The Right Watch

Some people -- who seem to be real old-money -- say that a man either should not wear a watch when wearing a tuxedo; or he should wear a simple 18 karat yellow gold dress watch with a white enamel face and no second hand, on an unobtrusive black leather strap.

Clearly, a lot of people either never heard the rules or are intentionally breaking them. Almost all of the male movie stars at the Oscars, and a few of the ladies, wear tuxedos. How many of them break the rule about the watch? Just about all of them, I think, or at least all of them who wear watches. I googled George Clooney because I thought he might have accidentally overheard the rule around 2005 or so. He's either never heard the rule, or he defies it.

George Clooney broke the rule AT HIS WEDDING.

I don't know whether James Bond has ever followed that rule.

And so maybe those old-money people, when they see video of movie stars in tuxedos with glaringly incorrect watches, over and over. And they sigh, "Oh well, movie stars just aren't our sort of people! Still"

Or -- maybe most old-money people have HEARD of the rule: either no watch or plain gold watch on black strap with tuxedo -- but, like many of the rest of us, they don't CARE much about following those old rules, and are sort of worried about their friends and relatives who still do, obsessively.

Fashion rules like the "correct' watch to wear with a tux, are useful in EXCLUDING people: one quick glance and you can see they don't belong to your class. They're a code, like a secret handshake.

What I'm unsure about is what present-day old money thinks about these rules. Are they clinging to them as snugly as ever, and do I know few or actually none of their names?

Or are they, quite frankly, attempting to broaden the gene pool?

I was about to say that Prince Harry had made a good health choice when he married an African-American, Meagan Markle, but I googled Meagan Markle first, and sure enough, Princess Meagan, one of America's most very white African-Americans --- is a direct descendant of King Henry III of England.

Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor

Rudolf II continues to grow more interesting to me personally.

I have mentioned the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II on this blog before, who reigned from 1576 to 1612, welcomed both Protestants and Catholics at his court in a time when tension was high between denominations in most parts of western Europe, and named Ulrich Bollinger to be an Imperial poet laureate.

Recently I found out -- and it didn't surprise me at all -- that many of the leading clockmakers of the time worked in Prague, where Rudolf's court was. It fits in with Rudolf's fascination with whatever was new, strange and clever.

Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler -- you've heard of them, I'm sure -- were there too, and there was a certain amount of fruitful interaction between the astronomers and the timekeepers. When Brahe first arrived at Rudolf's court, the two of them spoke for a long time alone. A monarch and a mere lowly scientist, speaking with no one else around: that was very unusual at that time, for any monarch, let alone the Emperor. But Rudolf was very unusual.

So, anyway, leading clockmakers were at Rudolf's court -- and some of them were also attempting to make perpetual motion machines -- and this was the right time for them to be making early watches, also. Watches go back to before 1550. I don't know whether any watches were made at Rudolf's court or nearby in Prague. And it may possibly be hard to find out for sure, because Rudolf's collections were plundered by the Queen of Sweden around 1645, and many objects got lost that way. It's shame, because everyone at the time agreed that Rudolf had put together a very remarkable collection of art, books, machines (including clocks and possibly watches), etc.

One of my sources of information about these sorts of things is the book Rudolf II and his World, by RJW Evans. It came out in the 1970's, and, unusually for its time, Evans, when quoting things which were written in Rudolf's time, left a lot of German and Latin untranslated. My kind of guy, my kind of book. Most historians writing for English audiences in the late 20th century or later, no matter how snooty they are, would either translate everything into English, or cite the original German and Latin and follow it immediately with an English translation. But Professor Evans just assumes -- correctly, in my case -- that he doesn't need to translate the German and Latin. He does translate the Czech and Hungarian and other languages.

You see, there are a few other people like me.

 

Nostalgia vs the New

I'm very skeptical of nostalgia, but I'm not completely unsusceptible to it. I imagine myself riding motorcycles that kick-start only, no push-button starting, with drum brakes and spoke wheels. I think about telephones hard-wired to land lines, libraries with no computers, only card catalogs, where due dates were stamped in ink with devices which first were pressed into inkpads. I don't remember nails coming to hardware stores in little wooden kegs, but I remember people who didn't realize that nails no longer shipped that way, and I really wish I'd seen some of those nail kegs.

But I don't want to be deprived of all of the improvements in technology which have been made over the past several decades, and I think that people who believe they are whole-heartedly nostalgic are not thinking it through, because they also do not want to give up those advances either.

Take mechanical watches: most of them are designed to look very similar to watches made between 1940 and 1970. But the new watches require maintenance much less frequently, run much longer on a single winding, are far less likely to be damaged when dropped, and these and other improvements are the result of recent technology. There's even a very popular recent innovation which completely changes its appearance when you take it off and turn it around: the  glass exhibition caseback which allows you to see the mechanical movement which reminds you of earlier times, but which engineers and craftspeople at the watch companies have been relentlessly modernizing and improving. Buyers of mechanical watches exhibit strong nostalgia tendencies, but only in very rare cases are they actually interested in buying old watches.

And then there are quartz watches. Many of them are also designed to resemble watches made half a century ago. And then there are ones like this:

Not only do they resemble few if any watches made before 1980 -- there were few if any objects of any kind which looked anything like that back then. Maybe in Vivienne Westwood's workshop. This is the opposite of nostalgic, this is wholeheartedly new. 

Like I said, I feel nostalgia sometimes, and I can appreciate objects which remind me of the mid-20th century, especially if they come with up-to-the-minute quality and durability and other virtues which didn't exist back when. 

But I think I like wholeheartedly new stuff better. Things which are not only up-to-the-minute in terms of how they work, but also in how they look. If it makes people think I'm having a mid-life crisis, I don't care. Do they realize I'm looking at them too and thinking this and that? Don't worry, I'm not thinking mean things.

Celebrity Watches

It seems I'm a little bit behind the times. A few years ago, when I stopped watching videos about celebrities' watch collections, "celebrity" meant "a person with too much money who has only heard of one watch brand." I got tired of seeing another Rolex, and another Rolex, and another Rolex, and so I started watching other things. 

 

But the situation has completely changed! Today, "celebrity" means "person with too much money who may have heard of as many as five different watch brands"! Today, although the next watch will probably still be a Rolex, there's a chance that it may be a Patek Philippe, a Richard Mille, a Cartier or an Audemars Piguet.

I don't know whether these brands are giving watches to celebrities, offering deep discounts, or whether the chumps are actually paying regular-people prices -- and I also don't care!

Now, there are blogs and YouTube channels and books which are each only about one brand of watch, and that's okay, if the author or creator knows a lot about that brand.

