People ask me About Watches June 30, 2009

…because I’m a watch geek.  I have many, many more than I should.  This is a fetish, of course, so while there is no good reason, there is an explanation:  I think that there are very few ways for a man to stand out.  We all wear essentially the same uniform, every day.  We (mostly) don’t wear jewelry, we don’t (usually) do anything interesting with our hair, and we’re all wearing jeans or khakis with the same basic shirt.  So what we’ve got to work with are: (a) shoes; (b) an interesting tie if you’re wearing one; and (c) a watch.

There you go.  That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

What I am asked a lot is, how would I know a good-quality watch from a cheap one?  What should I look for?  And, what lower or midrange brands do you like?  I’ll address each question here.

1. How can you tell a good-quality watch from a cheap one?  A few things set a quality watch apart: (a) its movement; (b) its design; and (c) its crystal.  There are others, of course, but since we’re sticking to relatively inexpensive watches for this discussion we won’t go into precious metals or other specialized matters.  Movements are mostly either mechanical (automatic or hand-wound), or quartz.  Interestingly, a quartz movement (which is cheaper) is more accurate than a mechanical movement.  But mechanical movements are highly prized as evidence of craftsmanship in a watch.  A Swiss quartz movement (which must have over 50% of its components made in Switzerland, and must be assembled there), though, such as those found in ESQ watches, is still a very high-quality piece of workmanship.  The design of a watch comes down to two things for me: aesthetics and complications.  Certain watches, and I’ll pick here many watches from a maker like Akribos as an example, just don’t look great, even if they are unique.  Other  companies, like Invicta, mostly just copy their basic designs from other manufacturers (which is just lame).  Some companies have a knack for making a good-looking watch.  Honestly, Seiko’s a pretty good example of that — most of their watches look great.  A watch that has complications, like a moonphase function, a chronograph or a perpetual calendar, is evidence of interesting design.  Finally, a good watch has a crystal that doesn’t look cheap.  Back in the day, watch crystals were glass, which was fragile.  Then they went to different forms of plastics, which scratched easily.  Most good watches today come with a synthetic sapphire crystal, which is durable and scratch-proof.  Good mineral crystals can also be nice, if they’re beefy enough.  Lower-end watches have thin mineral crystals or crystals of another material.
2. What should you look for?  Well, some of the above: a design that you like, made of solid materials with a good crystal.  That by itself should put you in fairly good stead.
3. What lower or midrange brands do I like?  I’ll give you some.  Presume that we’re talking about watches that cost in a range between $100 or so and $400.  That’s a fairly low-end watch, but you can still find some that are pretty nice.  For example:

• Emporio Armani.  To my mind, the most consistent maker of nice watches in the $150 – $300 range is Emporio Armani.  The designs are really nice, the crystals are great, and they mostly use good-quality automatic movements.  They’re just nice-looking, good-quality watches:

• TX.  This high-end division of Timex makes really, really nice watches.  They tend to sell for over $500, but they can be had online or at places like Nordstrom Rack for somewhere between $175 and $300.  The movements are superb, they often employ really interesting complications (one of mine has a linear chronograph, and both of mine — I have two — have a second time zone indicator), and they use nice sapphire crystals.

• Haffstreuner.  This is just a quirk of mine, I think: I don’t think Haffstreuner makes excellent watches, so much as I think they make big, clunky man-sized designs that look good on my wrist.

• Zodiac.  Zodiac is sort of the go-to low-end Swiss watch company, and to be honest they make a lot of watches whose designs I think are sort of ho-hum.  But they make a couple of watches I really like.  The one I like is really simply styled, a sort of military dial, and has a really nice crystal and a very dependable movement:

• ESQ.  Like Zodiac, ESQ (a division of Movado) makes a lot of watches I don’t really love.  But they make a few I like a LOT.  My favorite is the Blackfin, which is a really solid 300-meter diver’s watch.  It looks good, and it is just a great timepiece.  A couple of other models are nice, too:

• Seiko.  To be honest, just about every watch Seiko makes is a pretty good watch.  Connoisseurs can huff about Asian watches, but sorry: these guys make really nice-looking watches that work great.  I have a Sportura Chronograph that has a 1/100 of a second stopwatch:

• National Geographic.  You wouldn’t think so, but National Geographic makes some really nice watches, and at a great price.  They make a 1,000-meter dive watch that you can find online for $150, and a number of other interesting designs:

• Citizen.  Another Asian watch company, I don’t like Citizen’s designs as well as I like Seiko’s, but they make a really nice world-timer (it can show the time in spots all around the globe, all at once) that uses its famous Eco-Drive, which uses light for its power source (so you never need a battery):

• Chase-Durer.  Most Chase-Durer watches are a little out of this price range, but they make a really cool watch, the Wing-GMT, that you can often find for somewhere between $250 and $350:

• Orsa.  I love mentioning Orsa, because as far as I know, there’s just this one guy who makes a few watches every year and sells them.  They are incredibly well-built watches, big and beefy and solid, and they use great materials.  The Monstrum is a good 300m dive watch with a thick sapphire crystal:

• Croton.  Croton, a Swiss company, makes a lot of crappy-looking watches.  There.  I said it.  But one, called the Super C, just looks nice on my wrist:

And a couple of others I’d like to especially mention:

• Minorva.  Oh, wow, this is a really weird thing to put into a post on good watches.  Watch guys tend to hate Asian watches, and Chinese watches in particular (since they tend to be knock-offs of real watch companies).  But… Minorva is a Chinese watchmaker, and they are really cheap watches — they can often be had for under $50 on eBay.  It comes to this: I like their designs.  They are mostly not knock-offs of other designs (though one of the watches below is similar to a Jaeger Master Compressor, the others are original), and they look good and wear well.  So there.

• Botta Design.  This is usually a little above $400, but it’s just such a cool watch: Botta makes a watch with a single hand to show the time, on the theory that you mostly don’t need to know that it’s 11:39 so much as you need to know that it’s between 11:30 and 11:45.  (In the picture below, it’s about 10:40.)  Really cool watch: