Hmm, then I might consider getting a watch without the second needle.

What are your suggestions for leather watch? Thanks

Have you thought of getting a watch with a rubber strap?

There are some rubber straps which are hypo allergenic i.e. does not cause irritation.

It's more hardy than leather which tends to require frequent replacement in our climate. It has the advantage of being lighter than the normal metal bracelet ( with the exception of titanium ). The cheap & trendy alternative are NATO straps which allow you to change the strap to suit your mood etc.

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Added on August 1, 2010, 8:30 amThe creation of new movements came about due to Swatch Group's policy not to sell unfinished movements in part to combat what Swatch groups claim to be the counterfeiting of their watches.

For several years smaller watch makers have purchased the following movements:-

1. The ETA for automatic watches
2. The Unitas for mechanical &
3. The Valjoux for chronographs

This has the advantage of allowing the smaller makers to ramp up quickly & lower their costs of R & D . By standardizing the movements, it allowed Swatch to lower the costs of production & revive the Swiss watch industry.

The consolidation of the Swiss watch industry by Swatch & Richemont effectively created a duopoly in horological circles.

We first saw this with Rolex creation of their own in-house movement for the Daytona Chronograph after Zenith was acquired by one of the two majors.

The above movements have been around for several decades & despite what watch snobs refer to as the lack of purity of certain brands due to their use of the above generic movements, I would argue that these movements are reliable & proven. Speaking from personal experience, some of my watches that use these generic movements are more reliable than some in house movements from high end watch manufacturers. I have taken the step of substituting some of my older watches with these movements for daily use & inserting the original movements when I decide to sell or trade the watch.

There were allegations & rumors around European watch circles that individuals were purchasing cases & dials from spare part suppliers & inserting ETA or Unitas into them.

A good example is Panerai where the previous mechanical movement was in fact a Unitas. Some enterprising individuals noticed this & started buying Panerai parts from Ebay & assembling them with Unitas movements . All well & fine until the purchasers took the watches for service to authorized repair centres !!

The use of third party movements as well as the swapping of movements has historical precedents.

The early (& very collectible ) Dunhills & Cartier watches used IWC & LeCoutre movements, early versions of Tudor watches had Rolex movements .

There were incidents of Tudor owners purchasing Rolex cases & swapping the movements across which resulted in savings of up to 70% over buying the Rolex versions of the watch. Rolex subsequently replaced the Rolex decorated movements & phased out their movements completely from Tudor to prevent customers from arbitraging from this.

The late Nicholas Hayek claims that this will help spawn innovation in the watch industry. There is some truth in that more independent manufacturers are coming out with in-house movements but still depend on the big two for a vast majority of their parts. It remains to be seen if Swatch will also restrict the sale of parts & caused the independents to be "manufacturer" in the true sense of the term.

As for me a collector, hobbyist & consumer, the strategic move by Swatch may result in higher costs of procuring mechanical watches & having to put up with the questionable reliability of these new in house movements.

These represent my personal views and is not to be construed as a criticism of Swatch's strategic intent or to cast doubts on the reliability of the new in house movements .

In my mind, a watch should not only tell time but do so reliably & accurately.

This post has been edited by beau: Aug 1 2010, 08:30 AM

Planning to hunt for a sub homage by rockx or r.w.x or ken trading.. I know this is hard.. But what if I'm travelling over to japan.. Wanna know if the owner still having it? And the location of it.
Understand that they still makin the watch but only not shipping out of japan.

Thanks in advance if any can help

great history on Rolex and tudor, Didn't know Tudor use Rolex movement. When did it happened? 1940s to when?

really its started with Rolex? I still though those German brands which started Unitas or Peseux. Rolex is a big brand so get all the attention.

anyway Panerai today still uses a Unitas, a mod Unitas by Sopord. OP X and OPXI are all Unitas 6497.

Unitas is made by alot of smaller swiss company I think. comoany such as choisi, Louis Erard have been making parts.

The late Nicholas Hayek? in the Aug 2010 issue of watchtime (interview) he did it cause he is pissed off with ppl that have no manufacturing capacities and wanna enter the watch biz. Legally he cannot refuse to sell movement to these small company. with that in place he can refuse. small watch biz can seek out there new movement company to do it. Selita is using ETA design as the patent/copyright on it has expire. he did not do it to spawn innovation in the watch industry. he just felt automotive industry can choose not sell power tran to any Tom d*** of harry why must he be force to do so. He invested so much money and other just reap the rewards. consumer like it but if U are in the business will U like it?
its like china, ppl like to pirate Software, now when they are innovating and producing and fellow country men pirate. these new folks are so Pro anti piracy law there. Weeding out the weak player is always a good thing.

hmm... didn't Dunhill and Cartier still use other ppl movement. Cartier is moving towards inhouse.

Roger Dubis had been selling such expensive watches and all the past movement have serious reliability issue. rush to market, reliability will definitely suffer.

This post has been edited by patryn33: Aug 1 2010, 12:04 PM

+1 to the above, and 'resonable' price to maintain and parts avalaibility.
Only times will tell whether the late Hayek's decision is right or wrong.
http://thewatchlounge.com/eta-withdrawal-t...ake-revolution/

This post has been edited by ck77: Aug 1 2010, 11:53 AM

why not get rid of the min hand too.. that maybe messed up..

something like this
http://www.defakto-uhren.de/


U can call RXW
www.rxw.jp

Not sure if they are still operating but the Panerai Homage watches made by Ken Trading have become very collectable, in part due to their quality of construction.

