Watches! What do y'all have on your wrists?

[pads]

I recently learned that mechanical watches becoming magnetized is "a real thing". My friend has a Girard Perregaux Ferrari watch, which uses an ETA 2892 movement with a stopwatch complication. For watch porn, it looks like this:
View attachment 120074

The local watch guy wanted some ridiculous sum to regulate it, so I did it for him. It ran reliably just much too slow. It was clean inside, didn't seem to need disassembly or lubrication so I simply adjusted the beat and speed. The 2892 has a fine-adjust for speed regulation which is a very nice touch - I wish the Miyota 9015 had that! Got beat to 0.0 to 0.2 ms across all positions and speed at +/- 2 sec per day. Face up (fastest position) at +2 and crown up (slowest position) at -2. It was running great for a few weeks. Then suddenly it started running fast 45-60 seconds per day.

I held it near a compass to test and it would swing the compass almost 180 degrees! I have an old wand-style tape deck demagnetizer, so I used it on this watch, slowly swirling around the case front & back and smoothly slowly pulling it away. Got it to where it doesn't move the compass more than 5 degrees. And, the speed went back to its old +/- 2 sec per day.

What was the magnetizing culprit? His microwave oven!

Lessons learned:

• Mechanical watches can and do get magnetized, and it does affect their regulation.
• Microwave ovens (and perhaps other household appliances) have powerful magnets that can magnetize watches.
• You can demagnetize a watch with any old wand-style tape deck demagnetizer.

And here's the machine used back in the day to de-magnetize!

 

[Harmonie]

Cheap & attractive, but diving into a swimming pool with the crown open ... NOK

 

[Rottmannash]

Samsung Gear S3.

 

[Vict0r]

Cheap & attractive, but diving into a swimming pool with the crown open ... NOK

Mine says hi!

 

[rdenney]

Rick “feeling nautical” Denney

 

[Vict0r]

I've got more watches than common sense, so I have enough to post in this thread. Could go for quite a few weeks without posting the same watch twice...

 

[Frank Dernie]

For example, the watch I got for my 21st is an Omega Speedmaster Professional. It cost around £100. Based on my estimate of the average loss of the value of money (I use the difference in starting salary for a graduate engineer here in the UK) money has lost about 95% of its value since then, so an equivalent price today would be around £2000, but it is still in production with a different movement and called the moonwatch and retails at £4260 here, admittedly with a nice bracelet, as opposed to the crappy one mine had (which are now valuable since most sane people threw them away).
If you want one with the old movement like mine it is a "special edition" with see through back and is £11,950.

Replying to myself
I see my Speedmaster for my 21st birthday is a "Racing" version of which very few were made initially in the late 1960s, I guess they were not as popular as the standard one (I was disappointed not to get a standard one, my Dad probably got a deal on one that had been in stock for a couple of years).
It seems there are only 13 recorded ones (mine would make it 14!).
I hope I didn't post this already - my memory isn't what it was.

 

[Vict0r]

Replying to myself
I see my Speedmaster for my 21st birthday is a "Racing" version of which very few were made initially in the late 1960s, I guess they were not as popular as the standard one (I was disappointed not to get a standard one, my Dad probably got a deal on one that had been in stock for a couple of years).
It seems there are only 13 recorded ones (mine would make it 14!).
I hope I didn't post this already - my memory isn't what it was.

If that is a true ST 145.022 1968 Speedmaster Racing Dial; I've seen those go for sale now for €75.000... Not bad for a £100 birthday present!

Here is the Sothebys listing: https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/important-watches-ge1701/lot.136.html

 

[Frank Dernie]

If that is a true ST 145.022 1968 Speedmaster Racing Dial; I've seen those go for sale now for €75.000... Not bad for a £100 birthday present!