And to me, knowing which movie and music stars wear which of those five brands, does not constitute knowing a lot about those brands. I know that some people disagree. 

For example, some prominent men's magazines have full-time, high-paid staffers whom they call "watch experts," who don't know anything about watches except which movie stars or music stars wear Rolex, Patek, Richard Mille, Cartier or Audemars Piguet. 

At least -- they never SAY, or write, anything else about watches. Not even to mention Vacheron Constantine, Jaeger-LeCoultre, Breguet, Zenith, Omega, Grand Seiko, G-Shock, Hublot, A Lange & Soehne, Nomos, Glashuette Original, IWC, Piaget, Longines, Bell & Ross, Panerai, Parmigiani Fleurier, Vostok, Breitling, Citizen, Orient, TAG Heuer, Tudor or any one of the many, many other watch brands which are worth mentioning for some reason or other besides being worn by movie stars and music stars. 

You know what? When I want to know something about movies or music, I don't confine myself to asking watch aficionados about them. Call me crazy.

Only True Watch Hipsters will Understand

(Or perhaps you'll also understand if you've watched an episode or more of Ben's Watch Club on YouTube. Be warned, though: if you watch one episode, there's a good chance you'll watch more!)

An open letter to Ben of Ben's Watch Club:

 

You clearly are a young man who has a grasp of fashion watches -- and perhaps of fashion and even watches as well, so it seems natural that I should turn to you for advice.

First of all, concerning your own line of watches: I keep forgetting: is it Spaghetti Scameti or Scameti Spaghetti, or is either usage cool? Or can one perhaps refer to the brand as "Scameti"? or "Spaghetti"? 

Have you had to sue any pasta companies yet? (That would be regrettable, but business is business, am I right? This is the life we chose. Or at least, it's the life we got handed without being asked anything about our preferences or our conceptions of ethics. This is the life Adam Smith chose. And Adam Smith got here first.) 

Have bleeding-edge hipsters begun to abbreviate the name of your brand? I've heard some of them, for example, refer to Scarlett Johannson as "ScarJo" -- not to mention the way that you're succeeding with a frank and simple "Ben" in place of Benjamin Arthur.  Do they call your watches "SpagScam" -- or "ScamSpag," as the case may be? 

Finally, if I may ask for a word of frank advice on my desperate attempt to be cool from a man who clearly has it switched on, nailed down and cleanly shaven -- would it be easier and cheaper, rather than attempting to make sure that I am always seen wearing the correct fashion watch, to just make sure I'm often seen literally burning money or throwing it away?

gshock highfashion on YouTube

There are many channels devoted to wristwatches on YouTube. A popular form of video on these channels is the unboxing video. That's where the host of the channel, with a POV camera on his head or pointed over his shoulder, takes a package which has arrived in the mail, and removes a watch from it. 

Sounds dull? Oh man, you have no idea. I'm fascinated by watches, obsessed with them, and even I started to find this sort of thing unbearably dull after 2 or 3 times. I know what a USPS or UPS or Amazon package looks like. I know what the box that holds the watch inside the mailing package looks like. I actually tuned in to get a look at the watch, maybe even hear a description of it. But in an unboxing video, it might take the guy 5 minutes or so to get to the watch.How could it possibly take 5 minutes? you're wondering. The answer is: some people aren't just very dull, they're also very slow. 

But the host of gshock highfashion is so interesting, he can even make an unboxing interesting. Partly because he intercuts the unboxing with video of  watches and other things. Partly because his excitement is audible and contagious -- this guy is really, really into G-Shocks -- but also because he's very knowledgeable. Now, obviously, a lot of guys -- mostly guys -- are fascinated by the boxes that watches come in, or these unboxing videos wouldn't be a thing. But not everyone is good at communicating the excitement they feel. As far as knowledge goes: in one video he points to the logo on the G-Shock box, names the man who designed the logo and has interesting things to say about that man's life.  On this channel, believe it or not, I watched a dozen unboxing videos before I started to find them dull. And luckily, this channel is not ALL unboxing videos.

So what's the name of this interesting, knowledgeable YouTube host? I don't know, he doesn't say. I don't know what his face looks like either, he never shows it. His forearms are thin and wiry. There's always a G-Shock on his left wrist. Sometimes he wears G-Shocks on both wrists. That's about as well as I can visually ID him.

One of the few things he says about himself is that he repairs and services watches for a living. That's very easy to believe, because in many of his videos he's taking G-Shocks apart and putting them back together, looking and talking like a guy who knows what he's doing. I also get the impression that he is originally from Japan and now lives outside of Japan.

Now, as far as why the channel is called gshock highfashion, I'm not sure. The G-Shock part is easy enough: almost every video is entirely about G-Shocks. The few exceptions have to do with other Casio products: other watches by Casio, and a Casio alarm clock and a Casio Wall clock. But for the most part, this guy is all about the G-Shocks. 

 

Now, about the high fashion part. Maybe high fashion has different connotations in Japan than in other parts of the world. To me, high fashion, haute couture, suggests very exclusive products, very expensive, often with only one of each type ever made. G-Shocks are made in huge quantities, and they're very affordable. The most expensive G-Shock costs less than the least expensive Rolex, and the average G-Shock costs about 1/100th as much as the average Rolex. A G-Shock will run you somewhere between $40 and $3,000. As far as availability is concerned, even the "exclusive" limited edition G-Shock models are made in quantities of hundreds or thousands each. And the host of gshock highfashion will complain if he thinks that Casio has priced an item too high. Even if we're talking about an MSRP of $100 which he thinks should have been more like $80 or so. 

The fashion part of the channel's name makes sense. In addition to being able to fix G-Shocks, this guy knows a lot about their appearance, and the technical aspects of how the appearance is achieved, and he talks very intelligently about aesthetics and fashion and design, as for example in the discussion of a logo on a box described above.

Maybe the name of the channel is meant ironically, because the host likes G-Shocks, among other reasons, because they are NOT exclusive or expensive.

The channel has gotten better over time. In particular, the host's delivery, in videos released in 2020 and 2021, is much more relaxed, and therefore much more relaxing. Did he consult a vocal coach? Whatever caused the change, it came suddenly and made a huge difference.

And as if all of this wasn't already wonderful enough, the host also has a cute little kitty who sometimes wanders into the frame and does cute kitty stuff. The biggest disagreement I have with the host is that he prefers an all-black color scheme on watches more than than I do. I like the colorful, sparkly G-Shocks more than he seems to. But that's just a matter of a couple of numbers or letters in a watch's model designation.