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Added on August 1, 2010, 2:39 pmNot sure of the precise history but the earlier Tudor Oysterdate had Rolex movements with actual Rolex markings on them. These pieces, if they are still available are very collectable as many owners purchased the Tudors & removed the movements to be re-inserted into Rolex cases. Given the fact that the Tudor version was retailing at that time for less than a third of the Rolex, this is not surprising.

Rolex subsequently stopped manufacturing movements with markings for Tudor before subsequently transitioning Tudors to Valjoux . This is ironic given the fact that the Rolex Chrono movements were substantially based on Valjoux movements until Zenith came along.

For a sample of how the Tudor looked like google "Tudor Heritage Chronograph".

Except for the initial 100 or so pieces of Panerai which were made with old Rolex movements in the 80's , Panerai was using ETAs etc. However they have recently come out with in house movements ( see PAM 337 & P.999 )

This issue goes beyond the supply of blank movements. Many part manufacturers were also acquired by Swatch & this makes it challenging for the independents to obtain parts without dealing with Swatch .

The early examples of Dunhills & Cartier which had IWC & LeCoutre movements are extremely collectable. The early Cartiers were more unique than the ones we have today as Cartier in London , Paris & New York operated as independent entities & created different watches for different markets just like what Patek did for Tiffany's & Gondolo for the Latin America market.

The analogy with the car industry is not accurate in the sense that many third parties are involved in supply parts as compared to watches & there are virtually no cars which consist of parts made in house. Hayek's argument is not correct as the basic designs for ETA,UNITAS & Valjoux have been around for several decades, far longer than the life of the patents that were originally filed .

I just think they are trying to corner the market and control prices. Independent movement makers like Lemania , Minerva etc have also been acquired & absorbed into the two big conglomerate.

This post has been edited by beau: Aug 1 2010, 02:39 PM

an old watch for me and still working well

This post has been edited by jesselau88: Aug 2 2010, 08:57 AM

Well, he is comparing movement to the heart of the vehicle the engine or power transmission. These parts of the vehicle are build inhouse. Honda may supply engine to Saturn but they have a choice. Mazda supplies engine and pwr tran to Ford because Ford has shares in Mazda.
anyhow the rest of the parts in a car is like the case/strap/rubber gasket of a watch, they can be supplied by 3rd parties.
I think this is what he is trying to get.

bro, any highly recommended watches blogs

@jesselau88
nice, do owned a chrono snd513 2 years back huhu btw another cheap watch into collection...c.2427

@alfredfx
month ago i'm reading this, nothing fancy just gathered some info...language campur2
thetick-thetick

that sounds like a description for Quartz watches.

Why? Mechanical watch is not reliable and accurate?

no, just that a Quartz is more reliable and more accurate than a mechanical watch. and its not my opinion.


http://www.timezone.com/library/wwatchfaq/...668591017665598

my personal opinion - if i needed a reliable and accurate time piece, i won't be taking my Carrera, it would be my solar powered Frogman. and if there's no sun and its the end of the world I've got more things to worry about than just my timepiece. lol.

Patryn ( & CK)

I heard that the no date Rolex Submariners ( 14060 M) are no longer in production . I was hoping to verify this as I came across an AD who has a few "old new stock " ( One was not COSC certified ) .

Might be very collectable if this is correct as prices for obsoleted Rolex models have reached stratospheric proportions , Zenith movement Daytonas, the old Milgauss & Sea Dweller , to name a few.

Any information you have on this would be appreciated.

Thanks

AFAIK, 14060M is still in production (for now). But it has been the rumours for stop production soon, probably after Basel 2011. New model might be identical to new sub ceramic but without date.

14060M COSC is replacing the non-COSC since 2007. It would be nice if you could find a NOS with non-COSC dial, preferred by me coz I like its cleaner dial. If the rumour is true (discontinue of 14060M), then the COSC one might be more collectible (subjective) as it only produced form 2007-2010.

There is also some news that Rolex will increase price form Sept 2010. So, hurry if you want to get one
http://www.malaysiawatchforum.com/index.ph...pic,1395.0.html

Added: Just got back from THG Lot 10, they got one unit 14060M best price RM15k.

This post has been edited by ck77: Aug 3 2010, 02:05 PM

Something like that must be out of my budget. I shall go 1Utama or MidValley soon, to search for my watch.
I know RM500 is a tight budget but I'm only a student. No choice lo.

Well the vendor wanted RM18K for the version without the COSC certification!! . Have to think long & hard first before moving ahead with the purchase. The non-date Subs are no longer featured on Rolex's web catalogue which may have given rise to the rumor of it's impending obsolescence .

Wow, RM18k is quite a premier for it.
It is really a NOS? It is strange that the watch can't sell and keep it at least for 3 years. Is it form a local AD?

thats is out of your budget.
not everyone here has a rich dad and is able to make 5k a mth working part time.
I understand. nonetheless try brands like Orient/Seiko/Citizen. U should have no problem finding something on leather. Steel bracelet generally cost more.

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Added on August 4, 2010, 1:01 amalot of speculation around Rolex.
Daytona on Zenith El Primero sure fetch good price. Movado on Zenith El Primero, not really.

I am not in the shape to speculate and make good money on Rolex/watches. Those AD always jack up prices once news is out. The used Sea Dweller prices did jump alot and 1 could cost more than the replacement model! I think prices gone down a little.

not base in the region, I cannot get any deals on Rolex. Was at topper this weekend and Rolexs are sold at retail price! even those pre-own generally cost RM2-3K higher here.


This post has been edited by patryn33: Aug 4 2010, 01:01 AM