Lee's Watch Thread for MM'ers of Impeccable Taste

[WRXtranceformed]

Phew been busy at work so not as active here lately but also been busy hitting the watch hobby crack pipe!

I went ahead and pulled the trigger on the Uncle Seiko tropic strap for the 6105. It's the perfect fit in terms of keeping homage to the original style while adding the strength and security I was looking for. Here are some pics, side by sides and a golden hour shot of the 6105!



Uncle Seiko tropic on the right vs. vintage tropic on the left:





US on the right, vintage on the left:









So far it's pretty comfy and breaking in more every time I wear it! Definitely a great purchase.

I also got the chance to time the NE15 movement that was swapped into Perfect Samurai. I wish I could have gotten a good benchmark from the stock 4R before I sent it off, but got about a days' worth of data:



From experience in the past, the 4Rs I've owned settle in nicely from -0.5sec to -8ishsec per day but do seem to prefer to rest at a certain position or they lose more than that. This one was a little fast out of the box.

It took a while for the NE15 to settle in but from what I can tell once it gets charged up it seems to keep excellent time! It does seem to have less positional variance as advertised but it does prefer to be diagonal on the winder, dial up or worn for best timekeeping:





Averaging about -6ish sec/day including its time to get fully charged, but when it's fully charged it seems to be more like -2 sec/day. Not bad!

I did also get a chance though to time the power reserve on both movements. The 4R in project Two Tone made it almost exactly 41 hours on a full charge which seems to be within specs. The NE15 however made it 54 hours! Definitely better than advertised and a noticeable improvement over the 4R

So would I do the movement swap all over again knowing all of this? Yeah it was worth the experiment! The extra power reserve and precision at multiple positions is definitely really nice. Do you need to do it on an OEM 4R watch? No you probably don't. It would make more sense if you're looking to upgrade a 7S26 in like an SKX to spend another $60 for the NE15 over a 4R if you wanted to go "all out".

Here's another shot from our sunny Easter weekend!



Lastly I've got another mod project on the way apparently since I just won an eBay auction on this awesome patina'd SKX009, so stay tuned for the next one! Yes it's a disease. I'll probably flip this one sooner as opposed to later though, just temporarily rolling over equity / profit from my flips into the next one!



Slowly building the IG empire, about 320 followers in less than a month! I'm sure if I was a half naked attention whore Instagram model it would go quicker But I've had a few big names like Isofrane straps, Raymond Weil, Aquadive, Brown Safe, CrystalTimes and some big watch bloggers follow me so that's pretty cool!

Dave: You should post up a review of that shiny new Astron!

[Apoc]

Let's keep the circle jerk going!

I was out walking in a 500 acre park with my kid and I realized I was depending on my cell phone to ensure I kept in the same general direction. I don't like depending on my cell phone for things, especially if the SHTF, and looking at phone while you're in nature is lame. So, within a few hours of getting home I'd talked myself into upgrading my "rugged" watch... which is an Iron Man I bought a few years ago. Lee pointed me in the right direction, as Lee does, and I picked up a Casio PRW3100Y-3. Lee has the same one if all black, so I had to opt for this version. I"m actually partial to this color scheme. Anyway, it has the good stuff. Atomic time, solar power, altimeter, barometer, compass, stopwatch, timer, alarm, sunrise/set times, and probably a bunch of other shit I'll also never use. This'll be my camping, hiking, swimming watch from now on. It'll also be the one I grab if we have to GTFO. Now on to the 117 page manual.

edit: screw it, i'm not fixing typos

[WRXtranceformed]

Great choice!! I am a little partial but Casio really does make some of the best & toughest ABC watches in the world. This model is the perfect balance between their best technology and reasonable wearability. Their other top tier models with that kind of capability like the Mudmaster and some of the other GShocks and Protreks are great but they're SO big and unwieldy. This is not a *small* watch but it wears very comfortably

[davej]

A Wankel Watch?

[WRXtranceformed]

The next mod project is complete! Project "Perfect Patina Pepsi" Details here: http://forums.watchuseek.com/f74/another...98511.html

[Jewels]

I have to admit. I've been watching this thread for a while and now I'm kind of itching for a new watch. That Casio that Chris posted looks amazing. I'm going to go see what they offer in women's watches, but I ain't holding my breath.

