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

[WRXtranceformed]

So just a quick pick of my 'pitiful in comparison' collection. I ordered the watch box last week and it came today. I ordered the 10 watch box but they sent me the 12 watch box by mistake...I'm not complaining. Only 4 of these watches ever get worn, but I tossed the others in there to sorta make the box not look so empty until I can figure out/afford what other watches I want. Top left is my Tissot, which I love. I wear it almost exclusively as a dress watch and I love it. It's my wife's least favorite, but it's in my top 2. Beside that is a Pulsar my wife bought me about 6 years ago. It wasn't a terribly expensive watch but it is light, wears well, keeps excellent time and has generally served me very well. Beside that is the gold Elgin my dad bought me when I was in high school. Not sure why I was into gold watches then, but I haven't worn it in 15 years. I could barely get it over my hand today. On the end of the top row is a Dakota that cost a whopping $25, but it's the first watch I ever purchased for myself. Second row starts with the Seiko Automatic I just bought followed by the Citizen Chronograph. On the end is a Fossil watch that belonged to my wife's dad. After he passed away she gave it to me. I've never worn it, but I keep it around because it's important to her.



I'm not really sure where I want to go next. I'd like a black face, black leather strap dress watch to go with my grey and black suits. I've looked at a few Hamilton's that fit the bill for that. I'd also like a metal band chronograph watch as well. I would really like to add a Tag Heuer or something in that price range/quality level at some point, but no plans for that in the immediate future.

Dude, nice score with the bigger box! Watch boxes are like gun safes...it never hurts to go bigger :lol:

The collection is definitely not pitiful! I've come to learn that for every one of the very few snooty high end watch enthusiasts there are 50 down to earth collectors that have everything from cheap Timex Weekenders to Rolex Daytonas in their collection. I think that's what's cool about the passion behind watch collecting, it's not just about what you like or how much your collection costs but also the story behind your pieces and what their purpose / meaning is to you! I think all of us that have posted in this thread have great examples of this. Love the growing collection there, very nice mix of versatile and sentimental pieces!

As I alluded earlier, I love my Protrek PRG-130Y and it was really hard to find when I bought it back in the day (it was an Asia-market spec only) but Casio has since upgraded its ABC sensors to version 3 and they are like 5x more accurate and use like 90% less energy. This watch also unfortunately does not have atomic clock sync, which is the one thing I always wished it had. There was an identical version made exclusively for Amazon called the PAW-1500Y-1 that had atomic clock sync but it was long sold out and discontinued when I was looking years ago. The PRG makes a great doomsday watch and IMO is the coolest looking Protrek ever made, but that slot in my watch box is for the outdoors/hiking/doomsday tool and the newer version makes for a slightly better tool.

There is a lot to choose from in the US market range but all the cool stuff as always is found in the Asia-spec markets. After a ton of research, I had it narrowed down to basically two watches:

The PRW-S3500-1: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://products.protrek.com/asia-mea/en/_detail/PRW-S3500-1/">http://products.protrek.com/asia-mea/en ... W-S3500-1/</a><!-- m -->


or the PRW-S3100-JF: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://products.protrek.com/asia-mea/en/_detail/PRW-S3100-1/">http://products.protrek.com/asia-mea/en ... W-S3100-1/</a><!-- m -->


There are a ton of cheaper variants of both watches with different colors and negative-faces like my PRG. My time with tons of different watches led me to these two due to a few superior differences:
1. These models have anti-reflective sapphire crystals instead of mineral crystals, which are superior in every way
2. These models have a stainless steel bezel instead of aluminum
2. These models have carbon fiber reinforced resin bands which should make them pretty much future proof. The 3500 also has standard 22mm lugs and can accept aftermarket straps while many in the Protrek series cannot

Despite both having mostly identical features (including the atomic sync I was looking for) I ended up pulling the trigger on the 3500 this morning because it has double the water resistance and has a similar wrist footprint to the PRG which I am comfortable with. It's also on a mega sale right now on Jomashop and with a $10 off coupon and free shipping it was between $70 and $130 cheaper than the S3100 anywhere I could find it out there. For $229 shipped, I don't think you're going to find a more capable, quality outdoors watch out there :thumbup:

A video preview, I'll give my own thoughts on it when it arrives and I get it calibrated for this region:

[youtube]fNQgwWdR1-c[/youtube]

So yeah, I've got the PRG up for sale to recoup costs...if anyone is interested I've got more of an emotional price on it right now than anything and would cut you a special MM price 8) Don't let my desire to upgrade put this watch down, it has more capability than you would probably ever need and will last a VERY long time under a lot of abuse. The PRG also has moon and tide phases which none of the newer models have anymore.

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://forums.watchuseek.com/f29/fs-casio-protrek-black-hole-asia-spec-prg-130y-1dr-rare-4449882.html">http://forums.watchuseek.com/f29/fs-cas ... 49882.html</a><!-- m -->