Holy horology Batman, I think I found my next watch

[Commander Wallace]

I was thinking when I last posted in this thread. The accuracy of a watch is usually central to the watch type people choose in conjunction with the cost. I have friends I meet up with if we all get together to drive to a sports venue, like Hockey. I tend to arrive 10-15 minutes before our appointed meeting time only to discover they had the same Idea and are already there. I use my watch to time my trip and plan ahead as they do.

With regards to watch accuracy, I assume we all have cell phones. The cell phones are completely accurate and can also be set up to time things with a flip of a screen. If you are a diver, involved in military operations or things that require precision, there is a definite need for a certified chronograph time piece / watch.

For others, watches are little more than jewelry. I think we all have watches that we only use for good or social occasions.There's nothing wrong with that either. I guess the point I'm making is that the accuracy of wrist watches in the face of modern contrivances like cell phones, may not be as important as it once was, for the average person.

[Jimbuna]

^ I'd tend to agree. My wife purchased a Seiko Analog Casual Watch 5 SPORTS SNZG15K1 as part of my 60th birthday present back in July 2017 (just under £100 iirc). This watch was an automatic and as such was soon found out to be gaining between 11 and fifteen seconds a day, accuracy is an important function/requirement for me and I soon tired of adjusting the watch every couple of weels.


Along came christmas (not long past) and I decided I'd like something a little more accurate so she purchased me a Seiko 7T92 (just under £200) and boy what a difference timekeeping accuracy has become, the quartz movement has meant that in the three months I've had the watch I've yet to adjust the time.


For the first time in a long time I have total faith in my wristwatch and that despite the fact I could always have relied on my iPhone.

[Commander Wallace]

^ I had mentioned earlier in the thread that the watch you have is incredibly accurate. People marvel at the accuracy of the Seiko 7T92 watch you have and that other watches in addition to the Seiko 7T92 may well utilize the same movement. I have read a number of positive reviews and some have said the watch is sure to double in price. Although £200 is far from cheap, it is relatively inexpensive as compared to the incredible value that it represents. It really is all the watch most people will ever need. I also believe that it's incredibly hard to beat the time keeping accuracy of a quartz. I have a number of automatics from various manufacturers and although they are alright, they can't beat a quartz.


Although as I said the phones are accurate with regards to time, it's far easier to move your wrist so your sport coat rides up just enough to view your watch for the time. It doesn't get any easier than that.


The Seiko watch you have is a handsome watch as well that anyone would be proud to wear. I think your endorsement of this time piece may well influence people to look into the incredible value of this watch.

[Commander Wallace]

^ Indeed. Where can I find a wife like that ? Actually, I am looking for a nice watch for my lady for her upcoming birthday. I got her a few but looking for something else now. I looked at Citizen but will now look at Seiko to see if they have a dressy, ladies watch, with the same movement.

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Commander Wallace

The Seiko watch you have is a handsome watch as well that anyone would be proud to wear. I think your endorsement of this time piece may well influence people to look into the incredible value of this watch.

Time I purchased shares in Seiko then

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Jimbuna

Time I purchased shares in Seiko then

Nay! The end of time as man knows it is almost here ...

Purchase a cheap Timex or even two and spend the saved dough on extra MRE kits for you and your family. You won't have to worry about what time it is when your hungry you will know it.

See the smilee

[Platapus]

I would like to point out that not everyone either wants to or is able to carry a cell phone.

I don't carry a cell phone. I have one in my car and it stays there.

[Commander Wallace]

^ Like you and many others, I'm old school and prefer a quality time piece on my wrist. Many people do however carry cell phones and use them for everything, including as time pieces. How many times have you gone to a restaurant and saw a family dining out, only to see them sitting there with their faces buried in their phones ? They tend to text each other while sitting together and next to each other. Figure that one out. I have seen other people walk out in the middle of traffic and almost be hit because their faces were buried in their phones.

I only use my cell phone sparingly and people know to call me only if it's important or an emergency. I think cell phones are one of the worst inventions ever created. The cell phones do keep excellent time though, provided they are charged.

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

Nay! The end of time as man knows it is almost here ...

Purchase a cheap Timex or even two and spend the saved dough on extra MRE kits for you and your family. You won't have to worry about what time it is when your hungry you will know it.

See the smilee

I never thought of that.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Yeah, but this is a pretty cool thread, thanks for starting it.

