So it’s new watch day at Casa del pdb! I had been wearing a Seiko SNZG15 on a NATO for the longest time after going through a series of “inexpensive” vintage 7002 Seiko automatic military face watches. After a few iterations of buying a used one from Thailand or the Philippines off of eBay, having it serviced and replacing the band, I broke down and bought a newish model with the 7s26 movement. That really should have been plan A, because it quickly displaced all my other watches.
Check it out:
It’s been both comfortable and accurate enough for me. Once a week I’ll notice it’s a minute behind my cell phone and reset it, which is well within my envelope for an inexpensive mechanical watch. After wearing smaller faced watches for a couple years, I thought the big chapter ring would bug me, but it’s grown on me.
So after languishing in my drawer for a few months, I wised up and sold my idle watches to get, of course, another watch. I ordered it off of eBay, from Singapore this time, because this model isn’t available from Seiko in America for some reason. It took damn near a month and a half to arrive, but here it is:
Yeah, it’s pretty much the same watch. It’s a Seiko SNZG17 with the 7s36 movement. The biggest difference is the case and bracelet have been PVD’d black, which gives the stainless a deep, reflective finish that varies from pitch black to almost polished blued to bronze-ish depending on the light.
I don’t have anything profound to say, nor will I advocate for you to get one. It’s just my new shiny thing and I wanted to share. In this era of atomic-clock synchronized cell phones, wearing a watch isn’t something you do for practical reasons, but because you like the technology and style. Even if you didn’t have a phone, buying ten terrorist watches would make more sense. But I like the anachronism and novelty of a purely mechanical device keeping time for me, down to the second. And for under $140 delivered, it’s a cheap luxury.
Next watch? I have my eye on this one or this one, which is pretty much the same thing but with the new 4r36 movement, which adds hacking and hand winding, for under $200. I also have a stupid desire for a vintage pepsi diver’s watch, which would be hilarious because I can’t swim.
Got anything on your wrist?
{ 3 } Comments
I routinely wear an L.L. Bean stainless field watch. For Christmas I’m going to gift myself a Mr. Jones “The Accurate.”
I wear a vintage ladies Seiko 5. Love my mechanical watch. I’d like to have more.
Breitling Colt I got when the wife and I went to the Windward Isles. She sprung on me that she wanted a wedding band after all these years, because she’d seen one in the jewelry store. So I said “then I get a nice Swiss watch”, and I did. It’s now scuffed and scratched here and there, and some of the links in the band have flat spots, but I wouldn’t wear any other watch than this one.
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