So. Watch this channel, even if you don't care about watches, because this guy appears to be a good guy and a genius who should be famous and powerful so that he can have a greater positive influence on the world. You'll probably find it interesting, even if you don't care about watches.

G-Shock

I was annoyed yesterday when I noticed that my G-Shock was running almost a minute fast -- until I remembered that it hadn't been set since early May 2020. 1 minute fast over 10 1/2 months comes out to less than 6 seconds fast per month. Not too shabby. The official specification is within plus to minus 15 seconds a month.

My G-Shock DW9052-1ccg looks like this:

I think the -1ccg suffix refers to it being all-butch black. But I'm not completely sure about that. There are a huge number of G-Shock models, and I'm still new at this. In any case, a DW9052 is a G-Shock which has that same basic configuration, and DW9052's come in a lot of different colors, as well as black with many different colors of accents, besides all-butch black. 

Casio, as far as I know, does not refer to this color scheme as "all-butch black." I made that phrase up to make fun of myself and a lot of other people. 

Besides keeping track of hours, minutes and seconds (in your choice of 12-hour AM/PM or the all-butch 24-hour format which I naturally prefer), day of the week, month and day and year (on a separate screen because there's only so much room and you probably know what year it is), my DW9052 features

-- an alarm, and a chime which sounds every hour on the hour, which I finally figured out how to to turn off yesterday. There are watch aficionados who prize alarms and hourly, or even minutely chimes very highly, and pay huge amounts for mechanical watches which sound them. The charm is so far lost on me. But, mind open must be amen.

-- Countdown timer; input range: 1 minute to 24 hours; measuring unit: 1 second; auto-repeat function,
1/100 second stopwatch; measuring capacity: 23:59'59.99"; measuring unit: 1/100 second (for the first 60 minutes). No, I do not understand what all of that is. I do know that it's a pretty fancy timer and stopwatch.

-- Everything on the dial lights up into nice bright lume when you push the big button marked "G."

Casio has sold over 100 million G-Shocks since 1983. They say that its designer, when a small boy, was given a watch by his father, which he cherished until one day he dropped it, it shattered into many pieces, and he vowed to devote his life to designing a watch which was indestructible. This story strikes me as being very -- Japanese. Perhaps it is also perfectly true, how would I know. 

I still don't know for sure what sort of battery my G-Shock will eventually need. I could screw off the back and look and see, but I'm not going to do that. Not today.

The thing which makes G-Shocks G-Shocks is toughness. They have been hit with hockey sticks like hockey pucks, thrown off of the tops of tall building onto concrete sidewalks, intentionally run over by huge trucks, and come out undamaged. There may be tougher watches than G-Shocks, but I sort of doubt it. In any case, their toughness is legendary.

From the basic all-butch black plastic-and-rubber battery-powered models with their digital readouts, G-Shocks have expanded into a variety of colors and functions, many with analog displays instead of or in addition to digital, some powered by light or radio waves instead of or in addition to batteries. Some are now smartwatches. Some are covered by metal instead of plastic and rubber -- sacrificing some durability, I would imagine. They run from around $40 to four figures, maybe higher in some rare cases.

I  honestly never wanted any of them besides my all-butch black DW9052-1ccg until the day before yesterday. I was set. I was perfectly content in the G-Shock department. 

And then I saw the GM-110RB-2A (Also known as The Rainbow) in a video:

-- O sweet Richard Mille! 

But apparently 500 people felt similarly before I did and it was a limited edition of 500 and it sold out very quickly, months before I knew it existed. I'm trying to make myself want it less by telling myself the truth: that those gold-colored parts on the sides are metal, not shock-resisting rubber, as I had assumed when first seeing it in the video. That's helping a little bit. Transluscent gold rubber would've been even better. And more durable, as one braved the deepest techno raves of California. Tell me I'm wrong. 

Look how beautiful. MSRP $280. All gone. And now I'll be searching the newest G-Shock releases and reading the G-Shock news. Waiting for them to do it again.

Open Letter to the Urban Gentry

You recently gave some advice about dress watches on your You Tube channel and I'm confused: a Richard Mille is wrong because "it draws attention to itself," but the most intense 5,000,000,000-watt design by Swatch is very, very right because it "catches the eye and can be a great conversation starter"? Is it a matter of price: eye-catching and inexpensive is fine, but if it's expensive, please tone it down? I realize too that Richard Milles are sometimes also quite large, but I feel as if there's more going on here than size. Full disclosure: I haven't yet seen a Richard Mille irl, maybe if I did I'd instantly understand what upsets so many of you about them. (Ditto for Hublot.) 

   

 

 

More full disclosure: I'm 6'3" and have big wrists, situated between big arms and big hands, and maybe I'm just a tiny bit defensive about remarks about big watches. Okay -- there's no maybe about it, and it's more than just a tiny bit. For some people, clearly, in some situations 40mm is starting to risk being a bit too big, but just remember: for other people, in some situations 40mm can sometimes be a bit small.  

I myself am quite daring in my fashion choices: for example, I like to compliment a tux not only with a huge shiny Seiko diver, but also with a scuba mask, oxygen tank and flippers. If the host's or hostesses' feelings are hurt by the thought that I might leap into the ocean at any moment and swim away 10 meters below the surface, well then, maybe he or she shouldn't have invited me to begin with! Not everyone fits at every kind of party, I quite agree.

A Place of Enchantment?

 Observe the photo. The combination of masks and attire strongly suggests St Patrick's Day 2021.

See the man near the front, wearing a black T-shirt and performing a facepalm. Then the woman second to the right from him, with two necklaces or cords around her neck and a white sweater over a green shirt. Then, further to the right and further away from the camera, a woman wearing blue jeans and a black jacket. And finally, just to her left and further away, a tall thin man with his mask pulled down from his face, looking in the direction of the camera, with tattoos on his left arm, wearing a black-and-white cap. 

!!?? Huh?! Do you see it too?! 

Those four people have four of the five wrists I can see in this picture, and on each wrist is a watch!

Actually, actually -- hold the phone -- if we go back behind the tall guy with the black-and-white cap and tats, behind him and to the right, there's a couple, a woman wearing a black top and blue jeans and a man wearing a green sweatshirt or long-sleeved T-shirt and black pants. The woman is holding a white shopping bad and they're both looking down at it. Looks like the man might have a watch on his left wrist and the woman a watch on her right wrist -- a lefty, maybe.

What IS this wonderful place, a St Patrick's Day 2021 horological convention? (Horology is things related to time and timekeeping and especially to watches.)

Maybe it's just a bunch of yuppies wearing Apple Watches. I wouldn't find that interesting at all. I don't get out much.