MY FIELD WATCH ON DUTY AND WORLD TRAVEL COMPANION IS THE GEORGE J VON BURG 'TRIPLE DATE' WITH CHRONO, MOONPHASE DATEHAND AND 24-HOUR AND SMALL SECONDS HAND AT THE 9 O'CLOCK POSITION-11 FUNCTIONS ON A MECHANICAL WATCH ! ON A FABULOUS VALJOUX 7751 MOVEMENT. ONLY FIFTY WERE EVER MADE. FRANKLY IT SAVES ME MONEY; I SEE OTHER WATCHES OF INTEREST THAT MAKE ME DROOL HOROLOGICALLY BUT THEN SENSIBLY CONCLUDE "I'M ALREADY WEARING IT" THE OTHER OF MY FAVORITES WAS GIFT FROM A LOCAL JEWELRY SHOP OWNER WHO LEFT THE KEYS IN HER SHOP'S FRONT DOOR ABSENTMINDEDLY. IT IS MY '60'S WAKMANN ON A VENUS 178 MOVEMENT. WHAT IS CHARMING ABOUT THIS ONE IS THE THREE SUBHAND-DIALS ARE ALL DIFFERENT! THEY DON'T DO THAT LITTLE STUFF ANYMORE. < THIS PUPPY WITH THE PRECURSOR TO THE VALJOUX MOVEMENT : SITS BY THE COMPUTER AND GET WOUND MANUALLY ....EVERY DAY!

Originally Posted by Platapus

Variance, on the other hand is an internal measurement. It is a measurement of how repeatable is the precision of the watch movement. Mechanical watches are often measured in Beats per Hour. An hour was chosen many years ago as a good period of representation. A specific watch's balance wheel may operate at 28,800 BPH. This is actually a common BPH. This translates down to 8 beats per second or 4 hertz.



No watch beats at exactly 28,800 beats per hour every hour. But they get close. Sometimes it beats at less than 28.8k and sometimes it beats more than 28.8k and sometimes it beats exactly 28.8k. This being a mechanical watch full of mechanical stuff, position, movement, and gravity are only three of about a million things that can affect the precision of a watch movement.

The range of these values is called variance. This has nothing directly to do with accuracy. This is just how predictable does the watch movement .. well.. move.
Unfortunately, with anything mechanical, the phrase "assuming no other factors" is a fantasy as there are always external factors. But watch engineers work very hard to mitigate these factors. But let's continue in our fantasy world of no external factors to keep the numbers easy. That's the great thing about math -- you can create fantasy worlds where numbers work easy. Engineers have to deal with reality.
Then there is the item I neglected to write about in my previous post.

Loss/gain. A loss/gain is a cumulative change in the accuracy of a watch over a period of observation. It is in one direction. A watch either gains or loses time. If a watch both loses and gains time, that is variance. The cumulative change in the accuracy is affected by the variance of the watch. The variance is not affected by the loss/gain.
Here is an example I had with my watch.

My watch is a COSC certified chronometer that has a design variance of -4/+6 seconds per day. That's 10 seconds not centered at zero! Note that it is a design variance. Whether my watch actually has a variance of -4/+6 will have to be determined.
If you are going to be wrong, at least be precisely wrong.
Of course, in the real world, your watch is affected by all of these at the same time. Actually all clocks are affected by this.
My rant about the misuse of the term UTC will have to wait for another bombastic post.

https://medium.com/@morningtundra/the-not-cheap-and-not-nasty-valjoux-7750-b3cb559a0e8f ALL MECHANICAL WATCHES HAVE VARIANCE AND TIME LOSS. THE SECRET IS IN THE MOVEMENT... THE HEART OF THE ART OF HOROLOGY; THE COSC DESIGNATION IS A PRICEY(5K) CERTIFICATION FOR SWISS WATCHES ONLY

Venus was acquired by Valjoux in 1966 which in turn was acquired by ETA in the 1980’s to become the exclusive supplier to its parent company, the Swatch Group. It didn’t take long for the ETA 7750 to become the most common Swiss automatic chronograph movement. In its highly finished form, its accuracy and robustness allowed it to achieve COSC Chronometer certification WITHOUT THE ADDED COST??! meeting the standards required for adoption by manufacturers like IWC, Tudor, Panerai, Hublot, Breitling, TAG Heuer, Buren, Zenith and others.
ETA produced the 7750 in three grades, Elaboré, Top and Chronomètre.

BOTTOM LINE: GET THE VALJOUX MOVEMENT AND SAVE THE COSC EXPENSE. MY CASE IN POINT: THE MOON LANDING ASTRONAUTS<BUZZ ALDRIN WEARING A NON COSC OMEGA SPEED MASTER WORE OMEGA SPEEDMATERS WITH NO COSC DESIGNATION; I MEAN REALLY!!! THE MOON LANDING: TIMING IS EVERYTHING BBY! IN THIS CASE THE OMEGA 321 MOVEMENT WHICH HAS BEEN RECENTLY REINTRODUCED...IE THE MOVEMENT, EVEN AN OLD TRADITIONAL MOVEMENT, IS EVERYTHING; THE COSC DESIGNATION IS, IMHO, A PRICEY EXTRAVANGANCE... https://quillandpad.com/2018/07/17/exceptional-movements-in-history-omega-caliber-321/

[Platapus]

Just some observations

1. There was no COSC certification during our moon missions. The last Apollo moon mission was in 1972 and COSC did not come into existence until 1973. NASA did not choose a COSC certified watch for the Gemini/Apollo missions because there was no such certification at that time. The closest that was available was the "BO" certification (Bureaux officiels de contrôle de la marche des montres)

2. For a mission to the moon, a watch only needs to be accurate for a relatively short period of time. The longest moon mission was about 10 days. One does not need chronometer quality watch if the timing mission is 10 days long.

