UG and Zenith are probably my two all time favorite brands, particularly when dealing with vintage stuff. Zenith of the late 60's and 70's is underrated, UG is underrated in general but they did produce some garbage in the 80's (pretty much everyone made at least *some* garbage in the 80's- it was a hugely transitional time for the industry).

Don't worry about it being a "simple" manual. One day, when the skys **** money all over me and I can afford to open my own watchmaking studio, I intend to exclusively (pretty much) produce highly durable hand winding movements.

If the swap is straight across, take it and LOL forever.

Hi Mosta,

First of all, that's not my personal collection. Just some ideas for starting points. My collection is exclusively made up of sub-$500 pieces.

As for your question, the SARB031 is a very, very nice watch, probably nicer than anything you're going to find in that price range. In the watch world you're going to run into diminishing returns really quick. The difference between a $300 watch and a $600 watch from the same maker is going to be pretty small (or in some cases, totally imaginary).

When you jump up to Grand Seikos, though, you're looking at some significant differences. First of all the 6R15 movement in the SARB line is basically a robot-produced workhorse movement. I'm not very familiar with it but I believe it's largely based on the older 7s2x movement. Human hands will almost certainly not touch the movement before it gets on your wrist.

The 9Sxx movement in the Grand Seikos, on the other hand, will be assembled to a significant degree by a highly skilled watchmaker. The movement itself is decorated (which is kindof weird since the cheaper Spirit models have an exhibition back while the Grand Seikos almost always have solid casebacks). The hands and indicies on the GS will be hand-finished. The second hand is expertly curved to correct for the refraction of the crystal. All sorts of tiny, tiny details like this add up. Plus you have a big chunk of the price that is set by marketers. A lot of MBAs sat around and figured out exactly where they wanted to price this thing, independent of what the production costs were.

Here's a good GS review that has a bunch of extreme closeups that let you see the higher level of finishing:

http://home.watchprosite.com/show-nblog.post/ti-415221/

You can look at these all day, but the best thing to do is hold one in your hands. This is quite difficult since Grand Seiko is not marketed in the US. You basically have to know someone who has one.

i'm a fan of zenith, even some of their newer more futuristing models.
i own a grande port royal open concept and i love it

Thoughts on Tsovet? Gilt is having a sale Wednesday. This is one of the ones they have.

Thanks for the review link, PVN. I really like these Seikos more and more.

WM, I agree that I'm in no way unsatisfied with a manual. I've felt like I'm almost getting away with something when many of the vintage watches that are my favorites fall into this $300-$700 category, when similar vintage eg Pateks (even manuals) go for thousands (is that really for the movement, vs my Zenith or UG, more than the name?). I got my Zenith on ebay (from Holland) at a steal for $400, inscribed as a gift but apparently literally unworn. A friend of mine is obsessed with it and has bid me up to $1,500 for it. I told him I wasn't looking to sell, but for $2,000 I could replace it and pocket something for my trouble. The UG at around $800 fits that bill. But I'm more tempted to just have both.

Another thing. You guys have any reactions to the retrofittings of early, high-brand pocket watches as wrist watches? Like is it a great way to check out these brandds? I see Pateks, maybe Breguets, IWC, and others, from like 1890s to 1920s, with originally made and fitted cases that I often like (some with the crown on the top side). They're all over ebay. These can go lower, like around $1,000 some of them. What I wonder is how these old old movements hold up. And the other thing is that, to me, they tend to be pretty huge. On the order of 50mm, maybe bigger. I think that nixes them for me, but I like to save the pictures.

eg:

old patek

old patek

And a final question on this line: if you'd just made your first 1 (or 10 maybe better) million and decided to get a top watch. What would your short list be, and what do you think you would pick? I ask partly b/c I haven't sorted out all the top classic brands from the non, just as a fan not a shopper. I guess the obvious would start with Patek, Breguet, Vacheron & C, Lange & S. And I think I'd pick an understated Breguet. Just the history of going back to 1775 gives it a certain aura.

edit: ok, here are some converted pocket watch pics.