The Hodinkee John Mayer G-Shock

Hodinkee, the nearest thing I've found to a horological periodical I can take seriously, narrowly beating out Time + Tide, put a post on Facebook with a huge headline about an upcoming release of a collaboration between John Mayer, G-Shock and Hodinkee. It's not even a link to a story about the new John Mayer G-Shock. Just a huge banner headline saying that it's coming soon.

My G-Shock cost under $50 on Amazon back in May. I'm pleased with it, although most days I wear a mechanical, or 2 mechanicals, one on each wrist. An expensive G-Shock (by which I mean, priced between $200 and many thousands) seems to me to be a contradiction of what a G-Shock is: superior basic function and no frills. It seems silly, like a solid gold Seiko 5 or a $200,000 deluxe Volkswagen Bug. 

John Mayer? A disappointment to me, but it's not his fault that such big expectations were set upon him. A disappointment MUSICALLY. As any kind of horological expert, he's not a disappointment, he's a joke. Or maybe not even a joke, but just a punchline. 

Hodinkee? Easier for me to take seriously when they're not involved in this sort of thing. 

But I have to remember that it's a mistake to take anything to do with watches too seriously. For about 40 years, quartz watches -- such as the G-Shock -- have been more accurate than mechanical watches. But we watch fanciers fancy mechanical watches almost all of the time. The biggest exception being the G-Shock, a very popular option among military special forces. 

 

But most of us who buy G-Shocks are just pretending to be commandos. (Do even commandos still actually need any sort of watches, or is that need now covered by phones and other computers, as it is with the rest of us? I have no idea.) The way that most people who buy diver's watches, which are mostly mechanical and can be extremely expensive, never go diving, and the way that most people who wear pilot's watches are not pilots -- and so forth. It's a big game which is all in our heads, the same way that most people who own Porsches which can go 200mph never drive them as fast as 100mph. The same way that very, very many things are just games in our heads.

It's all very, very silly, this business with watches. Whenever I forget that, I become even sillier.

So THAT's What a NATO Strap Is!

And that's also why ordering things from Amazon can be surprising. A NATO band comes in one piece, which was definitely a surprise for me. I had to google how to install the thing on my watch.

By the way, if you're thinking about getting me some watch straps or bracelets or entire watches or just giving me huge crates of cash or large parcels of real estate, first of all, thank you, that's so sweet! But secondly and very importantly, if you get me a watch strap, get me the longest one they got, whether that option is labeled "long," or "extra long," or "Seriously, what are you, a gorilla?" or whatever the case may be. Who could've known that a guy who's 6'3", 300 lbs and constantly lifts weights and 100 lb balls and heavy sandbags and so forth would end up having big wrists, eh? And, yet, apparently, my wrists are somewhat large. Watch bands made for normal humans just don't work.

(I know: I'm seething with greed, always thinking about what I will get, me me me, shower me with money and watch straps and sand bags, and I know it's not an attractive feature. You know that episode of "Ren & Stimpy" which begins with Ren and Stimpy saying their prayers before going to bed, and Stimpy finishes his prayers by saying, "-- and most importantly of all, please look after my dear, dear friend Ren!" and Ren finishes his prayers by saying, "-- and please give me a million dollars, and -- oooh! Huge pectoral muscles!" Makes me laugh and laugh whenever I think about it, because I know I'm just like Ren: surrounded by sweet loving Stimpys, but seething with greed, me me me. I know it's not a great way to be. Well, maybe I've heard it's not a great way to be. Maybe I'm thinking about it. Anyway, I'm not the one on trial here! This post is about NATO watch bands.)

At first I thought that NATO was an acronym for "nylon (something) (something) (something)" bands, but actually, they're called NATO bands because they were first used by NATO, the military alliance. The one-piece design keeps metal off of your wrist -- which may have been more important decades ago, when watch cases might be more prone to corrosion. I don't know. It surprised me to learn that keeping metal off of the wrist was a priority, and I'm just guessing as to why that was -- and also keeps the watch on your wrist if one of the spring bars breaks. The typical NATO strap is made from woven nylon fabric, although now that they're getting popular we're beginning to see more and more made in leather and other materials.

On a conventional watch strap, the spring bars go through holes on either end of the strap -- or to be more precise: on the end of each of the strap's two pieces -- and then are fitted into holes in the watch case. With a NATO band, the spring bars are put in place in the case first. Then you thread the strap through the bars, passing it over the back of the watch,

and then fasten it around your wrist in your choice of various ways. Of course, with the strap going over the back of the watch, that means the view of the watch's back window, if it has one, is blocked. But it's not very difficult to slip the strap the band out for a peek through the window, and then back in again to wear the watch.

Easy or not, though, I don't WANT to have to take off the strap in order to be able to look through the window.

Maybe what watches do is just keep pointing out to you more and more ways how the world isn't perfect. Or maybe: more and more unimportant ways one can be dissatisfied with a wonderful world? Hmm.

If I Had a Billion Dollars --

-- the red light on my computer's mute key, f6, wouldn't go from functional to non-functional or vice versa every time my OS updated. And similarly, I wouldn't have to tell my blog software not to count my own pageviews for the blog every time I turned on the computer, because that box unchecked itself every time I turned off the computer. I can't afford to get a new computer every time one malfunctions, or get it repaired or other fancy rich-guy stuff like that.

If I had a billion dollars I'd have an EV and solar panels on my roof, and so would a few nonprofit organizations, courtesy of me.

If I had a billion dollars I'd have an extra-fancy strap on this watch, here, and I'd pay somebody to attach it to the watch because I'm really bad with that sort of fingertip type work.

If I had a billion dollars, I would finally find out what truffles taste like if you just eat one whole, as opposed to eating some food which just has tiny specks of truffles in it which you can barely see but which make the food irresponsibly expensive for you to eat.

If I had a billion dollars, I would finally know once and for all if becoming rich still leaves you unhappy. I strongly doubt that a billion dollars wouldn't make me very, very happy for a very long time, maybe forever. I think that people who say that money lacks such power simply don't have enough experience with poverty to appreciate being rich. And you'll notice that most of the rich people who say money can't make you happy do NOT give all their money away, and that that's not just because they are too kind to make others unhappy with money, but because they're basically full of shit, in addition to being full of money.

I just did an update, and the red light on my f6 key went from working to not working. I really like that red light when it works. That's what set me off into thinking about having enough money to own multiple computers and and an EV and solar power and to be able to give generously to causes I find to be good and to be able to obtain a truly fine watch band without giving it a second thought and eat all the truffles I could eat.