3. One also does not need a chronometer quality watch when one has a large ground support staff beaming up time signals at least every one of those 10 days. Part of the daily checklists was a synchronizing of all the timers on the space craft, including the watches.

4. The astronauts needed a way to make short relative timing actions or to act as a back up in case communication was lost. If you read the transcripts of the conversations, here was not a lot of mention of using the watches with the exception of Apollo 13 when the on-board timers were shut down.

5. The reason why the Speedmaster was chosen was less to do with any accuracy of the movement, but the resistance of that movement to temperature and pressure changes as well as shocks in G forces. The other chronographs tested, including the Rolex, broke at some time in the testing. The Speedmaster was not selected because it was the best watch accuracy wise, it was selected because it was the only watch that survived the testing!

There are many valid reasons why one would choose not to pay for a COSC certified watch. The fact that none of the watches on the Apollo missions were certified chronometers is not one of them.

[Platapus]

At Baselworld, a constantly shrinking watch convention, Citizen reveled it's latest calibre 0100 watch.


It has an accuracy of +/- 1 second per year. Yikes, that's some accomplishment.

Traditional quartz watches oscillate at 32,768 Hz. The Calibre 0100 oscillates at 8,388,608 Hz. That's a whole heapin helpin o' oscillations.

And it is solar powered

It's a bit.. uh.. understated in design. Not encumbered with a lot of "bells and whistles" that's for sure.

If you buy the cheap version it will only cost ya $7,400.

And no, it is not COSC certified.

But don't worry. This watch is offered in three different models with a combined production of 800 watches, I am sure they have all been snarfed up by collectors by now.

Still some accomplishment.

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by PLATYPUS

1. There was no COSC certification during our moon missions.

I KNEW THAT BUT AS OMEGA IS #2 BEHIND ROLEX IN COSC DESIGNATIONS FOLLOWED BY BREITLING, AND TAG HEUER; HENCE MY USE OF THAT IN THE 'ULTIMATE' MOON LANDING EXAMPLE:

Originally Posted by WIKI

Over a million official chronometer certificates are delivered each year, representing only 3% of the Swiss watch production. To earn chronometer certification, a movement must not only be made from the highest quality components, but also be the object of special care on part of the finest watchmakers and timers during assembly.
There is a debate among watch enthusiasts as to whether the COSC chronometer certification for a Swiss watch is a meaningful test or a simple marketing gimmick. On the one hand, when a watch maker intends to submit a movement for COSC testing, they frequently employ additional jewelling (i.e. to the barrel) and better quality[ "Ébauche" parts (i.e. higher quality hairsprings, mainsprings, balance wheels; regulators, etc.) all aimed at the coveted chronometer certification. On the other hand, it is likely that most good quality movements on the market today are capable of being tweaked, and timed to fall comfortably within the benchmark -4/+6 average daily rate criteria of the COSC. However, movements so submitted to COSC are more likely to be submitted with better quality parts in order to be confident of a successful test, and as a consequence may be more likely to maintain better timekeeping rates over the service life of the time piece.

I'M MORE OF THE GIMMICK SCHOOL OF THOUGHT; AND, AS IT'S THE QUALITY WATCH PARTS THAT MAKE THE DIFFERENCE, I SIMPLY PREFER TO SPEND THE SHEKEL ON THE WATCH COMPONENTS AND NOT THE PAPER CERTIFICATE WHICH ONLY 3% OF ALL SWISS WATCHES BOTHER WITH. I STILL WEAR A CITZEN CALIBRE 3100 PERPETUAL SOLAR POWERED WATCH AND MY OTHER EVERYDAY FIELD WATCH THE CALIBRE E81 SOLAR POWERED PERPETUAL CALENDAR WITH ALARM, CHRONOGRAPH, DATE, SECOND TIME ZONE AND ROTATING BEZEL ON A 'PERPETUAL CALENDAR' WATCH ONE SIMPLY SETS THE LEAP-YEAR (1-4) OF THE CYCLE AND THE DATE FOR EVERY MONTH(30-31) AUTOMATICALLY ADJUSTS ITSELF A 'REAL' MECHANICAL PERPETUAL CALENDAR DREAM WATCH WOULD BE THE IWC DA VINCI-I GET ONE AND MY COLLECTING DAYS ARE DONE BBY!- AT $40k NEW...OR THE OLDER SLIGHTLY USED VERSION: <ONLY 10k; SINCE ALL MECHANICAL WATCHES REQUIRE A WATCHMAKER'S OCCASIONAL ATTN; THERE IS NO HARM IN OWNING A WELL-MAINTAINED 'PREOWNED' PIECE AND THE IWC DA VINCI'S ''SING TO MY WRIST''...AND THE MOON PHASE FUNCTION, AS WITH MY JGVB WATCH, IS COOL TOO! REQUIRED EQUIPMENT FOR A MOONPHASE WATCH: http://www.watchnetwork.com/moonphase/ AS MOONDIALS NEED PERIODIC ADJUSTMENT TOO.

