Citizen Fugu Blows

During my college days, I used to have a No Fear tee that had Mark Twain's quote about the size of the fight in the dog. I wore the tee just a tad too much, to be honest. But anything No Fear was the fad during the time; and armed with the tee and my charming personality, I did well in charming the ummm... socks, off the college babes at that time.

Oh yes, the tee had seen lots of action back then. I had no car and I shared a room with a nerdy roommate (whom introduced me to the world of Pearl Jam and the likes- thanks, Gabriel!); so I've  had intimate knowledge of many babes' rear car seats and the necessary Yoga poses for such sportsmanship ;p

Fencing was my forte, or so I was told then. And perhaps that's why I liked the Citizen Fugu (blow-fish, for the uninitiated few).

Oh yes, I was quite the ladies' man then, kind of like the current K-Pop scandal (minus the scandal). All those back lane parkings and late night dates- you guys remember those days?

Which brings us to the Fugu discussion of today. Readers would know that I am a Seiko fan. I loved Seiko because they make great products that were reliable and dependable, and there were loads of mod parts out there to customise into our own version of custom watches. I have had countless SKX007, Turtle, Monster, Sumo, and the likes passing through my hands as I customised them into one-of-a-kind pieces.

Remember memorable mods such as the Turtle SharkOne, SuMMo, and SKX-Sumo?

Well, for Citizen, it ain't as easy to mod given the lack pf choice to parts. So I have only collected watches from the M-Force, Bambino, and Fugu series. The Fugu new series especially, was part of my preferred pieces from the brand as they were limited edition pieces and worth collecting indeed. To my eyes, the ones that tickled my fancy were the following 2 pieces :

Check out how this Fugu All-Lume LE dared to challenge the MM300 and MM1000 during the Battle of the Lume. Everyone knew that Seiko MarineMaster's lume were the de-facto standard in the lume business; but the Fugu All-Lume just strolled in like it owned the park.

You could read more about the Fugu All-Lume LE @ http://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2019/02/happy-valentines-day-new-york-double-o.html.

It ain't the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. An apt description of the Fugu indeed.

Seiko Franken Mods Came Home

I received messages from my panel watchsmiths that the Franken Mods were ready, while I was still watching the sakura bloomed at various prefecture in Japan.

"Well, pray do ship them over to me ASAP!"

And once I reached home, these were waiting for me and I quickly had them taken to my Watch Room :

And what do we have in there? Well, they represented part of my Seiko current collection (lots more had been flipped as I needed to make space in the winders and cases for in-coming pieces), discounting a few more pieces that were still in stock condition pending the parts from Dagaz.

Could you spot the types of mods that had been done on these pieces? Well, for one, all of them have hacking and hand-winding movements, and one of the movement upgrade was on the SKX007J1 Planet Ocean. Those seasoned modders would spot Dragonshroud's Jumbo crown there.

Well, what the heck, I would dissect the pieces in subsequent entries about the mods; and let's start off with the Planet Ocean next.

Seiko Darth Tuna Back To Work

Well, I'm back from Japan and bringing the MM300 back to its homeland was a great idea indeed. I have been putting up a couple of wrist shots @https://www.facebook.com/datoandyblogger) over the week that I was there; but I would likely select some nicer pics from my phone and compile them into a blog entry once I have more time over the upcoming weekend.

Of course, most of the watches had been out of sync from the local time (those not in the watch winders anyway); having not seen any wrist action for a week. The easiest to do then would be to pick up the MM1000 pair of Darth Tuna and Golden Tuna, which had the hi-beat calibers 7C46 ticking accurately in them.

And that was why, we collectors should always have some nice, premium quartz pieces in our collection for days like these.

And nope, I swung by a couple of watch shops in Japan but had not spotted the Gundam Tuna, part of the MM1000 family that was launched during my week there. I managed to pick up a couple of nice watches though, such as the Daytona Ceramic, Rangeman, and Seiko 5 that I wrote about while at the shops.

Black or White?

Ummm...

Well, perhaps the White this time around.

Seiko Gundam

Yup, the Seiko Gundam watches are on their way to shore! Get your wallets ready!

"Nobody is born into this world as a soldier."

Seiko Franken Mods : Endgame

I'm sure that all of us were eagerly waiting for Avengers : Endgame to hit the cinemas. It's been a helluva ride; so buckle your seatbelt, Dorothy, cos Kansas is going bye-bye.

While waiting for the movie, I have also been busy collecting the base watches and parts for my up-coming Franken Mods. It seemed befitting now that as Endgame inched forward, I have packed up 5 watches ready to be sent over to my fave watchsmith for their next course of action.

Seiko Franken Mods, assemble!

"We'll See You On The Other Side"

I started the Omega journey with my first Seamaster. My interest then went from SM300 to Planet Ocean, with the 42mm and 45.5mm in 3-hander and chrono specs. It was also a time when I felt that it was cool having the pieces that James Bond was spotted with on the silver screen. I couldn't get enough of the Seamaster range.

The Seamaster was cool, and I loved diver watches as could be evident by the pieces that I collected; but placed next to my Submariner and Sea-Dweller, the Omega's felt a bit wanting. On this genre, I felt that Rolex had gotten the wrist experience spot-on.

Sure, the Planet Ocean also had the GMT functionality that I appreciated during my travels; but again, compared to the GMT-Master ii range, I felt that the Rolex wore better.

Then I found the history of Speedmaster, and it was goodbye to the Seamaster range. The only "Seamaster" that I still regularly wear these days was a Seiko SKX007J1 build that I have done as a homage, and it was next going to get a NH36 movement transplant. But that's a story for another day.

When it came to the Speedmaster, I would admit that I'm a convert. No other brand could beat Omega's historical claim to the space race. Sure, one could argue for the case of Seiko Pogue as an informal space watch; but nothing came close to the official moon watch that was officially chosen by NASA to accompany mankind in the exploration of space and moon, and beyond.

Like any other Speedmaster novice collector, between the classic and the racing pedigree, I went for the former. However, I had always had a soft spot for the racing marker indices that ran around the dial. Along the way, I have graduated from the classic piece to more collectible pieces such as the following :

When Baselworld 2017's Apollo 17 45th Anniversary "Last Man On The Moon" was launched, it was a simply spectacular piece. This was the first time that Omega encompassed many firsts in a single watch, which I had covered in other blog entries. And for once, the racing marker indices that I liked from the racing series had made its way into the classic moon watch series. Design-wise, it made the much-liked moon watch into an even likeable piece. I was blown away to an extent.

And when Baselworld 2018's Apollo 8 "Dark Side Of The Moon" was launched as a non-LE series, I was rather keen to get it too as it was the first time that the dial was laser-etched with the craters of the lunar surface. It proved to be quite a popular piece in the collector's community.

Knowing my collection towards the Speedmaster range, it was only a matter of time before my AD associate managed to get my very own piece to be ready for collection. They always try to get 2 pieces for me- 1 to wear, and 1 for the BNIB collection status. I've been fortunate to have access to such kindly AD associates.

So what do you think of the latest rendition of the moon watch? Let's take another look at Apollo 8's lunar surface dial as compared to Apollo 17's ceramic dial (with Sun God Ra looking on at the moon, no less) :

Personally, I would still prefer Apollo 17 "Last Man On The Moon". It was just a much more collectible and versatile piece, and that ceramic dial seemed to change colours depending on whether it was seen in the bright side or dark side (of the moon). Yup, this would still be the highlight of my moon watch collection for now.