Here's to Fully Automated Luxury Communism bringing all of those things, and much, much more, to everyone on Earth, very soon. Cheers. First step: vote Trump out. I know, I know, Joe is hardly a Fully Automated Luxury Communist dream come true, but beggars can't be choosers and right now the choice is Trump or Joe, and Joe's a lot closer to want we want even though he's very far from what we want. The Communists in Germany should've voted for Hindenburg along with the Social Democrats in 1932...

Different People Want Different Watches

Piaget have set a record for the world's thinnest mechanical wristwatch -- and not for the first time. Their Altiplano Ultimate Automatic 910P is just 4.3 millimeters thick.

And I don't care. Those of you who do care about thinness in watches may enjoy this article about the new Piaget in Hodenkee.

You know what's even thinner than the world's thinnest watch? NOT WEARING A WATCH AT ALL!

From an engineering standpoint, I can appreciate the fascination of getting the most possible into the thinnest possible space -- but when it comes to watches, I get even that appeal only somewhat abstractly.

Laptop computers are a different matter. A thinner laptop will take up less space on a shelf or in a backpack. With watches, though, the thing is -- even the biggest, fattest watch still doesn't take up all that much space. It's hard for me to believe that you were actually inconvenienced, and had to pick and choose which possessions to carry with you -- because your watch was too big.

Also in Hodinkee is a review of the new Jacob & Co Astronomia Solar

Now this is a little bit more my style. As Hodinkee's Jack Forster says of this model, the Astronomia Solar, and the original Astronomia, which was released in 2014, and the Astronomia Sky, which appeared some time in between, "Obviously the point of these watches is not to be unobtrusive daily companions, but spectacular showpieces." I can appreciate subdued styling too, but, at least when it comes to watches, I often like excess a bit more. With cars it's different: if I were extremely rich, I'd want to get a subdued-looking new car along with some outrageous watches (I'm talkin Hublots that look out there compared to other Hublots, and Urwerks). No doubt some people would giggle about how my watches didn't match my car. Maybe some would giggle because, extremely wealthy as I was, I had only one car, and no yachts whatsoever. The giggling wouldn't bother me.

The Astronomica series are not in the running for world's thinnest watch: the original one is the biggest, 50 millimeters wide and 25 millimeters thick. The smallest Astronomica is the Sky, 44.5mm x 21mm. This new one, the Solar, is a mid-size.

I'm pretty sure that 25 millimeters is not the thickest new wristwatch available to day, but it's in the extreme class. 25 mm is about twice as thick as average. But there's a point to the thickness with the Astronomica, as you can see: there's a lot of cool stuff to see inside that see-through case.

Since I added mechanical watches to the subjects I blog about a few years ago, I've come to appreciate some things about watches which I didn't appreciate at first. The Jacob & Co Astronomia Solar is a clear case of that. Maybe, eventually, I will also really, really like the ultra-thin approach a lot, too. But it's hard to imagine that right now.

Hot-Rodding Watches

TV series about auto mechanics who transform cars seem to be very popular these days. Usually a series is about a garage which is very popular, where people -- very often celebrities -- bring their cars to be made over. Less often, the mechanics go out looking for diamond-in-the-rough bargains, and then bring them to the garage for the makeovers. Of the several TV channels devoted entirely to cars, at least one seems to show nothing but these shows about mechanics transforming cars, 24-7.

This blog post is not going to be about those shows. Instead, it's going to be about something entirely imaginary, because a little while ago, I said to myself: What if, instead of all those shows in mechanics' garages, there were shows in watchsmiths' shops instead?

There could be shows wherein the watchsmiths go out to thrift stores and yard sales and estate sales and flea markets and what have you, looking for watches which they can bring back to the shop, refurbish and sell at a profit. But maybe most of the shows would be about high-end, relatively glamourous shops where the customers bring their watches and ask to have them fixed up and/or transformed.

So immediately the question occurs to me: how often are watches actually transformed, as opposed to merely being maintained or fixed? Cars, as we all know, can be completely transformed, and very often are, like this, for instance:

It's so common that I'm sure I don't even have to explain it to most of you. But is it at all common with watches? I have the impression that it is not: that the most which a watchsmith commonly does is to bring a watch as close as possible back to the appearance and performance it had when new.

Whether or not it IS commonly done, how much COULD be done to transform watches? Replacing a dial or a bezel with one of a different color could of course be done. But what about adding functions to a watch? For example: could my Seiko 5 --

-- be modified so that it had a manual winding option, or a power reserve indicator, or both? Assuming both could be done -- would that cost me less than 1000 brand-new Seiko 5's?

Because of the ridiculously low cost of Seiko 5's -- back down to around $45 on Amazon for Cyber Monday -- the very thought of having them serviced by a professional watchsmith, let alone hot-rodded into something very different than a stock 5, is -- odd. But when it comes to watches which cost 5 figures or more new, the thought of paying for a number of man-hours of highly-skilled craftsmanship to have them modified suddenly seems less odd -- assuming, that is, that such modifications are possible.

Perhaps it can be done, and is done all the time, but the terminology is different. A 1932 Dodge which has had its original engine removed and replaced with a supercharged 351 Ford engine, and its chassis replaced with an all-wheel-drive chassis with an automatic 7-speed transmission, and its tires with racing slicks, is still referred to as 1932 Dodge -- a souped-up '32 Dodge. Perhaps a Seiko 5 can be extensively modified, but, long before it undergoes as much change as that hypothetical '32 Dodge, it is no longer referred to as a Seiko 5, but may be described as being based on a 5. Maybe this sort of thing is done all the time, and the usual thing to do is for the watchsmith who transformed the 5 to put his own brand name on it.

There are so very many things I don't know.

Well, anyway, clearly, it would be an alternate universe, and not ours at present, if such TV shows about watches existed, and if such modification of watches were as common as it is in the case of cars in our car-crazy world.

Have Watches Become Art?

In roughly chronological order:

Oscar Wilde published The Picture of Dorian Gray, with a Preface which ends with the flat statement: "All art is quite useless."

I was born.

The 4th edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume 2, was published. It contains the Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray on pp 1681-82. It does not contain any more of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I was required several times in school and college to read works by Oscar Wilde, including, more than once, The Picture of Dorian Gray, including its Preface, with whose conclusion I disagreed. For most of my life I quite disliked Wilde.


I got a copy of the 5th edition, of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, for a college class. It's much shorter than the combined 2 volumes of the unabridged version. I have no idea whether it contains the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray. I still own but I can't find it at the moment.

Quartz watches -- watches powered by batteries or some other electrical source, such as light converted to electricity -- reached the point where they kept much better time than mechanical watches -- watches powered by springs -- at a much lower cost.

