Porsche Design by IWC Ocean 500

[Ray Singh]

I've been offered a PD Ocean 500 by a dealer after always wanting a PD watch.
Its supplied with box and papers and is in very good condition.
The dealer is very reputable.



How can i assure its original as the price he is offering it at is very cheap compared to other PD Oceans i have seen advertised (circa £1200 - £1600).

[andy tims]

Can't comment on the originality of that one, but in that general style, surely it has to by the 2000, otherwise you'll always know you've settled for 2nd best.

The PD Chrono's are much more plentiful, even the Lemania powered ones

[The Leaper]

Just to encourage you, here's a pic of my PO11



Great watch with some sentimentality attached, not for sale!

R

[Ray Singh]

Thanks - is that Orfina too or Eterna?

[The Leaper]

Mine's Eterna.

R.

[Dr JonboyG]

andy tims said:

Can't comment on the originality of that one, but in that general style, surely it has to by the 2000, otherwise you'll always know you've settled for 2nd best.

The PD Chrono's are much more plentiful, even the Lemania powered ones

Think one of those might be my next purchase. How much should I budget for a good one?

[andy tims]

^^^ That one's worth about £850.00 It has a military dial, but was not an "issued" watch.

There are loads of variations of these (Civilian/Military, Lemania/7750, PVD/Blasted, with strap or bracelet etc) & you really need to do a bit of research so you know what you're looking at and this is a reasonable starting point

http://brown-snout.com/horology/articles/orfina_po...

HTH

[cyberface]

From experience, the older Porsche Design PVD finish is somewhat fragile. If you want a daily wear PD watch, get the plain titanium models, and get a chrono, it's what they're about IMO.

My PVD'd PD is now unserviceably scratched and looks tatty as hell (the bracelet PVD is shot) - the watch itself works perfectly, and keeps very good time (discounting the ski-pass Swatches, it is my only quartz watch - it has a multi-chrono thingy and has the most hands of any of my watches...) but due to the PVD damage and too many other nice pieces to choose from, I never wear it now and the battery is dead.

[Bibbs]

cyberface said:

From experience, the older Porsche Design PVD finish is somewhat fragile. If you want a daily wear PD watch, get the plain titanium models, and get a chrono, it's what they're about IMO.

My PVD'd PD is now unserviceably scratched and looks tatty as hell (the bracelet PVD is shot) - the watch itself works perfectly, and keeps very good time (discounting the ski-pass Swatches, it is my only quartz watch - it has a multi-chrono thingy and has the most hands of any of my watches...) but due to the PVD damage and too many other nice pieces to choose from, I never wear it now and the battery is dead.

Any pics? I'm after a black everyday watch. I'd be interested to see how bad it could get?

[cyberface]

Bibbs said:

cyberface said:

From experience, the older Porsche Design PVD finish is somewhat fragile. If you want a daily wear PD watch, get the plain titanium models, and get a chrono, it's what they're about IMO.

My PVD'd PD is now unserviceably scratched and looks tatty as hell (the bracelet PVD is shot) - the watch itself works perfectly, and keeps very good time (discounting the ski-pass Swatches, it is my only quartz watch - it has a multi-chrono thingy and has the most hands of any of my watches...) but due to the PVD damage and too many other nice pieces to choose from, I never wear it now and the battery is dead.

Any pics? I'm after a black everyday watch. I'd be interested to see how bad it could get?

Yup - the watch body itself survived well:


The bracelet should look nice and thickly PVD'd like this:


However a bit of abrasion against *smooth* rock (OK, not normal everyday wear and tear, I'll admit it - this is fairly 'extreme' abuse but it's something I'd expect my black Neo-Monster to soak up) resulted in this:


I think this is because the PAT has an aluminium case and a titanium bracelet (titanium is used, un-PVD'd, for the bezel and caseback), and the black PVD coating doesn't adhere as well to titanium as it does to stainless steel. A surface coating engineer will be able to elaborate further but if it's a carbon-based deposition then you'd expect it to work better with steel because iron and carbon like each other - steel is just iron with varying amounts of carbon atoms mixed up in the matrix. Where the carbon atoms reside, they make the iron more crystalline (in extremis - iron carbide, which is a hard-as-hell ceramic), so as you increase the quantity of carbon, the 'crystallinity' of the steel increases, along with its hardness, until it becomes more ceramic than metal and too brittle to be of any use. That's where the 'Damascus steel' legends etc. come from - old knife and sword craft techniques lost over time that managed to get high-carbon crystals of iron carbide *just* in the right place (at the blade edge) to give a ridiculously hard and sharp cutting edge, but with loads of lower-carbon iron in the rest of the blade to keep the weapon itself flexible and resilient to knocks. A blade made entirely from high-carbon, mostly carbide, 'crystal' steel would shatter on first impact.

