Tag: watch

Citizen Green

By Joe Berk

You’d think with my old-age eyesight and need for bigger letters and numbers I’d wear the Citizen watch you see above more often, but the fact is I don’t.  I bought it years ago when I was a yuppie, and I wore it a little, but it just hasn’t had much wrist time in the last couple of decades.  But it still works well, and it’s still got those big numbers.  I need those now.

The Citizen uses their E101 solar-powered quartz movement and like all Citizens, Seikos, Casios, and Orients that use a quartz movement, it is phenomenally accurate.  I’m talking in the range of seconds per month.  I never thought I’d need a watch that accurate, and I probably don’t, but I enjoy having one.  It’s one of the reasons I almost never wear an automatic (i.e., mechanical) watch anymore.  They just don’t have the kind of accuracy I’ve become accustomed to.

Another feature on the watch you see here is the lume.  It’s incredible.  At night, the numbers and those big hands jump out at you.  Other than having a backlit Casio or Timex, the lume on this watch makes it one of the easiest to read in darkness I’ve ever owned.

Once this watch is charged after being in the light, it keeps running for a long time.  If I leave it on the shelf for months, it still keeps running.  Evidently, room lighting is enough to keep it charged.  When it does run down, it doesn’t take very long for it to come alive when it sees sunlight again.

What surprised me is that even though I’ve owned this watch for more than 20 years (it’s probably closer to 30 years), you can still buy this model at a relatively modest price.  The exact colors you see here are no longer available, but the basic watch design is, and to me the new colors are just as attractive as the old.  Here’s the same watch in a brushed stainless finish with a canvas strap.  I like this look a lot.

I’m tempted to buy the watch you see above, but I already have plenty of watches.  You can buy the above watch on Amazon for $184, or better yet, from Jomashop for a paltry $124.   That’s a hell of a deal.

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A 1%er Moon Watch

In line with our editorial policy featuring luxury goods with outlandish prices, a few weeks ago we posted a blog on the Longines perpetual moon phase automatic watch.  That’s an item with what is euphemistically referred to as “prestige” pricing, which most folks would simply call overpricing (you know, like most motorcycle dealers’ freight and setup fees).  The Longines is a lofty $3550, although our blog post pointed out you could find them for less if you poked around on the Internet.  I did, and my best price so far was a scant $2250, which is still way too rich for my blood.  Hell, you could buy a used Sportster for that kind of money.

Now, don’t get me wrong…if you want to buy the Longines watch, by all means we think you should.  In fact, we think you should buy it through this Amazon Longines link, because then Gresh and I would get a cut.   I have no idea how much (we’ve never helped to sell anything that pricey through our Amazon affiliates program), but it would be cool to find out.

Terry, the Prince of Tides.

But that’s not the point of this blog.  If you read that earlier Longines blog and the comments that you, or esteemed readership, posted to it, you will see that none other than our good buddy Terry commented that he might consider the watch if it also showed the tides.

The tides.

Hmmm.  That tickled a long-dormant neuron buried among the other neurons between my ears.  They’re mostly focused on Weatherbys, Royal Enfields, SIGs, RCBS reloading gear, Baja, Michelle Pfeiffer, and God only knows what else is swimming around in there.  The tides.  I vaguely remembered seeing something about a watch that does, indeed, show the tides, so I went on Amazon, looked, and what do you know:  The Casio moon phase and tides digital watch you see at the top of this blog appeared.  Wowee!

What got my attention immediately was the price:  $22.50.  Could it be? A Casio watch that actually does way more than the Longines watch, but sells for a scant $22.50?   That’s exactly one percent of the lowest discounted price I could find for the Longines watch!  $22.50!

Hey, I couldn’t resist.  I’m wearing my new Casio moon phase and tides watch as I type this blog.  $22.50, and because I’m an Amazon Prime member, I didn’t even have to pay for shipping!  Go Bezos!

There are just so many things that are cool about this Casio watch I almost don’t know where to begin.   Yep, it shows you the tides.  That waveform in the lower left quadrant of the watch face has a darkened section that shows you were the tide is at that instant.  It goes through a complete cycle every 24 hours, just like the real tides do.   And there’s the moon phase.  That’s the little circle in the lower right quadrant (it darkens in arcs to show you what the moon is doing that day).   All this for $22.50.  And the Casio has a dual time feature…you can set a different time zone and switch to it instantly, although this feature is kind of weird…the “other” time is whatever you want it to be, not some exact number of hours different from where you are.  It kind of reminded of a Chinese hotel we stayed in once where they had a bunch of clocks on the back wall showing different times at other locations in the world, but nobody had maintained them and they were comically different.

Ah, but I digress…back to the Casio.  It has a stopwatch and a countdown feature.  I can set it to military time or a normal 12-hour time.  It has an alarm clock.  And a backlight, so I can use it to find my way to the bathroom at night without waking up my wife or tripping on the way there.  And (get this) it has a 10-year battery!  Did I mention it goes for only $22.50?

More good news:  As you have already seen in the photo a few paragraphs up, you can get the same Casio watch in blue, and the blue Casio goes for only $20.48.  I’m tempted to buy one, but hey, I’m not made out of money.

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