So one of the names I wasn't sure whether to put with Patek, Breguet, etc was Girard-Perregaux. I've noticed some neat things by them in the past, but also a bunch that were a miss for me. Now I just scoured ebay and I see that while they do have some 6-figure watches, they also have all sorts of lovely vintages from 40s-60s that seem to go for around $500. (They're mostly gold, which I don't have--so maybe that'll be my excuse to break the one-watch barrier. And then having done that, I might as well have the Universal...)

So now I'm wondering even more, given that GP does make elite watches, whether it is all brand that makes a stainless steel, 1950s say, manual, noticeably worn Patek cost several times as much as Zenith-Universal-GP?

$500 or under:













$5,000-$10,000

(okay this one is gold--but so are the GP's, though I'm not sure the exact comparison--and it's the cheapest at $5k)



(but this is stainless--$10k)



($10k, stainless)



I need to research whether these GP's are using a generic movement, for one thing. I guess I'm just assuming that the non-chronometer, non-chronograph manual movement, assuming they're all made in house by major houses, should be roughly on a par?

CSAR/JSAR are big ass watches. Anyone thinking about them better not be shy about have a hunk of metal on his wrist. I have a TSAR and it's chunkyness is an acquired taste.

These two are nearly perfect.

Finally got my Orange Monster in the mail (free shipping ftl), and love it, thanks for the rec pvn!

Definitely not huge by todays standards either, quick phone reference shot with a Navitimer:



Did you size your own pvn? I'm rooting around the house for a paper clip and stuff to get these links off, after some quick Googling I saw enough nightmare stories of watch shops losing the collars I'm kind of worried already.

The Method I will probably use:

http://www.pmwf.com/Watches/WatchToo...ingToolUse.htm

Also, I suppose I have no real chance in hell finding one of the 300 of these huh? I've wanted a yellow faced watch forever and with the red pointer on the second hand I think this thing is close to perfect:

Yellow Monster for sale right now, asking price $1500: http://forums.watchuseek.com/showthread.php?t=236783

I size my own bracelets, to push the pins out I use a dental pick with the pointy end filed down flat. It's probably about half the diameter of a paper clip and won't bend.

AHHH, lets see how much self control I have

I'll tackle the bracelet in a bit, thanks again!

i know there's some people here who are big in to both the ceramics and the black on black sort of look. i'm really in to the reverso squadra, and just stumbled across the existence of this:

JLC Reverso Squadra World Chronograph Polo Fields





god knows where the price is.

The place in Jersey I went to had it for 12k or something.

The bracelet on these is this weird hard plastic if I recall and I really wasn't in to it. Felt horribly cheap.

Not a wise way to go about it for nicer watches. Spend the whopping $4 for the proper resizing tool so you can not only remove your pins properly without peening the ends (and/or warp the shafts) but you can also almost eliminate the risk of gashing the link.

For purely utilitarian watches where gashes and scratches actually make them look cooler, yeah, but please dear god don't risk this on anything nice.

Well, the way the seiko bracelets work you'd really have to be a moron to **** this up. The pin sets well recessed inside the hole, so by the time you're applying pressure the tip of the tool is already below the surface of the link's side.

Do any of the higher-end bracelets use the same pin-and-collar system? The only one I've really looked at are the Rolex oyster bracelets which are screwed. FWIW I think the pin-and-collar system seems more secure if done properly.

I've never really been a big fan of JLC but this is a nice piece.

I assumed it was a divers bracelet thing, This thread has people saying that some Omegas use a collar system.

But yea it was pretty easy as long as you know what you're aiming to do and make sure you don't lose any collars.

ha... the opposite for me. I'm a big JLC fan, and I hate the new squadras.

To each his own, I guess.

haven't really read thread.



Nothing too fancy. Not too pricey. I'm very happy with it.

EDIT: photobucket is being dumb

So I just got the Debaufre 44mm Nav-B Auto.



It's real nice. They are all out of 48's, and speaking on the phone with them, new models are coming out in 4 months or so, and I got a nice deal on this one.

The collection...


Jesse

Fixed

rm,

you got enough **** going on on that watch? i see neither a compass nor a barometer!

nah, seriously, it's obviously got a lot more going on than i prefer in a watch, but glad you're happy with it.

anyone has some thoughts on Nomos?
http://www.glashuette.com/



They start at about 1k€

bah, that's pretty reserved as far as Citizen chronos go. Cf:

I like them. A lot. Especially at the price they're positioned at.