I saw the movie An Ideal Husband, based on Wilde's play of the same name. It has been filmed at least 4 times: I saw the 1999 version, directed by Oliver Parker, starring Jeremy Northam, Rupert Everett, Julianne Moore, Minnie Driver and Cate Blanchett. I saw it several years after 1999, on TV, primarily because of Ms Blanchett, about whom I am daffy. Ms Blanchett is particularly adorable in this film. But I liked more than Ms Blanchett, I liked the entire film very much, definitely including those words written by Mr Wilde. I instantly went from being a loather of Wilde to being a huge fan. I re-read the Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray and began to seriously wonder whether art is indeed useless. I have not stopped thinking about it. At the present I would agree, if we stipulate that Wilde was being somewhat ironic when he wrote that. Art is not useful in the same way as other things. I agree with Nietzsche that art makes life bearable, which means that it is extremely useful indeed; but still, it is not useful in the same way as other things.

I got the 4th edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume 2, either free because some place like a university library was giving it away, or for a dollar or so at a thrift shop, I don't remember. I've only got volume 2.

The Coen brothers' film version of Carmac McCarthy's novel No Country For Old Men was released in 2007. The film is set in 1980. The character portrayed by Josh Brolin carries a wrist watch in his pocket. If the film is historically accurate in this detail, it is a mechanical watch. The title of the movie and novel comes from a line in the poem "Sailing to Byzantium" by William Butler Yeats. Like Wilde, Yeats was born in Ireland. Wilde moved to England, where he ingratiated himself with the upper classes. Yeats stayed in Ireland and supported the fight for independence from England.

I began to become fascinated by watches. Mostly by pocket watches at first;

but the more I learn about watches, the more my interest is captured by wrist watches rather than pocket watches, because watches -- mechanical watches. I couldn't tell you much about quartz watches -- keep becoming more sophisticated and precise and interesting, even as they become farther and farther away from being necessary or practical. There are still some mechanical pocket watches being produced today, but as far as I can see, most of them are presented as objects of nostalgia, designed to remind people of bygone eras when most watches were pocket watches, rather than to closely resemble the most modern products of the watchmaker's -- art.

Ha! Right there I said "art." I was never drawn to pocket watches because I'm nostalgic. I like them because I'd rather carry a watch in my pocket than wear it on my wrist, and pocket watches are designed to be carried that way. But almost all of the really interesting stuff in watchmaking is going on in mechanical wrist watches. Which, as good as they are getting, are still much more expensive than quartz watches which keep better time.

But let's face it, very few if any people actually need quartz watches either, what with all of the online devices which keep even better time, which almost all of us use to one extent or another.

And then, earlier today, my interest in watches, which I freely admit serve no practical use, and are only good for fascinating people and making them feel good, clanged together with Wilde's statement that all art is quite useless. And I said to myself, "Hey -- does that mean that watches have become art, or are becoming art?!"

And then I rushed over here to tell you all about it -- first checking the 4th edition of The Norton Anthology of English Literature, volume 2, to make sure that I got the quote by Wilde right.

PS, 11 Sep 2017: I found it, the version of The Norton Anthology of English Literature which I got for use an an undergrad. And once again we see how faulty is my memory: it is not called the shorter edition, but the Major Authors Edition. And it is not the 5th edition, but the 3rd. And Wilde is not in it AT ALL. It judges 31 English authors, from the author of Beowulf to Auden, to be Major. But not Wilde. Well, as we know, these things are not only quite useless, but also completely subjective.

Beware of People Telling You Watches Are a Good Investment

For example, Shreve & Co:

"For some, watches are purely functional. You look at them, the time is more-or-less correct, and you tuck it back under your sleeve."

That was 50 years ago. Today, those people don't have watches at all. If they need to know the time they look at their phones.

They go on to tell you that, judging from current auction activity, a high-quality watch, a watch which is much more than a timekeeper, could rise in value 30 to 40% over 10 years.

30 to 40% in 10 years, as a best-case scenario, is not a great investment. There are mutual funds that will just about guarantee that sort of return as a worst-case scenario.

Real estate is an investment. But fewer people care about watches than they did decades ago, whether as a purely functional timekeeper, or a neat gadget which is fun to have, or as a hand-crafted luxury item which is a thing of beauty, or any which way. And there's no indication that that trend is about to reverse, and that in the future more people will wear and/or collect watches. Fewer people being interested in watches in any way means fewer customers competing to buy them, which means that their prices are more liable to go down as they age, than up. And that's as true for a luxury watch you buy today, as for a cheap piece of junk.

You can rack your brains and study and study, and maybe you'll end up buying one of those watches which will rise 30 or 40% in the next 10 years. Or you can make a no-brainer decision on a mutual fund and beat 40% easy. Or you could buy a building or some land, take a risk and maybe some upkeep headaches as well, but there's a very good chance that you could clean up.

The only good reason to buy a watch is the voice in your headache that keeps screaming that you have to have it. Don't have such a voice in your head? Then don't let someone tell you watches are a good investment. If you do love watches, you should get the one you love -- not the one someone tells you is a good investment, and also not the one that someone else, who you're afraid is much cooler than you, tells you is the coolest one, but the one which you like the best.

Now, it's possible that your family have been manufacturing and selling fine watches for over 300 years, and that you know far more about watches than I could ever learn in 20 lifetimes, and that, besides watches themselves, knowledge of watch markets and booms and busts in those markets, and knowledge of the psychology of watch buyers, is in your very DNA. If all of that is true of you, then for you, quite possibly, watches, which you buy and hold onto for years or decades because you know their prices will skyrocket, could be a good investment. But if you're that person, you certainly didn't need the likes of me to tell you that for most people, a plan to amass wealth by buying Rolexes and Patek Phillippes, or antique watches of one brand or another, is just plain silly.

Nobody NEEDS a Watch

It seems that large segments of the watch-enthusiast population are in denial. Take, for example, this recent article in the fine Australian watch-enthusiast publication Time & Tide entitled EDITOR’S PICK: Is the Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 the only watch you’ll ever need?

It begins:

"There’s a concept in the world of watch enthusiasts that’s referred to as ‘only one watch’. For the majority of the population, this concept is better known as ‘normality’."

"Normality"? Is that a word? In any case, the assertion is incorrect, because the majority of the population no longer wear watches. The title of the article is misleading, because we don't need watches. Those of us who still have watches, have them because we think they're neat. There's no good reason that I can see not to face this fact.

