Discussion
Sort that bezel out BigWithey 
My Orange Monster is a favourite in my collection - the only 'big' watch that looks OK on my wrist. Seiko are a proper in house manufacture as well which is always fun to tell the guys with quartz Raymond Weils (and a few *much* higher-regarded brands that I won't mention to wind anyone up
) - they've got a few full-on horological innovations in their history as well.
That watch looks like a kinetic to me since the top register looks like 1/10th secs - which will need an electric movement - no fully mechanical runs that fast - but the kinetics are cyborgs anyway, half mechanical and half electric.
Perhaps I ought to get one - I like the timekeeping and technological trickery you can get with electric watches, but the stepper-motor jobs eat batteries and I don't like replacing batteries.
Do the Kinetics basically do away with batteries for ever - or does some capacitor need upgrading at some point?
My Orange Monster is a favourite in my collection - the only 'big' watch that looks OK on my wrist. Seiko are a proper in house manufacture as well which is always fun to tell the guys with quartz Raymond Weils (and a few *much* higher-regarded brands that I won't mention to wind anyone up
) - they've got a few full-on horological innovations in their history as well.That watch looks like a kinetic to me since the top register looks like 1/10th secs - which will need an electric movement - no fully mechanical runs that fast - but the kinetics are cyborgs anyway, half mechanical and half electric.
Perhaps I ought to get one - I like the timekeeping and technological trickery you can get with electric watches, but the stepper-motor jobs eat batteries and I don't like replacing batteries.
Do the Kinetics basically do away with batteries for ever - or does some capacitor need upgrading at some point?
Apart from some top dollar Japan only £1000+ jobs (see Seiya) I don't think Seiko make any purely mechanical chronographs anymore. From what I've gleaned from the web, their philosophy is such that a chronograph ought to have accuracy as one of it's main qualities and as such a quartz movement is better suited to that role.
paulrandall said:
It's not kinetic, just plain old battery, but its still a nice watch, with enough change from £200 to buy a G-Shock for everyday bashing around.
I too spent a few quid on a Seiko this year and am now in the market for a an Black/Orange Monster or a G shock.Of the G-shocks, I really like the Master of G range. Have a look at the Mudman, Gulfman and Riseman. I would love all of them. Plus a 25th Anniversary Dawn Black Frogman, but they are stupid money.
paulrandall said:
Im thinking of a one I saw advertised in the Argos sales paper. 1/3 off at £40 or something.
Had a quick look on argos.co.uk but can't see the one you're after. Whatever you decide, make sure you tap the serial number into google to make sure you can't get it cheaper on the web.blueST said:
Apart from some top dollar Japan only £1000+ jobs (see Seiya) I don't think Seiko make any purely mechanical chronographs anymore. From what I've gleaned from the web, their philosophy is such that a chronograph ought to have accuracy as one of it's main qualities and as such a quartz movement is better suited to that role.
Well they've always used materials in their movements regardless of tradition if they worked (e.g. plastic parts, which horrified the purists) so I guess that'd make sense regarding chronographs. It's damn hard to make a proper mechanical chronograph accurate anyway, with all the torque going through the system needing to be stopped instantaneously by pushers.They're still making plenty of mechanical automatic day/date movements though, and that's why the Monster is famous I guess - they could easily have bunged a quartz in there but chose to put a proper in-house automatic instead, and sell at a very accessible price.
I like mine
Might go off and do some research about the kinetics though - someone told me that they still used batteries, the rotor (as in an auto mechanical) just charged up the battery and this failed just as fast as normal batteries. Sounded like tosh to me, but to be 'special' it'd have to have all the qualities of an electric watch with all the qualities of the mechanical automatic i.e. no batteries, runs off the energy from wrist movement, but with the accuracy of quartz.
Does have to be said that stepper motor movements aren't much to look at though
One of the nice things about mechanical watches is that the mechanisms are IMO beautiful. Like the difference between a V8 and an electric motor.
cyberface said:
blueST said:
Apart from some top dollar Japan only £1000+ jobs (see Seiya) I don't think Seiko make any purely mechanical chronographs anymore. From what I've gleaned from the web, their philosophy is such that a chronograph ought to have accuracy as one of it's main qualities and as such a quartz movement is better suited to that role.
Well they've always used materials in their movements regardless of tradition if they worked (e.g. plastic parts, which horrified the purists) so I guess that'd make sense regarding chronographs. It's damn hard to make a proper mechanical chronograph accurate anyway, with all the torque going through the system needing to be stopped instantaneously by pushers.They're still making plenty of mechanical automatic day/date movements though, and that's why the Monster is famous I guess - they could easily have bunged a quartz in there but chose to put a proper in-house automatic instead, and sell at a very accessible price.
