seiko enthusiast's Apocalypse mod using the GWOK dial above (which was an enamel dial limited to 100 pieces), and immediately made orders for future mods. I had an incoming similar watch, but I felt that a piece with blue colours would be more suitable given the wave depicted on the dial.

And on seeing the Blumo today, it struck me that this was the perfect piece for such a mod. Blue insert and blue chapter ring, matched with the GWOK dial, should make quite a picture really. Searching online, I could see that there was no such mods done before; so it would likely be another first. Here's one on the SKX007 as found online.

So it's game on then! 

Keep your eyes peeled for the 2019 Seiko Blumo "Great Wave Off Kanagawa", coming soon to your fave watch blog hereabouts!