Thanos' Infinity Gems

Come to think of it, Thanos could have been a die-hard Seiko fan. Which other watch maker would have dials/bezels depicting all these colours, accessible to its fan base all and sundry?

Rolex would just tell you, "Sorry, no stainless steel sports watches!".

Avengers... Assemble

Tony Stark : This thing on?...Hey Miss Potts. If you find this recording don't feel bad about this. Part of the journey is the end. Just for the record, being adrift through space with zero promise of rescue is more fun than it sounds. Food and water ran out 4 days ago. Oxygen with run out tomorrow morning. That'll be it. When I drift off, I will dream about you. It's always you.

Over the weekend, my Boys and I went to catch the Avengers : Endgame. I had stayed away from spoilers on the Net and from any friends' discussions on the movie, as I wanted to savour the experience in the purest possible manner. The built-up after so many different movies on developing the characters and storylines, had been gnawing at me and I couldn't wait for the day to come for our turn to savour the story.

Our attires were largely Red & Blue- in honour of Captain America, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Captain Marvel.

I had thought of wearing the Rolex Daytona Diamond to the movie, as the diamonds were to represent the Infinity Stones that powered Thano's and Iron Man's gauntlets; but my elder boy stopped me at the doorstep.

"Daddy, I think you should wear the Captain America watch to Endgame."

"Remember how you were rushing to get the parts to build the Captain America watch in time for today's movie?"

I was amazed that he had a keen eye for these details. I had called my watchsmith on the watch  a couple of times, and it would seemed as though he was keeping tabs on the process. So I changed the watch from Daytona Diamond to Captain America; and off we went to the movies.

The cinema was packed to the brink. We were way early, and queued up in the 1st -3rd spots! The 4th and 5th chaps were chatting behind us, and the 5th chap was evidently watching the movie for the 2nd time and was trying to give the movie away. The 4th chap kept repeating, "No spoilers, no spoilers please!" but the 5th chap was trying his very best to be an arse.

Since we could hear him too and he kept threatening to tell the ending of the movie, I found my anger rising and turned around to confront him.

"Look, we are all queueing for the Endgame and we want to watch the movies without having spoilers. So please just keep the ending to yourself and stop revealing spoilers here!"

He kept quiet but some 5 mins later, he was trying to reveal spoilers again. I turned around again and asked him quietly if he knew about what happened to the guy in Hong Kong, whom couldn't stop himself from revealing spoilers about the movie at the cinema. He must have read the same news too, for that got him to change the topic for the next 20 mins when we were still waiting in line. 

This Captain America build has really got the Avengers spirit. It literally had no fear going into a lume combat with the MM300 and MM1000; and it actually held its ground too.

Natasha Romanoff : This is gonna work, Steve. 

Steve Rogers : I know it is. 'Cause I don't know what I'm gonna do if it doesn't.

The movie was well-worth the 3 hours that we spent in there. I know that I'll be buying another round of tickets to catch Endgame another time.

Just before the movies, I received a few offers towards this Captain America watch. If I had to fathom a guess, I would think that the intended buyers wanted to wear this piece to catch the Endgame too. It was just such a befitting tribute. In fact, I received quite a few positive comments about the watch while I was queueing up for pop corn from fellow Marvel fans.

After the movie, I changed Captain America from its colour-coded Zulu into the Z22 rubber strap; ready to pass on the piece to the buyer. He was so keen to pick up the watch that he was prepared to drive to my place despite the late hours after the movie. Passing the specially-built timepiece to the collector, kind of felt like Steve Rogers/Captain America passing over his shield to Sam Wilson/Falcon for the next leg of MCU adventure.

And it was soon evident that he was indeed wearing this piece to the Endgame too. He loved it three thousand, so I knew that it had gone to good hands. Part of the journey is the end, and I'll sign off this leg of the adventure with this one-off Captain America watch.

The collector and his wife at the movies. Something about Cap vs Thanos. Can you see it?

Thanks for giving us this wonderful wrap-up, MCU. What a journey, what a story, and what an emotional roller coaster! Love you 3000.

Pepper Potts : Tony, we'll be okay. You can rest now.

Caliber 4R : Monster

Caliber 4R (NH35/4R35 and NH36/4R36) is my preferred movement for my Franken Mod involving SKX007 and Mon5ter. With Caliber 4R, one gains the abilities to hand-wind and hack the movement. The latest model direct from Seiko to utilise this movement was the Monster G4 range as per above :

In a way, the movements used in the Monster range had seen changes over the years. G1 had Caliber 7S26 (similar to SKX007), G2 had Caliber 4R36 (similar to 5), G3 had Caliber 6R15 (similar to Sumo), and now G4 goes back to having Caliber 4R36.

Personally, the G4 with rectangular Cyclops over the Day-Date seemed kind of an overkill to an otherwise acceptable dial; so I would probably stick back to the G3.

Caliber 6R : Sumo, Baby MM, & 62MAS

The next movement that I would speak about was Caliber 6R15/6R35, which was one of my preferred movement after Caliber 8L35. This was used in the mid-tier Seiko pieces such as Sumo, Baby MM300, and 62MAS; which typically cost between RM3k - RM4k in RRP. Take note that Malaysian RRP tends to be higher compared to Japanese RRP probably due to taxes or whatsnot, which was the reason that I preferred to import directly from Japan. And whenever I was in Japan shopping for the watches myself, I could also enjoy the VAT refund and therefore purchase the watches at a lower entry-price even.

The Sumo G2 was a good platform for my Franken Mod, and one of my preferred creation was the SuMMo that combined the Sumo G2 and MM300. Sumo G2 came without ceramic bezel and sapphire crystal, so I would upgrade these parts by myself.

Well, Seiko had been keeping track of our requests and Sumo G3 would come with sapphire crystal (but need to check on the bezel insert to be sure if it was still aluminium or upgraded to ceramic). Price had been bumped up to RM3k too in the process, and the green dial version in SBDC081 would be my preferred piece. In Sumo's size, the green piece would really be the Hulk now (as opposed to Rolex's relatively puny-sized 116610LV, which should really be called Banner, not Hulk).

Next, we have the Baby MM i.e. SBDC065, so called because it was supposed to be the stop-gap measure to collectors not wanting to spend RM8k (SBDX017) - RM15k (SBDX023) on the real MM300. The Baby MM has designs incorporated from the MM300, encased in a smaller and thinner case and with lower WR of 200m. Since most of the collectors these days were really desk divers, high WR was no longer a real concern in the real world. Today, it served more as bragging rights for collectors to sport high WR diver watches.

And lastly, the Caliber 6R15-equipped 62MAS would be my personal favourite in the aforetitled pieces. International buyers could choose between the blue-dialled SBDC053 or black-dialled SBDC051; but Seiko reserved the cream of the crop in the 62MAS family for its Japanese Domestic Market.

Introducing the SBDC077 Green Sea special edition that was relatively rarer and highly-collectible, that was reserved for the JDM. 

This was the coveted piece in the 62MAS family and I was looking forward to add this piece into my personal collection too. That shade of green was just so alluring. Since it's all about the superheroes these days, the Green Sea should be nicked "Green Lantern", no?

Which would be your pick amongst the 3 models above? Spin the bottle and share with us.

In the meantime, excuse me while I go look at 'em pictures of this piece that was en-roue to Kuala Lumpur at the interim period. And it has a great serial no. to boot :)