I like mine
Might go off and do some research about the kinetics though - someone told me that they still used batteries, the rotor (as in an auto mechanical) just charged up the battery and this failed just as fast as normal batteries. Sounded like tosh to me, but to be 'special' it'd have to have all the qualities of an electric watch with all the qualities of the mechanical automatic i.e. no batteries, runs off the energy from wrist movement, but with the accuracy of quartz.
Does have to be said that stepper motor movements aren't much to look at though
One of the nice things about mechanical watches is that the mechanisms are IMO beautiful. Like the difference between a V8 and an electric motor.What you (and I) really want is a Seiko Spring Drive. A proper mechanical movement electronically regulated with spare power generated from the main spring. The best of both words but cost a few quid.
I had my first Seiko, IIRC, back in 1967 and there followed a number over the years, most of which in the end I gave away. I had no idea though, until I followed blueST's thread to the Seiya site, that Seiko made watches at up to £3,500 these days:-
http://www.seiyajapan.com/product/S-SBGA031/New_Gr...
I am sure it is a wonderful watch but am I wrong in thinking that second hand it would be a bit tainted by the maker's name and not command much money. After all, watches are really a form of snobbery or else if it was just for telling the time we'd all wear a Timex I guess. Whatever, I am mightily intrigued by this one and it surely must be a watchmaker's tour-de-force.
Edit: Just looking at the accuracy too which is + or - 15 secs a month. That is awesome for an mechanical watch and far beyond the COSC + or - 6 secs per day. Then I looked further down in the £600 bracket and see only +25 or -15 secs per day. That isn't good enough at that price in my book.
http://www.seiyajapan.com/product/S-SBGA031/New_Gr...
I am sure it is a wonderful watch but am I wrong in thinking that second hand it would be a bit tainted by the maker's name and not command much money. After all, watches are really a form of snobbery or else if it was just for telling the time we'd all wear a Timex I guess. Whatever, I am mightily intrigued by this one and it surely must be a watchmaker's tour-de-force.
Edit: Just looking at the accuracy too which is + or - 15 secs a month. That is awesome for an mechanical watch and far beyond the COSC + or - 6 secs per day. Then I looked further down in the £600 bracket and see only +25 or -15 secs per day. That isn't good enough at that price in my book.
Edited by lowdrag on Sunday 29th June 07:49
lowdrag said:
I had my first Seiko, IIRC, back in 1967 and there followed a number over the years, most of which in the end I gave away. I had no idea though, until I followed blueST's thread to the Seiya site, that Seiko made watches at up to £3,500 these days:-
http://www.seiyajapan.com/product/S-SBGA031/New_Gr...
I am sure it is a wonderful watch but am I wrong in thinking that second hand it would be a bit tainted by the maker's name and not command much money. After all, watches are really a form of snobbery or else if it was just for telling the time we'd all wear a Timex I guess. Whatever, I am mightily intrigued by this one and it surely must be a watchmaker's tour-de-force.
Edit: Just looking at the accuracy too which is + or - 15 secs a month. That is awesome for an mechanical watch and far beyond the COSC + or - 6 secs per day. Then I looked further down in the £600 bracket and see only +25 or -15 secs per day. That isn't good enough at that price in my book.
I don't have any idea how well a Spring Drive would keep it's value but I would guess they would do well, purely down to the unique nature of the movement and rarity of them. I believe thay are well regarded by those in the know, but impressing the uninitiated might be a different matter.http://www.seiyajapan.com/product/S-SBGA031/New_Gr...
I am sure it is a wonderful watch but am I wrong in thinking that second hand it would be a bit tainted by the maker's name and not command much money. After all, watches are really a form of snobbery or else if it was just for telling the time we'd all wear a Timex I guess. Whatever, I am mightily intrigued by this one and it surely must be a watchmaker's tour-de-force.
Edit: Just looking at the accuracy too which is + or - 15 secs a month. That is awesome for an mechanical watch and far beyond the COSC + or - 6 secs per day. Then I looked further down in the £600 bracket and see only +25 or -15 secs per day. That isn't good enough at that price in my book.
Edited by lowdrag on Sunday 29th June 07:49
I get a perverse pleasure from knowing people think my watch is just a Seiko. And I know it's not the shrewedset investment. Friends (not you Bob!) have Omegas, Tags and the like as status symbols but they just seem like the obvious default choice when someone wants a proper watch. I'd go for the Seiko, Sinn, Stowa every time. Certainly in the sub £1000 bracket.
The accuracy of the conventional watches is the standard figure quoted by Seiko for all of the 'normal' autos I've seen. The one I have is nowhere near that bad.
douglasr said:
I'm in the market for a new watch. Do you know the model number as I cant see anything identical to it on the Seiko site.