[Apoc]

That Casio is kinda a chameleon when wearing it in different light. I like wearing it when I'm out and about, even though I bought it for rougher use like camping. It wears smaller than it looks and I'm pretty sure they have women's sizes. I had to scrape around the internet for this color and found their website to be shit, so be sure to look around.



I've been on a bit of a spree the last two years, but I keep going back to this nighthawk. This is lame, but it legitimately makes me happy every time I look at it. Other watches are way more meaningful, but I think this is the best combo of looks and every day wearability. 

---

I like to take pictures of watches at baseball games.

[WRXtranceformed]

That Casio is kinda a chameleon when wearing it in different light. I like wearing it when I'm out and about, even though I bought it for rougher use like camping. It wears smaller than it looks and I'm pretty sure they have women's sizes. I had to scrape around the internet for this color and found their website to be shit, so be sure to look around.



I've been on a bit of a spree the last two years, but I keep going back to this nighthawk. This is lame, but it legitimately makes me happy every time I look at it. Other watches are way more meaningful, but I think this is the best combo of looks and every day wearability. 

---

I like to take pictures of watches at baseball games.

I love that you're enjoying it so much man!  That sapphire crystal really helps it pop   

I've been a little quiet on this thread but have slowly been building my IG empire so that maybe companies will start to send me stuff for free someday.  Up to over 680 followers in a few months of content...not bad!

In preparing for an upcoming mild mod project of a JDM Seiko that isn't for sale yet, I sold off my two tone mod project.  I've been diving into the world of vintage watches lately and really there are some stunning vintage Seikos that can be had for way less than their Swiss counterparts.  But these seem to be skyrocketing in value like the 6105 I bought.  I came across the vintage 6138 "Kakume" which means "Square Eyes".  You can see how it got its name.  I was smitten.  These were going for crazy prices on eBay and then I came across a JDM version from October 1973 on the watch forums, owned by a popular Instagrammer I follow.  Aside from being a collector quality rare early blue dial with yellow hands example, this one also came with the original inner box, outer box AND manual.  You just don't see this stuff...people rarely kept that stuff around back in the day unless it was an uber expensive watch.  And yes, that is the original bracelet! I wasn't planning on another watch purchase but this was too high quality and I knew I would never see one with box and papers in that condition again.  So I went back and forth with the seller and landed on a price that was healthy but that I thought was fair.  It's in the mail to me and I can't wait to get it on the wrist   

On to the pics!





I'm at the one-in-one-out point in my collection again so I put up my mod project "Perfect Samurai" for sale.  It is indeed probably one of the nicest Samurais in the world right now:






More pics and details here if you're bored and curious:  http://forums.watchuseek.com/f29/fs-seik...14051.html

I'll post some wrist shots of the Kakume when it arrives in about a week 

[WRXtranceformed]

The new Kakume arrived and it's incredible

More pics and a writeup here on my Reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Watches/comment...er_kakume/

[WRXtranceformed]

New timepiece alert!

Been waiting a while for this one. This is the Seiko Sumo "Green Emerald" edition (SZSC004). They're JDM only so I had to find and vet out a vendor to source one for me when they became available again. Fortunately I found a really good one. I've already got it mounted to a Strapcode Super Oyster bracelet, and I'll be putting a CrystalTimes sapphire with green antireflective on it in the next few weeks!





More pics here: https://imgur.com/a/aSgyeW3

Or follow my Instagram if you haven't already! I'm 2 followers away from the 1k mark, where I will be doing a giveaway of two limited edition watch straps https://www.instagram.com/watchmodperfect/

[davej]

Dangit, your count was at 997 when I followed, and now it's back to 997. QUIT LEAVING, PEOPLE, I'M TRYING TO GET A FREE ROLEX

[WRXtranceformed]

Dangit, your count was at 997 when I followed, and now it's back to 997. QUIT LEAVING, PEOPLE, I'M TRYING TO GET A FREE ROLEX

Thanks for the follow bruh! How's the Astron running??

[JustinG]

Followed

[WRXtranceformed]

Followed

Sweet thanks dude!  Almost there!

