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

[SlimKlim]

Beefy. It'd look great on a vintage style/distressed leather strap. 

My birthday activity this year was just to go watch shopping. There are 4 or 5 places in Vienna that come up on Google Maps when you search "antique" watches, but I've never taken the time to just go check them out.

I pretty much expected to get skunked, and we mostly did, but at least I know now which shops are worth going back to. As a result, I also feel like I can put together a pretty comprehensive guide to NOVA watch shops for anyone else living up here who is unlucky enough to develop this "hobby."

First of all, don't waste your time going to GCA LA / Charly's / Cameo Coins & Collectibles if you're shopping for watches. The first two are repair-only shops, the last is sort of a collectibles trading-house and he said they have wholesale buyers picking up watches as fast as they come in.

John Alabaster Watch & Clock - Vienna - My first recommendation if you need to have something serviced. In my experience they offer lower prices than some of the other shops in the area, and are able to turn stuff around in 2-3 weeks, whereas a lot of the other shops you're looking at several months turnaround time.

As far as inventory they don't stock much new stuff, primarily just their own house brand Rolex homages with quartz movements. They do have a small case of antiques that range from reasonably priced ($150 or so) vintage Oris/Wittnauer manual winds up to some mid-market vintage Omegas and occasionally higher end stuff as well.

Kim's Watches & Jewelry - Herndon - A super authentic, family owned, old-school shop that mostly does repairs but does carry some Seikos and Pulsars. Seems to be a really trustworthy place to have something serviced, based only on the fact that he has a 2-3 month turnaround time, and takes 2+ weeks to even get a price quote to you.

Herndon Watch & Clock - Herndon - Another family owned place that carries a lot of new Tissots and Citizens. Great little shop and a good place to go if you need a quick service, but his prices on full movement services are double what Alabaster charges.

M&H Watch & Jewelry - Sterling - A newer jewelry store that just opened last year, mostly jewelry but has a small case of watches. They probably had ~20 lower-end vintage watch heads (Elgin, Wittnauer, etc) and a couple other pieces, including a gorgeous newer Longines manual wind small-seconds they were asking $750 for.

Vienna Jewelry - Vienna - Although it's not specifically a watch store they do have a pretty large selection of used higher end watches. I had to tear myself away from a somewhat older Omega Speedmaster Pro 40mm that they weren't asking too much for. I also tried on a heartbreakingly gorgeous IWC Portugueser.

Tysons Watch & Jewelry - Tysons - If you're in the market for a pre-owned Rolex/Omega/Tag you should probably just go here. Amazing selection and most of it was barely used, several of the pieces I looked at had been purchased new earlier that year only to end up on consignment here. The sales rep was really friendly and let me drool all over the merchandise, and everything that I got my greasy paws on seemed to be priced pretty fairly. 



So anyway, we spent the day on Saturday going to check out the places I hadn't been to yet and seeing what's what. Alabaster was closed for Columbus Day weekend (what?) and most of the other places we looked didn't have anything or was way, way, way above our price point. The place in Sterling ended up having the most vintage inventory but nothing that really knocked my socks off.

After many hours of retail cockteasing I wanted a goddamn watch and Lauren wanted to buy me a birthday gift. So we gave up and headed over to the mall, figuring as a last-ditch effort I could find a new Seiko or Citizen that I liked. 

We did a quick lap to see what all the places in the mall had in stock, and were just about to give up entirely when I spotted a Seiko SSC in the case at Fashion Time of all places. The SSC (Seiko Solar Chronograph) is a "flight" style chronograph with a slide rule feature, so if you squint and use your imagination enough, it's basically a Navitimer.

If I had been buying online I would've gone for the '013' variation which has a silver case and white face, but when I saw this obnoxiously gold '008' sitting in the case I fell in love with it. Cause



It's a solar-powered quartz movement, similar to Citizen's Eco-Drive. It has a small seconds sub-dial which somewhat hides the fact that it's just a quartz movement. It's got a 60-minute 1/5th second chrono feature and an alarm sub-dial I am currently using to display a second time zone. Some might say a 43mm x 13mm bright gold watch is a little ostentatious, and they would be correct, that's the point.







I also figured it was time for a SOTC ("Shot of the Collection")



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