Heres the watchhttp://www.ernestjones.co.uk/webstore/detail/R/498...
blueST said:
The Kinetics use the rotor to turn a generator that charges something (battery or capacitor) to power a quartz movement, it's not a standard watch battery though. They used to have a reputation for failing but I think they are better now. You can buy the uprated parts on EBay should you have one fail.
What you (and I) really want is a Seiko Spring Drive. A proper mechanical movement electronically regulated with spare power generated from the main spring. The best of both words but cost a few quid.
Yeah, I know - what I was asking about was whether the battery / capacitor still failed or whether it was a 'works for life' component like a mechanical movement. Obviously not, so Kinetics are now of less interest to me (may as well have a battery watch, really)...What you (and I) really want is a Seiko Spring Drive. A proper mechanical movement electronically regulated with spare power generated from the main spring. The best of both words but cost a few quid.
Spring Drive? Now you're talking. Wasn't this one of Seiko's 'proper' innovations? I know Seiko's primary drive has *always* been accuracy über alles - meaning that quartz movements are a very proud moment in their history - but they've been responsible for plenty of mechanical innovations as well... (off to do some research)...
Timezone Seiko history page 1
Timezone Seiko history page 2
..bloody hell. Check these two articles out, then think again about Seiko. I've always liked to take my own path (often to my own destruction, but that's way off topic) and as soon as I learnt that Seiko were a true manufacture in their own right, had a long history and made automatic movements, I immediately put them on my 'list' of credible watch brands. By this I mean manufacturers I respect for one reason or other - primarily those who make their own movements (e.g. Rolex), those with a great history of horological innovations (e.g. Breguet), those whose watches are linked to momentous historical events (e.g. Omega's moon watch). I also would buy watches that are design icons, but that's a different reason to my main buying criteria.
That last paragraph may sound pretentious. Bottom line is that I like mechanical watches because of the 'little engines' inside. My grandfather, were he able to afford a wristwatch at the time (almost certainly couldn't), and had he been fortunate enough to have the luxury of my education, would have chosen wristwatches based on their accuracy - probably following the Swiss mechanical accuracy competitions. But now, a cheap quartz watch beats the finest mechanical movement. And if you want accuracy, get a radio-watch that regulates itself from atomic clocks across the world. There is *no* challenge for the manufactures any more - absolutely perfect time is available at a very affordable cost - just buy a radio-controlled watch. Casio sell a digital watch for £30 that picks up atomic clock signals from the UK, Germany, USA and Japan so you get perfect time anywhere in the world.
And that means mechanical watches can't be sold on their raison d'être - accurate timekeeping - any more. As a result, what's left is a mixed bag. Some manufactures concentrate on their tradition, and use fine materials and fine design and build to appeal to people who appreciate superior craftsmanship. Some have resorted to selling on snob value alone, giving up on movement design by buying in quartz or mechanical movements and then blinding the customer with marketing. Some have focused on the jewellery side, with the watch function being peripheral. Some have gone mental and crammed in as many mechanical complications as possible (hello, Franck Muller) - basic timekeeping being almost lost in the complexity and all the fun things to see happening in the mechanism.
This, overwhelmingly, is the main reason for some of my rants. I don't pay 20 times the fair price for a pair of jeans because they have a garish logo on them - I refuse to pay to advertise somebody's product FFS - but I will pay for quality. In the watch world it's a hobby of mine, and I'm sure as hell not going to endorse some bogus marketing-based product. Sorting the wheat from the chaff is tricky because the Swiss really got shook up by the Japanese, and the quartz revolution almost destroyed the mechanical watchmaking industry entirely. Simply put, I don't respect products based on marketing alone, and if I'm a snob, it's because of this. I respect a Seiko automatic well above, for example, a Raymond Weil quartz, regardless of how much the wearer paid for the watch.
Reading those articles has only increased my respect for Seiko, and whilst I already own (and love) my Orange Monster (which is one of the few Seikos that people 'slightly' into watches instantly recognise and respect), I am adding a Spring Drive to the 'list' (can't afford one right now!).
I'm in no way suggesting that Seiko build movements as fine as the top Swiss manufactures - they most probably can, but they don't really have the market for it - but they've been building mechanical movements of their own design from the beginning. Which I like
Had my Seiko Kinetic for last 9yrs with now problems or changes or maint required at all - very very impressed.
Only wish is that I'd gone for the one that also keeps the calendar accurate as well - as it's a pain having to adjust the date when the watch has been stationary for a few days (but great watching the hands wizz around to the right time when you first move it again)
Only wish is that I'd gone for the one that also keeps the calendar accurate as well - as it's a pain having to adjust the date when the watch has been stationary for a few days (but great watching the hands wizz around to the right time when you first move it again)
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