Hence iron and carbon get along well together, and depositing carbon-based films on top of steel is always going to work. It also explains why the ion-bombardment techniques can make the resulting metal more brittle - since the carbon atoms smashed in are going to penetrate the steel more deeply, making the layer more carbon-rich and hence more brittle.

There isn't the same history of titanium use in steelworking and swordsmithery - titanium metal usage is fairly recent - but whilst a 'Damascus titanium' type sword with flexible, strong titanium making up most of the blade but titanium carbide edging giving a sharp cut would be awesome (due to how light the weapon would be), modern warfare has made swords somewhat poor weapons The chemistry and engineering of titanium is well known (just not by me!) but I'm not sure whether the reason for my poor PVD performance on titanium is due to titanium not taking up a carbon layer well.

The reason for my hesitancy to say 'yeah this is why' is because titanium ceramics (titanium carbide, nitride, oxynitride, and variations of them all like titanium aluminium carbon nitride) are well known and used extensively as surface coatings since they are hard, corrosion resistant, and more importantly look damn good. Unlike plain black PVD coatings, the titanium-based coatings come in cool colours. Titanium nitride is basically gold. Titanium oxynitride is a purply bluey gold colour. Titanium nitride is probably the best known (in my world of things I like!) due to its common use as a coating for motorbike fork tubes, it's corrosion resistant, hard, and low friction.

However all of these coatings are actually the titanium-based ceramic PVD'd (there are other coating techniques, of course, but we're talking about PVD) on top of steel. Perhaps it works properly on steel. Putting the titanium ceramic coating on top of normal titanium alloys is more like the problem I've seen with my watch, and perhaps my theory that titanium alloys don't 'take up' ceramic coatings as well as steel has *some* basis in science. Titanium alloys are strong and elastic, a lot more elastic than steel (comparing Young's modulus, an average steel has twice the Young's modulus than an average titanium alloy. I know Young's modulus isn't exactly 'elasticity' but it'll do for this explanation) - and the ceramic coatings are a LOT stiffer still. Hence bunging a PVD coating on titanium is a very stiff coating on an elastic base, whereas a PVD coating on steel is a very stiff coating on a moderately stiff base.

So it could be that the titanium can 'flex' naturally enough under stress such that the PVD ceramic coating simply breaks, whereas a steel base wouldn't flex as much, and the PVD coating would be put under less tensile strain as a result.

There are two explanations above as a result!!! Personally I reckon the wider difference in Young's modulus between the coating and the base metal with titanium vs. steel is a better theory than the 'difference in adhesion' theory.

However I'm neither a professional physicist or engineer - I'd appreciate it if an expert corrects my mistakes, since I may be wrong in casting doubt on PVD'd titanium watches....


As an aside, Rado make watches out of ceramics (though not iron carbide, AFAIK) so it'd be interesting to know whether anyone has managed to shatter or crack a Rado bracelet link, for example.

[Ray Singh]

Thread Hijack !!

Anyway i bought the watch and it arrived on Saturday. Excellent piece really enjoying having it on my wrist.
Thanks for those of you who contributed.

That is all.

[cho]

Wow £1600 for an ocean 500! I bought mine about about 20 years ago for about £1000. Didn't really think these would appreciate in price except for the special edition military ones. Saw one go for about £6000 in an auction last year.

[clarayeung]

I am interested in it.
How much is it? Is it exactly same as what you posted?

Ray Singh said:

I've been offered a PD Ocean 500 by a dealer after always wanting a PD watch.
Its supplied with box and papers and is in very good condition.
The dealer is very reputable.



How can i assure its original as the price he is offering it at is very cheap compared to other PD Oceans i have seen advertised (circa £1200 - £1600).

[Ray Singh]

I bought the watch pictured last year. It has subsequently been back to the dealer on 4 seperate occasions for repair.

I am happy with it and paid £750 plus £150 (service) for it.

[PJ S]

Oh the irony.....only a Google search for a bit more knowledge on TiN coatings, would lead back to a typical in-depth, monster post by Cyberface, and relating to watches (and swords!).

Such a shame the chap no longer bothers with these forums due to someone taking exception to his wordy posts.

Nice watches by the way, but I shan't embarrass myself with posting pics of a Titanium Seiko Sportura Chronograph, circa 2003. A mere minnow amongst the big fish here.

[andy_s]

PJ S said:

Oh the irony.....only a Google search for a bit more knowledge on TiN coatings, would lead back to a typical in-depth, monster post by Cyberface, and relating to watches (and swords!).

Such a shame the chap no longer bothers with these forums due to someone taking exception to his wordy posts.

Nice watches by the way, but I shan't embarrass myself with posting pics of a Titanium Seiko Sportura Chronograph, circa 2003. A mere minnow amongst the big fish here.

Big fish, little fish, cardboard box....it's no matter, stick it up on the wrist thread, all is fair game.