[Apoc]

$140 for a Nighthawk, if you can manage to get the website to work.

https://amzn.to/2JtmBzC

[davej]

$140 for a Nighthawk, if you can manage to get the website to work.

https://amzn.to/2JtmBzC

Yeah, what the hell did you guys do over there? or was this some marketing ploy to artificially inflate demand? :p

They caught my eye ever since you guys floated them around some time back, but how can I justify having TWO watches? That's just crazy.

[Ken]

Birthday was this past week, and Toni's mother decided to gift me her father's watch who passed away when she was 10. She had a jeweler give it a once-over. I was absolutely floored by the gesture and really love the watch for both the meaning and style. 

Want to try and see if I can find a good jeweler around here to help determine the year and possibly re-finish.

[WRXtranceformed]

Very cool!! Don't polish it IMO, it shows the character and history

[SlimKlim]

I'd agree on holding off on polishing, gives it a lot of character.

I've done a shit job of updating this thread with my activity. Here goes: 

Orient released a 'small seconds' version of its "Bambino" automatic dress watch line and I was totally smitten with this version with the champagne dial. The case size is a little large for my taste (40.5mm), and I think they could've done without the date window, or implemented it a little cleaner, but otherwise i LOVE this thing. Sunburst dial, beveled dauphine hands, hacking/handwinding automatic movement, display caseback, onion-ish style crown, top hat crystal, what more could you want in a <$200 watch?



One of my favorite little details is how the minute hand curves down at the end to follow the shape of the dial and crystal



Through an unexpected series of events I ended up with a Hamilton Khaki King earlier this summer.



It's a really well put together design. The bezel is polished to a perfect mirror finish but is intentionally left "soft" so you start putting "memories" in it as soon as you touch it. The dial has a nice mixture of levels and textures to give the watch some depth, and of course the main attraction is the full written day display at the top, sharing a window with the date display.

I poked around for a while looking for a fabric strap to pair it with and found a company called 210 East Oak that makes watch straps out of suit fabrics, I picked up a light brown herringbone one and love how it suits the watch. 



A couple of months ago I was bored and grabbed my quartz Tissot dress watch. I love how this watch fits but my watch nerd snobbery was preventing me from enjoying it because I had to watch the second hand slam from second to second like some kind of goddamn Casio or something. Compounding the problem was the fact that the hand didn't sync up with the indices on the dial, it would tick from 15 and 1/2 seconds to 16 and 1/2 rather than precisely landing on the 15 and 16 marks. Unacceptable. 

I disassembled the watch, unceremoniously ripped the second hand off and put it back together. It's still a cheap quartz dress watch, but now it looks like a very expensive manual wind watch. Very pleased with the results.

 

Once we started to approach the truly miserable part of summer I also grabbed a $15 perlon strap to throw this on. It makes the watch barely-there light and the near infinite adjustability is nice in the summer when your wrist can change 1/2" in diameter based on whether you're in air conditioning or not.



Lastly, I decided to sell my 1966 Seiko Sportsmatic and my Seiko Solar Chronograph because while I liked them, I just wasn't wearing them very much, if at all. A watch nerd co-worker bought the sportsmatic off of me so I still get to visit it, and the chrono sold within a few days on reddit.

I shopped around with the proceeds for a little while, just missed out on a slightly rough but well priced Omega Speedy Reduced, thought about waiting for another Halios Seaforth production run to open up, and was eyeballing some of the Steinhart Ocean One 39 diver models, which are also difficult to find in stock and impossible to backorder. I ended up signing up to be notified when the Ocean One 39 Pepsi bezel came back into stock at Gnomon, and ordered it without hesitating when I got the notification a week later. 

This is definitely the nicest watch I've owned so far. The retail price is within spitting distance of the Hamilton, but because it is from a microbrand struggling to meet demand, you can't pay less than retail for them, whereas the Hamilton is available from jomashop for 50% of retail all day everyday. 

It's a shameless homage to a Rolex 16710, but this brand has developed its own following for both its homage and non-homage styles. It's powered by an ETA GMT movement, 28,800bph, hacking, hand winding 300m water resistance, etc. The build quality is exceptional for the price, and I love how the reduced 39mm case size fits my skinny little wrist. 

[JustinG]

https://www.jomashop.com/citizen-watch-b..._source=CJ

I kinda want it....$100 off with code SCZ100