The Vince Files » Seiko

A poor man’s watch collection – watch #5

Vince — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:18:44 +0000

This is my fifth in a series of posts on my humble watch collection.

This watch is my second eBay watch purchase. I had such a good transaction with the seller of my “big chunky watch” that I decided to get another one from him. This auction also had a “Best Offer” feature but my initial offer was rejected. The seller offered to accept my offer if I just increased it a bit.

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This is a Seiko SKXA55K. All Seiko movements are made in Japan. The “K” in the model number denotes a watch finished outside Japan. It uses Seiko’s ubiquitous 7S26 movement.

This watch was a present from Claire. Every time we look at watches in a mall, Claire always says, “Daddy, I wanna get you an orange watch!” It took a while but I finally found an orange watch I liked. This watch is an attention-getter and is my daily “desk-diver” watch.

A poor man’s watch collection – watch #4

Vince — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:18:17 +0000

This is my fourth in a series of posts on my humble watch collection.

This watch is my first eBay watch purchase. When you lurk watch forums, you’ll often notice names of retailers (online and B&M) mentioned and peoples impressions with them. This seller was from Singapore and had positive reviews from the online watch community. This seller’s auction had a “Best Offer” option in addition to the usual bidding and “Buy it Now” options. So I decided to offer around 90% of the BIN price and my offer was accepted!

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This is a Seiko SKZ211J. The “J” in the model number denotes “Made in Japan”, but actually all Seiko movements are made in Japan but the watch may be finished outside Japan. This one was a rare find since most “J” models are destined for the Middle East and Asian markets. It’s seldom enough to find automatic Seikos in mall stores here, let alone a Seiko 5 Sports, let alone one made in Japan. The watch uses Seiko’s automatic 7S36 movement. The 7S36 adds a small modification and 2 extra jewels to Seiko’s ubiquitous 7S26 movement. For an in-depth explanation on the difference, have a look at this post from the Seiko Citizen Watch Forum mirror.

When Claire first saw me wearing it she said, “I like your big chunky watch, Daddy!” So now, this watch is affectionately known as the big, chunky watch.

A poor man’s watch collection – watch #3

Vince — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:17:59 +0000

This is my third in a series of posts on my humble watch collection.

This one was a bit of an impulse buy from a mall jewelry store that was having a 60% off sale. Sixty-percent off MSRP is still bit of money but I was not to be stopped. I saw it. I wanted it. I got it.

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This is a Seiko Kinetic Auto Relay watch with a 5J22 movement. Like other Seiko Kinetics, this watch is self-winding but instead of winding a spring, it charges a capacitor that acts like a battery in a quartz watch.

The “Auto Relay” is quite interesting. Seiko Automatics and Kinetics rely on your arm movement to turn the rotor and keep the spring wound or capacitor charged; without this movement, the watch stops. To start it back up, just give the watch a few shakes. Most automatics will restart from the time it stopped. The Auto Relays, however, will return to the correct time. While the watch “sleeps” it maintains the correct time using an internal battery.

A poor man’s watch collection – watch #1

Vince — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 07:15:12 +0000

This is my first in a series of posts on my humble watch collection.

This one was what I spent my first paycheque on when I first started working. I was only 23 years old and still in college doing a co-op work term. So I was looking for something that looked “cool”. Back then, I considered watches with sub-dial complications cool. So I chose a Seiko Chronograph. It runs on a battery-powered 7T32 movement with subdials for minutes, seconds and an alarm (which could also be used a second timezone). It also includes a date window. The chronograph functions are straightforward with the usual start/stop/reset/split functionality

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It’s all scratched up because it was my daily worn watch. I did everything with this watch including swimming. The crystal isn’t very scratch-resistant and the minute sub-dial doesn’t quite return to the top. I still wear this watch once in a while.

A poor man’s watch collection

Vince — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:33:57 +0000

Every once in a while I’ll visit the Poor Man’s Watch Forum or the WatchUSeek forums looking at the watches other people wear. Some people (I’m guessing most of the forum participants are men) have quite an impressive collection of fine watches. If you are knowledgeable enough, you earn the title of WIS.

So I was looking at my humble watch collection and decided to post a series of blog entries on of my watches. You could say I have a thing for watches but you won’t see me wearing any $1000+ watches any time soon. Most of my watches are automatics and one is even a replica!