Tag Heuer make some great looking watches. Many WI dismiss them only out of snobbery.
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From time to time, part of me hankers after a solid gold dress watch.
Nautilus is ugly.
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Roman numerals on dials are horrid and are only for coffin dodgers who also want the return of Lb,Oz & gallons.
Quartz Seiko 7548 is better than the skx007.
Tag F1 grande Date was a nice and comfy Watch, don’t understand why Tags have such a.bad rep.
Speed master seems highly rated but having tried one one next to a Smp ceramic, I preferred that.
Rolex Facebook group are strange and like sharing random pics of watch whilst doing random things, and gets upset should they get negative commments 😂
I hate fluted bezels on any watch especially a Rolex. The Sky Dweller is a hideous looking watch. If it was made by anyone other than Rolex no one would buy one.
Last edited by Robert189598; 18th February 2019 at 15:52.
I have a Raymond Weil I really like
ktmog6uk
marchingontogether!
Gosh -- how unpopular can I make myself?
Let's start with portholes.
Portholes in ships are surrounded by acres of steel to make them strong and to give good sealing. Necessary on a ship; unnecessary on a dress watch.
The idea of a "girl size" watch made large by encasing it if a lot of metal holds no attraction for me. M.Genta has a lot to answer for.
Ergo there are no ROs, Nauts, or Laureati in my little collection.
[It is no coincidence that the French word for "porthole" is "hublot".]
Next, expensive mechanical "divers" (the watches, not the people).
Clockwork and water do not mix well. Most "divers" endeavour to separate the clockwork from the water by means of polymer seals of various kinds.
Unfortunately though, almost every mechanical watch still needs to be set by means of pulling out the crown -- each use of which will abrade the deals a tiny bit.
And, there is no system which warns when a seal is likely to fail -- which means that such watches are "fail unsafe".
"Fail unsafe" systems are inevitable in some areas of engineering, and are fine providing they are treated as disposable, and are well backed up -- i.e. cost £100 and you have five, of which you wear two if getting them wet.
The idea of anyone paying £5,000 for a mechanical watch in which they intend even to wash the dishes boggles my mind completely.
I have one "diver" (from GO -- I like the style), but it it's never going any nearer to water than my dress watches.
And then there are display backs.
If I am going to pay good money for an intricate piece of machinery, especially if hand crafted, I want to be able to view it -- thank you very much.
The last watch I bought without a display back was twenty five years ago. Not going to change.
Am I unpopular enough now?
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Agree that water and watches are not a good mix. Best kept apart whenever possible. I’d never swim in one , regardless of the design. At some point they will fail and let in water. Why take the risk?
Last edited by paskinner; 18th February 2019 at 17:51.
Haha, I’ve got one somewhere with my £500 Tissot. Actually when the Tissot was the only watch I had, and very much a treasured gift, I used to swim in it all the time. On holiday I’d drop it in the pool and let the kids dive for it. I did service it a couple of times and had it pressured checked, maybe twice in 15 years. I guess I might have been lucky but I reckoned it was supposed to be good to 200m.
I did lose one watch to water ingress, after the local bodge
-up jeweller changed the battery and ‘resealed’ it. They might as well have just left the caseback off. I’ve learned to check the obvious since then.
When I get a Fifty Fathoms I promise to post a picture underwater with it. ;).
I had a look round the Omega boutique...
I didn't see a single watch I wanted.
Agree.
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That made me laugh
And ive owned quite a few panerais
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Different sort of risk entirely. There is a trade off for the risks you mention. If you want to get to Bangkok, or Penge, you weigh the risks associated with the means. There are risks of some sort associated with almost all human endeavour, each of which must be taken into account.
These days however, there is almost no upside associated with dunking a mechanical watch (dive computers are much more effective and reliable (not to mention cheap)).
So dunking a watch becomes an act of pure bravado, much like Russian Roulette.
Each to his own.
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Spot on.
I don't think there's much bravado involved with wearing a dive watch in a swimming pool...
Leave your Rolex on the beach when you go for a swim? That's very brave.
They are indeed philosophical razors. Rules of thumb that often apply, not rules to be obeyed.
Benford’s Law is another example that sometimes applies to the forum.
Back to the original topic, here is another unpopular opinion from me.
A great strap improves a dull watch more than a great watch masks a dull strap.
No one ever needs a non chronograph watch over 36mm. WWll was timed by watches between 30 and 35mm. Everest was conquered by watches of 35mm and the only watch to almost circumnavigate the world by air and in space was 27mm. Most of the record setting aviators between the wars wore a 27mm watch, either the Mk1 Weems or the Allproof. The fact is that the larger the watch the less that has ever been achieved wearing it.
Dive computers in a swimming pool? What for? There is literally no reason to wear one in a pool. A watch you can wear anywhere without ever once thinking about it. That’s useful. I’m swimming I want to know lap times, the time and I want to enjoy doing it. I don’t want to have to take my watch off or think about it unless I want to. If I’m in a situation in which I want a dive computer, I want a reserve and I want a dive profile written on my slate. The computer fails I want basic functions and no more, because I don’t want, while under the influence of nitrogen, to be tempted to carry on on my reserve. More to the point, I dont want a monoculture, I want two timebases that will be messed up by different things..
As for paying five grand for a watch whose primary characteristic is its ability to be immersed.....
Exactly - its an abuse of logic so that it becomes irrational. As you say risks are everywhere - the number of people who are killed getting out of bed or falling down stairs is astonishing. Travelling by car is a small but distinct constant risk - yet we all do so. The 'risk' of wearing a watch for something its designed for obviously isn't zero (if the seals fail) but its incredibly small - probably far smaller than the tiny risk of being killed in a plane crash (scheduled flights anyway!).
A watch less than 40mm looks stupid on a wrist larger than 7".
All my watches look the same... - black faced divers. Unpopular anyway with my wife who thinks I have spent to much money!