Here is the Sothebys listing: https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2017/important-watches-ge1701/lot.136.html

That one is the second version, with 861 movement, mine is the first version with 321 movement.
I kept the box for years but, since I wore it daily for many years, changed the rather grotty original bracelet at its first service at Omega, which turns out to have lost its value (Box and original bracelet seem to make a big difference to price)
This one sold in the UK a couple of years ago:
https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2019/watches-l19071/lot.7.html
This is mine:-

 

[Propheticus]

Let's chime in:

I treated myself to this watch 6-ish years ago when I landed my first (real) full time job at the company where I had been working on a secondment basis. A nice bump in salary meant I could afford (and justify to myself) getting a nice watch. Until then I had always stumbled upon watches during browsing I liked until I saw the price...

 

[nick-v]

Maratac Large Pilot Automatic

This is my token brown leather strap watch (brown shoes, brown belt)

The story behind this one is that it was originally commissioned for a US Agency (notice no branding anywhere on the front)

Nothing too crazy, but I like the simplicity. Nice Miyota 8245 21 jewel movement and domed sapphire crystal (and rear sapphire crystal) in an affordable package.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Maratac Large Pilot Automatic

This is my token brown leather strap watch (brown shoes, brown belt)

The story behind this one is that it was originally commissioned for a US Agency (notice no branding anywhere on the front)

Nothing too crazy, but I like the simplicity. Nice Miyota 8245 21 jewel movement and domed sapphire crystal (and rear sapphire crystal) in an affordable package.

Nice, but it looks like the case is way bigger than it needs to be for that movement, one of my pet peeves

 

[Propheticus]

@Frank Dernie Certainly the case here; 11 1/2 ligne (~26mm) movement in a 46mm case.
Some market it as shock-resistance, but I just see a plastic spacer.

You better not look inside a quartz watch

The worst: skeletonised quartz watches that mimic mechanical parts (fake balance, bridge or tourbillon)

 

[rdenney]

That’s a common enough pet peeve, but not one I share. Watch size fashions fluctuate in single decades, but movements last many decades if they are any good. Making a large movement just go look big in a large watch condemns the movement to an early death. I’d rather a small movement in a large case if it means one that has stood the test of time.

Rick “but how they do the display back...” Denney

 

[RickSanchez]

Nice, but it looks like the case is way bigger than it needs to be for that movement, one of my pet peeves

Completely fair critique. That said I think pilot / Flieger watches deserve a pass on that given that their design is typically meant to mimic the original designs, so 44mm and 47mm cases are common. In no way functional now given that movements are much smaller, purely paying aesthetic tribute to the originals. (Full disclosure: I own a Steinhart Nav-B Uhr automatic, B type.)

 

[Somafunk]

A cheap homage to the submariner for me, a phoibos with Zulu diver strap, previously had a modded yobokies seiko submariner copy but smashed it up (accidentally of course) - very happy with the quartz phoibos - obviously nothing like the genuine sub but £9000 cheaper and it tells the time just as well.

[/url]

 

[nick-v]

Casio Pro Trek PRW2500T-7 Titanium

This one doesn't see the light of day very often, but occasionally I'll wear it on the weekend or on a casual Friday, or if I'm doing something rugged.

It's quite large, but I do appreciate that it's still light and comfortable with the titanium band. This one is another solar/atomic so even if I haven't worn it for months, when I put it on it's always running on exact atomic time.

 

[Frank Dernie]

That’s a common enough pet peeve, but not one I share. Watch size fashions fluctuate in single decades, but movements last many decades if they are any good. Making a large movement just go look big in a large watch condemns the movement to an early death. I’d rather a small movement in a large case if it means one that has stood the test of time.

Rick “but how they do the display back...” Denney

Well I don't like unnecessarily large watches and have found the fashion for watches bigger in diameter and thickness than they need to be to disappointing. I should have pointed that out

 

[MRC01]

Speaking of these atomic watches, has anyone noticed that the WWV time broadcast is harder to pick up? I can't hear it on my SW radio at 5, 10 or 15 MHz anymore (I used to be able to hear it). And my Citizen H804, which I've owned for about 7 years, hasn't picked it up in the past year or so.

 

[rdenney]

Well I don't like unnecessarily large watches and have found the fashion for watches bigger in diameter and thickness than they need to be to disappointing. I should have pointed that out

Depends on the size of the wrist. The UN I showed above is 43mm--not too big on my wrist at all. But then I can palm a basketball.

Rick "big hands, big feet" Denney