The (Less intimidating) Watch Thread
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Hamilton have just announced the Camouflage range, which are part of their field watch line. Price is around €745, and they come in a 42 mm case size. Monochrome has details.
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That looks pretty good over-all.
Something that I've noticed with the Hamilton's is their almost obsessive "need" to keep the hour marking at the 0300/1500 position. Simply removing the 3 marker, and shifting the day/date window to the right a tiny bit would really clean up the face a lot.
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The ETA calibre that Hamilton uses is just 25.6 mm (about an inch) in diameter, whereas the case is 42 mm. The date wheel will sit inside the movement's circumference, as can been seen in this photo.
The 3 on the Hamilton's dial is probably to fill in what would otherwise be a blank space.
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They could, however, kill the day indication and the white border for the date window. Then the date would blend really nicely with the inner numbers for 24 hour time. That would make a cleaner face and eliminate the overlap on the large 3.
And seriously, who needs a day indication? If you lose track of what day it is, you probably don't even need to wear a watch, because clearly, precise time telling isn't that relevant to your life.
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Why stop at a day? Throw the month in there too!
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@Maynard:
Why stop at a day? Throw the month in there too!
If you're wanting the month, you're looking at an annual or perpetual calendar, and that belongs in the other thread.
This is the Blancpain Bathyscaphe Annual Calendar, the month window is partially obscured by the minute hand. It costs over $30,000 here in Australia…
An annual calendar is the budget version, it needs the date adjusting every year at the end of February. A perpetual calendar copes with leap years, except for the century years.
Longines offer a budget annual calendar, which costs $2,425, and I think is the cheapest one on the market. Removing the day window has cut the price by $30,000 or so compared to the Blancpain.
(Hodinkee has more details.)
Incidentally, the annual calendar was invented by Patek Philippe in 1996. The oldest known perpetual calendar was made by Thomas Mudge in 1762.
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Love these Unimatics. Had never heard of them but some sweet special editions were dropped and I saw them on Hodinkee. Sharing here.
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The Unimatics look good, but they quote accuracy of -20 / +40 seconds per day, which is pretty horrible.
The Tissot Seastar 1000 Powermatic 80 (Who comes up with these names?) strikes me as a good buy. It's $695, has an ETA movement, so easy to service, robust, accurate, and has an 80 hour power reserve, it's water resistant to 300 metres / 1000 feet, and has a lovely blue dial.
Time and Tide have a review, along with this video.
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The Fortis Aquatis Shoreliner Vik Beach is similar to the Unimatics. Watch Partners has this version for $1090 (Australian) for internal shoppers (just over $800 US), and a couple of others for a bit more.
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Fortis makes a very solid watch. They’ve had a few boring designs but their main line is pretty good.
I like that Tissot and I’m sure could be had for much, much cheaper. I found a lot of retailers doing discounts of 20%+ in the Caribbean. Even deeper occasionally online.
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The Unimatics look good, but they quote accuracy of -20 / +40 seconds per day, which is pretty horrible.
The Tissot Seastar 1000 Powermatic 80 (Who comes up with these names?) strikes me as a good buy. It's $695, has an ETA movement, so easy to service, robust, accurate, and has an 80 hour power reserve, it's water resistant to 300 metres / 1000 feet, and has a lovely blue dial.
Time and Tide have a review, along with this video.
$522 with a metal bracelet at Joma–that's a great deal, thanks for bringing this up.
I didn't look at the specs in detail on the Unimatics, was more interested in the looks--but eep, that level of reliability (from the Seiko movement I think that they use) is a huge problem.
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But Seiko movements are well known to “settle down” after a few weeks of wear. I’ve had a couple of Seiko autos that were pretty spot on.
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There's a review of the Marathon GPM at aBlogToWatch for the field watch fans.
I'm a fan of both manual winding and dateless watches, so both of those criticisms in the review would be a plus to me. But the weird 16.5 mm lug width is really awkward. They should have gone for 18 mm to open up more options for straps.
Oh, it's got an ETA movement, so it should run forever and be easy to repair, though the Swatch group is getting a bit awkward about supplying spares to third party companies.
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^ Just had a long old Google regarding that as I’m intrigued. I am field watch fan and this made me consider the date window/mechanical issues. I’d actually find a date window useful as I often need to check my phone for this but as has been mentioned numerous times ones smart phone makes all watches with the exception of smart watches anachronstic jewellery. At the end of the day I really, really like the face of this and the lack of a date window helps the aesthetic.
Equally, it seems to me that the fashionable preference and cultural caché of automatic watches is based on ease of use and old tech charm. There’s nothing more old tech than having to wind the twatting jewellery on your arm each day. The pointless routine of it seems quite charming in itself.
The odd lug dimensions rather spoil it for me, I suspect I’d enjoy chopping and changing straps, but the deal breaker is the shape of the case. From above it is attractive but I do not like the way the case curves upwards towards the bezel (?). There’s something deeply unattractive about that.
Thanks for posting @Graeme