You know what? It suddenly struck me, just now, after I finished the previous sentence, that this is sort of like religion and atheism: for me, personally, belief in God simply makes no sense, and that's that. But for many theists, perhaps most of them, their belief is a great comfort. And after having spent several extremely unpleasant years in the close company of New Atheists, who believe that most or all of the world's problems will be solved once people stop believing in God or gods, I'm much more inclined not to bother people about their religious belief. Because the New Atheists themselves are a perfect refutation of their own thesis: they don't believe in God, and they're still horrible, ignorant people and a plague upon everyone they meet.

I may be correct when I say that nobody needs a watch, objectively, now that there are so many phones, computers, microwave ovens, automobiles, televisions, etc, etc, which tell time.

But that simple objective observation completely ignores people's subjective needs. Who can draw the precise line which separates people's needs from their wants? I'll tell you who: not me.

Does anybody need me coming around and telling them that they don't need such-and-such, that they only want it?

I'm not sure anybody does need that, even if, as in the case of watches, I add that I want the same things and find nothing wrong with wanting them. Whether they need it or not, there's no doubt at all that most people don't want that sort of thing. The same way that Time & Tide and its readers may not need or want me to add that, with a suggested retail price of 7200 Australian dollars, anyone who's going to buy a Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 is probably going to have lots of other watches, either instead of or in addition to it.

What do I know about people who can afford to drop several grand on a watch? The vast majority of people I've known in my life haven't been in that income bracket.

It's like I approached this article determined to misunderstand it as completely as possible. What it says is that the Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 is a very versatile watch stylistically, going well with both relatively casual and relatively formal attire, that it is rugged and dependable, able to take many bumps and thumps and still keep great time, that, in the opinion of the author, it will still be stylish in 50 years (I could opine that nobody knows what fashions will be like in 2067, but have I found the audience which wants to hear me say these things?), and that, all in all, he thinks it's just really neat.

It's the sort of article watch enthusiasts want.

What group of people want to read pieces such as this blog post? Maybe, since I try my best to be just like I am, as opposed to trying to please most people most of the time, I ought to spend much, much more time trying to answer that question.

Hublots and the People Who Hate Them

I'm still really new at being a watch fancier. But I have learned one thing: It's impossible, at least for me, to really get a sense of how a watch looks just from photographs of it, no matter how numerous and high-definition and from how many different angles the photographs may be. Photographs are not the same as having the watch in front of you, and looking at a watch in front of you is not the same as holding it, and I'm poor -- although I was able purchase a Seiko 5 --

(there are many like it, but that one is mine) -- and I imagine, although I have not tested this theory, that if I constantly went around to high-end jewelers and asked to be allowed to touch the high-end stuff, and never bought anything, that it might lead to my becoming persona non grata in those stores. I don't know. Might depend on the store.

A lot of people really despise Hublot. Which would mean, if I wore one, that judgmental douchebags would see the Hublot on my wrist and avoid me, sparing me the trouble of having to avoid them. One of the many reasons why I want an MP-05. I love to read the Watch Snob, but, unfortunately, he actually is a snob, and not just about watches, and he hates Hublots, which, as I strongly suspect, has to do not only with the watches themselves, but also with the sort of people who wear Hublots, whom the Watch Snob and his inbred acquaintances would refer to (in private, of course. Amongst themselves) as not our sort of people, and my God, snobbery is tiresome.

This is an MP-05,

a watch made by Hublot "in partnership with Ferrari." I still haven't figured out what exactly the nature of this partnership is. I'm sure that it consists almost entirely of one company giving money to the other, but I've no idea whether Hublot gives money to Ferrari or the other way around. There have been many partnerships between watchmakers and car makers, and I've found almost all of them to be very silly. They say again and again that the design of this watch in "inspired by" the design of that car or that the design othis car is "inspired by" the design of that watch, and almost always I find it all very silly, but in this case, the design of the MP-05 actually and undeniably is inspired by the design of a Ferrari V-12 engine:

I happen to think the watch looks really cool.

You know what? I have to pause now, and remember where I came in, and rephrase what I just said: I think that photos of the watch look really cool. I haven't actually seen a MP-05 yet, just pictures of them. I suppose it's possible that if I held one in my hands, I might be appalled. I might suddenly understand perfectly well why all of those people despise Hublots.

I might become one of those people. I might even suddenly despise people who wear Hublots, if not instantly upon seeing the watch itself, then upon meeting 10 Hublot owners and sensing undeniable trends in them and what they do. Who knows? Not me.

However, in the meantime, judging only from photos and realizing the limitations of that evidence, I think that the Hublot MP-05 look really cool. And besides its looks: you wind it once and it runs for 50 days. It's hard for me to imagine how even the most snobbish Hublot-hater could not find that cool, at least deep down in secret, even if he or she never admitted it. Small as a normal watch, but runs for 50 days. That's sort of like a car which you could very comfortably drive to the supermarket and back, but which can also go 500mph.

Speaking of cars, and imagining that you'd like things without having seen them or having other crucial bits of information about them: when the Bugatti automobile brand was re-introduced in the 21st century, at first, just reading about them and looking pictures of them, I was certain that I would love having one. Then, late in 2004, around the time when the first 21st-century model, the Veyron, went on sale to the public, I actually saw one in a shopping mall in Berlin. And it was so low to the ground, and I am so tall, that I found it just about impossible to believe that I could sit comfortably inside of one. (Right next to the Bugatti was a Bentley which looked much more like my sort of thing.)

Then, over the years, I learned more things which made the Veyron even less attractive to me: such as that it got 7mpg when driven gently. Such as that the tires had be replaced every 1000 miles if driven gently, and every 62.5 miles (15 minutes) if driven at 250mph. And that 4 new tires cost $30,000.

So: the previous 5 paragraphs all by way of saying that I think it's possible that I would hate Hublots if I knew more about them. Still, with what I know right now, Hublots look really cool and Hublot haters look like hateful people, often with extremely severe cases of stick-up-the-butt. The way it looks to me now is that Hublot is adventurous, and that people who only like watches which look like this --

-- are incredibly boring.

Not that I would necessarily find that particular watch to be boring, if I saw it in person and held it and put it on my wrist and wore it for a month, because I had become a well-known and respected writer on the subject of watches, so that watch manufacturers loaned me new watches for a month at a time just on the hope that I would write about them.

But I am fairly certain that I would still strongly object to the notion that ALL watches should look more or less like that. Which, I'm afraid, is not very far from the position taken by the Watch Snob and many other watch snobs. I still like the Watch Snob's writing very much. I'm going to decide for myself what I like and don't like, that's all.

Materials of Which Watch Cases Can Be Made

* Stainless steel. Seems that everywhere I turn, people who write about watches are writing enthusiastically about stainless steel watches. I haven't been watching the world of watches very long, and I don't know what they were writing not long ago, but I clearly gather that stainless steel is being treated as the New Cool Thing. Whether this reflects an actual change in taste among people who used to buy gold or platinum watches, and still could afford to, but now have decided that it's more tasteful to be less ostentatious in their choice of wristwear; or whether those tastes haven't changed at all among those who can afford any watches they want, and what has changed is the approach of those writing, who have decided to try to reach more readers buy writing about watches more people can afford; or if the answer is some Door #3 which hasn't occurred to me, I don't know.

On the one hand, I have a stainless steel watch:

and am therefore unintentionally stylish at the moment. On the other hand, I not only didn't intend to be trendy when I got my Seiko 5 (there are any like it, but this one is mine), I really don't care about being trendy. I refer you to Thorstein Veblen.



* Brass. Boring. And high-maintenance unless you want it to look as dull as dirt or plate it with gold or nickel or something.

* Silver. I don't know any thing interesting to tell you about silver watches cases.

* Titanium. It doesn't move me. Sorry.

* Tantalum. I wrote a whole post about that one.

* Gold. It costs about 2/3 as much per ounce as it did in 2011, and that fall in the price of the metal has definitely been accompanied by a steep drop in the prices of gold watches. Perhaps the snooty exclusive rich class really has taken a recent like to stainless steel watches, and maybe part of the reason for that is that suddenly, many more people could afford gold watches, making them suddenly much less fun for the snooty exclusive rich class.

* Platinum. Everything I just speculated about gold except more so, because in the past few years the price of the metal has fallen even more sharply than that of gold.

I wish I had a watch made of gold, or, even better and even more expensive, platinum. And I really don't care what snooty exclusive rich people think of that. And I don't care that some of them will be convinced that I'm lying when I say I don't care, and that I want a watch like that for completely other reasons than any having to do with their exclusive hamster wheels. They are hamsters, those snooty people. Hamsters on exclusive wheels. Veblen. He covered all this.

* Sapphire. Yes, sapphire. If you're like I was recently, you didn't realize that sapphires aren't always blue, and that synthetic transparent sapphire is used instead of glass these days for the crystals of high-end watches. It's much tougher than glass. At least one watch company, Hublot, has made entire cases from sapphire for certain models.

Which I happen to think is wicked cool, and I don't care if the Watch Snob thinks everything Hublot does is horribly tacky, this isn't the first thing Hublot has done which I like very, very much. (For example: the watch in that picture has a 40-day power reserve. As far as I know, that's the 2nd all-time longest power reserve for a watch, behind that other Hublot with a 50 day power reserve which is also available in a variety of case materials including sapphire.)

The Watch Snob wrote in one of his columns that he guaranteed that Hublot would be out of business by the time he turned 40, which makes me wish I knew when he wrote that and how old he was then. We'll see what we see about what kind of shape Hublot is in as a company.

* Wood. Today, not in the 16th century when one might be more inclined to forgive a watchmaker for not knowing any better, but today, some watches are made with not only their cases but also quite a few of their moving parts made from wood. This makes me feel perhaps somewhat the way the Watch Snob feels about Hublot. I feel that wooden watches are wrong. I feel that it's wrong for people to buy wooden watches, as that will only tend to encourage them to make more of them. I don't feel inclined to discuss it.

Swiss Watches

Geneva is in the easternmost corner of Switzerland, surround by France to the north, east and south. From Geneva the Swiss-French border runs about 100 miles, as the crow flies, to Basel, where the Swiss, French and German borders all meet. The area along this Swiss-French border between Geneva and Basel is quite mountainous, and was somewhat isolated before the invention of the railroad. In the early 18th century, most of the Swiss people living along this border were farmers. But snow prevented them from growing anything for about 6 months of the year. So they began to make parts for watches, to earn a little extra money. Many of them soon found out that they could make more money making these watch parts than by farming, and began to make watches all year round, and their descendants have been watchmakers ever since. That's why so many big Swiss watchmakers are headquartered in tiny little Swiss mountain villages.

At first, Swiss watchmakers mostly concentrated on making inexpensive products. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the US was known as the place where the best watches were made. But by the mid-20th century, Swiss watches considered the best, and many of them had become quite expensive. Swiss watchmakers prided themselves in making their watches more and more accurate and precise.

Then quartz watches appeared. In the early 1970's, quartz watches made all over the world were more accurate than the finest spring-driven Swiss watches at a fraction of the price. In Switzerland, this time is called the Quartz Crisis.

Some Swiss watchmakers responded by making their own quartz watches. Many went out of business. Some of the oldest makers of fine watches were bought up by the Swatch Group, named after Swatches, the cheap, colorful, mostly quartz-driven watches which were a popular fad in the 1970's. As of 2002, Breguet, Blancpain, Leon Hatot, Jacques Droz, Glashuette, Omega, Longines, Rado, Tissot, Calvin Klein Watches, Union, Certina, Mido, Hamilton and Flik Flak belonged to the Swatch Group, along with Swatch itself, which is still around and still makes watches, mostly quartz but also some mechanical ones. How good are Swatch watches? I have no idea.

ETA is a Swiss company which mostly makes watch movements. A movement is the motor of a watch. ETA makes both quartz and mechanical movements. Many watchmakers both in Switzerland and in other parts of the world use ETA movements in some or all of their watches.

Some Swiss watchmakers have remained proudly independent, not being bought by the Swatch Group or any other corporate conglomerate, and making most or all of the movements for their own watches. (Watch afficienados and watch snobs have long and heated arguments about just how important it is for watchmakers to use movements they have made themselves -- also referred to as "in-house movements.") Three such companies, held in such high esteem that many people referred to them as the "Holy Trinity," are Patek Philippe (established in 1851), Vacheron Constantine (est 1755) and Audemars Piguet (est 1875). Although, these days, some would say that Jaeger-Lecoultre (est 1833) has become better than any of them. One thing's for sure: all 4 of those companies make very high-quality watches, at prices ranging from 4 to 7 figures per watch.

And new watch companies are springing up all the time, in Switzerland and elsewhere, some making cheap crap and others making very good watches, and some in between.

But not very many new pocket watches, which makes me sad. And most of the new pocket watches seem made for nostalgia, imitating old ones instead of trying to embrace being new, and that makes me sadder. As an extreme example: the new Omega pocket watches actually ARE old to a great degree: their movements were made in the 1930's. Recently someone found these 80-year-old watch movements in a warehouse, and Omega decided to refurbish them to make expensive nostalgic pocket watches. Make new watches which are proud of being new, I say, and don't insist that we wear all of them on our wrists! I can't be the only guy in the world who feels this way, although maybe I am.