[Platapus]

I finally stuck a crowbar in my wallet and ordered one. The 7007 model.




It arrived yesterday at 1800. Eleven hours later, by 0500, with 6 hours sleep, I have already decided to return it for a refund.



The watch is very well made and clearly represents quality. But it's not for me.


First of all, while it is not excessive large in diameter, it is amazingly thick. About 2.25 times as thick as my Omega Seamaster, which is not exactly a thin watch in itself. This watch is thick enough to be difficult to wear under a dress shirt. I knew it was a thick watch, but I did not appreciate how thick it is.



However, this was the first Titanium watch I have ever had. OMG how light. Can't feel it on your wrist at all. It is some what unnerving, looking down at what appears to be a cubic foot of metal on your wrist but not feeling any weight.



Second, it is a complicated watch. It has a lot of functions, which is what attracted me to it in the first place. More functions, more information on the dial. It is a busy dial. This watch has 8 hands. 8! That's pretty impressive... for the first 5 minutes. Then it starts to sink in that this means there are 8 points of failure and 8 hands to keep track of. These 8 hands live on three dials not including the main face. The main face has three hands, two of the smaller dials have two hands and one dial has one hand. That's a lotta hands on those small dials.


Added to this are the dials themselves. The dials have numbers and indexes and they are not the same!. Depending on the function, sometimes you look at the numbers and sometimes you look at the indexes. On one dial you have to keep track of the multiplier depending on the function. The "1" may mean one, ten, or a hundred depending on the function. I have to admit that Epson.Seiko did a great job with these dials, but no matter what, this is a complicated watch face to use.



There is probably a very good reason why watches with this many functions are better in digital than analog.



Third, the functions, to be honest, have limited functionality in my life. I knew that the Altitude and Barometer would be practically useless for me. Strange as it may seem, I can go months without knowing the HectoPascals of air on top of me.



Now a compass on a watch is cool. A compass on an analog watch is mega cool. The waypoint feature where you can set a base and then later the watch can tell you the direction and distance back to the base is awesome and even awesomer on an analog watch.


However, the Trume costs about $1,200 more than other high end GPS synced watches that don't have a compass. Is the addition of the cool and awesome compass and waypoint system worth $1,200? No. it is really not. You can buy small GPS units that clip to your belt what will guide you back to your base and has several waypoints. These cost about $60.00. Any time I go hiking or out somewhere strange, I can carry one of these. I don't need one on my watch all the time. I somehow manage to survive my 17 mile daily commute in a car with only two GPS nav units. I am a survivor.



Forth, the watch is ugly. I am talking Casio ugly. Now, I have written before that I think that Casio watches offer the best value when it comes to functionality, price, durability. They really can't be beat. For me, the killer is the looks. I find the Casio GPS watches fugly. The Trume is up there with the Casio. It is probably a little better looking, but still in the ugly class. Many people like how the Casios look and that's great.



Fifth, I am honestly too old for this watch. This watch would look good on a 20 something or 20 something wanna be. It is rugged, unique, and filled with cool useless functions. However a 60 year old man wearing this watch, in a suit, going into a board meeting will look ridiculous.



I wish I could have seen this watch in a store in the US. This is one of the disadvantages of buying a JDM watch. You are purchasing a swine in a shed. Fortunately I purchased it though Shoppinginjapan.net which is a legitimate company with a reasonable return process. This watch will spend about twice as long in transit as I wore it.



It was an interesting experience. I had fun wearing this watch for the first hour. It is beautifully made. It is a good watch! Just not good for me.


So back to the horological dreaming board. I am thinking of the Seiko Astron 8X82. It's about half the price of the Trume and looks, to me, to be a much more respectable attractive watch.



How will I manage to survive without having a compass on my watch. I think I will do nicely actually.


Just a final word.


DO NOT GET INTO WATCHES!

[Buddahaid]

Originally Posted by Platapus

DO NOT GET INTO WATCHES!

Don't worry about me. I hate things hanging on my arms unless they are feminine.

[Aktungbby]

/\ it just didn't 'sing to your wrist'!!?? Which is rule one of watch preferences