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There needs to be a slashdot poll to see how many people still wear watches. It has to be a dwindling number.

Going by the increasing number of fans at places like TimeZone, Watchuseek, and Styleforum, I would say that it's not.

Besides, a lot of folks do not wear watches for time, but more as a piece of jewelry. Besides, a good watch goes with a good outfit -- there is no denying the aesthetic value of a watch.

I also travel and move around between time zones a lot (i.e. multiple times a week). So, for one, my cellphone doesn't work everywhere I go. For another, even if it does work, my cellphone tells me the local time while my watch tells me the time at home.

Rolex DOES NOT use the ETA movements; in some parts of the world they sell a brand known as 'Tudor', which does use the ETA movement.

It's a subtle difference, one that makes me question your other conclusions.

However I do agree with your points about the other watches, however let's be realistic - you can get a new Rolex for maybe £2K (sterling); a Patek will set you back at least ten times that.

So is that Patek really good value for money?

I was just reading about this (hideously expensive prototype) watch, the Seiko Spring Drive.

It is a mechanical self-winding watch (an eccentric rotor winds the mainspring as you move about; nothing extraordinary per se), BUT it doesn't have the conventional mechanical escapement and balance wheel of a mechanical watch; instead, it has a tiny generator (a magnetic rotor and a set of stationary coils) that powers a chip with a quartz oscillator; the chip senses the speed of the rotor and varies the load on the coils to regulate the drag on the rotor and thus the rate of the watch.

The result is a batteryless, self-winding quartz-regulated analog mechanical watch. Very cool, and only costs about as much as a low-end SUV... I would not be at all surprised to see a future version with a radio receiver for time signals. In a decade or so, the technology may filter down to where ordinary mortals can afford such a watch. Or possibly not...

Most of the recommendations on here are for modern, tacky stuff. Fun stuff, for certain. However, if you are looking to start a collection of traditional watches, you should look at Oris. They have a very good reputation for creating high-quality, affordable, automatic watches.
http://www.oris.ch/

One great source for heavy discounts on fine watches is Bernard Watch.
http://www.bernardwatch.com/

If I were going to shop for a Rolex or, more likely, an Omega, this is where I'd go. Multi-thousand dollar discounts sometimes. You often won't get the manufacturer warranty, but he'll stand behind the watch himself. Many TZers (http://www.timezone.com/) have recommended him in the past and I've bought from him no problem.

I also find the IWC watches to be beautiful, technically interesting, and highly regarded.
https://www.iwc.ch/

Have fun!

A few years back, I decided I wanted a "nice" watch...even though I'm surrounded by clocks, I still wanted something nice for my wrist. (it's about the only jewelry I wear, aside from my wedding ring).

As I looked, I was astounded at what was out there in the watch world. Unfortunatly, it's difficult to get really good information on all watches (manufacturers' sites are full of flash, and any Google search generally turns up thousands of fly-by-night outfits). I quickly decided I wanted something elegant, analog, and with a few key features (perpetual calendar, especially, 'cause I'm sick of resetting the date every month).

Some watches I looked at:

* The Yes Watch - Very cool concept, especially with the solar focus, the moon phase, and the day/night display. I decided against it because I didn't like the look of the LCD. If they'd used a pair of overlapping black wedges or something instead of individual LCD bars for the day/night display, and maybe a small analog dial instead of the digital time readout, then I'd probably have bought one. (again, I was focusing on mechanical (or at least semi-mechanical like a quartz).

* The Epos Emotion is especially nice. Very simple and elegant (that is, not gaudy like some seem to get), with a nice triple-date feature and a moon dial. This is my current favorite, but the nearest dealer is in New York, IIRC, and I'm not about to drop a kilobuck on something I haven't at least held in my hands, and definitely not from the grey-market resellers on the web.

* I briefly looked at Breitling, and while some of those are very nice and interestingly complex, most of them were too busy-looking for my tastes. (the same goes for some of the Citizen models...cool stuff, but I really don't need an aircraft fuel consumption slide rule on my wrist.) (now, if they had a regular slide rule, that'd be cool).

* While browsing through a very high-end watch store in Tysons Corner, VA, I picked up a free "magazine" that turned out to be a promotional rag for the International Watch Company. It had a great article about their Grand Complication, which sells for a cool quarter-million a piece. A sidebar article by their customer support team had some great stories, about people who own them complaining abut it stopping working after an ocean swim (he'd damaged the crystal beforehand), and another person complaining that the the chimes were inconsistent on his two watches (yes, he owned *two* of these...presumably one gold, and one platinum, and he was annoyed that the tones were a bit off).

* And I don't remember how I found this one, but the granddaddy (as far as I've seen) for complications and cost is the dual-faced Patek Phillipe Sky Moon Tourbillon. I seem to remember they go for multiple millions of dollars a piece.

* I ended up buying a Tissot New Titanium. It's not an automatic, but it's got some good features I like. Perpetual calendar (though on an LCD display), alarm, chrono, sapphire crystal, and a titanium band / case. Unfortunatly, this was never available in the US and I had to order from a company in Switzerland (who sent along a box of chocolate with it :) ). I think it may be discontinued, too... (I can't even find it on their webpage anymore, which highlights my previous comment about the difficulty of finding good information online).

What I'd really like to know is how one can get into collecting such expensive timepieces. Somehow, I imagine that you'd have t

How about a nice Gyrotourbillon? It'll only set you back oh, maybe a quarter of a million USD. That or something with a minute repeater. Anything else is pure junk.

And judging from the pictures on that page, they're hand-made by Richard Stallman!

Cabestan

Ulysse Nardin Freak

Parmigiani Fleurier Bugatti Type 370

Jaeger-LeCoultre Gyrotourbillon

Urwerk Control Board

How about a nice Gyrotourbillon? It'll only set you back oh, maybe a quarter of a million USD. That or something with a minute repeater. Anything else is pure junk.

Most high-class watches are automatic, i.e. self-winding.

Here's a mechanical watch FAQ.

"2.2 How does an automatic mechanism work? All self-winding watches work on the principle of converting arm motion (kinetic energy) into the winding of the mainspring (potential energy). Usually, this is performed by a half-disc of metal weighted at the edge called a rotor, which spins when the wearer's arm is accelerated unpredictably (that is, when moved normally in the course of everyday life). This rotary motion is then geared down to wind the central arbor of the mainspring."

and

"2.2.1 Are the Seiko Kinetic / Autoquartz therefore Automatics? Not quite, but close. The Seiko Kinetic and ETA Autoquartz movements are quartz movements. However, they use a rotor system similar to those used by automatics. The difference is that the rotor's motion is converted to electricity, which is then used to charge a capacitor. The quartz movement then draws current from the capacitor as if it were a battery."

Your second link is to a device that slowly rotates the watch to keep it from stopping when you're not wearing it.

I totally agree... I think of rolex's as just fancy jewelery that you can buy in any mall in america. I prefer unique and technologically advanced watches. (I've had my hardened titanium ventura for 4 years and it's totally scratch-free and I haven't met another person wearing one) But, the Woman's Rolex automatic Oyster Datejust is the most consistently precise and accurate movement tested by COSC, so you've got to give them some credit.

Today microsoft released the first service pack for it's Spot line of watches. When the microsoft programmers who designed this watch were informed that New York and London have a five hour time difference rather than one, the blushing engineers claimed "but it looks so close on the map".

Open source enthusiasts responded: "this is yet another case of microsoft taking an open standard and mostly complying with it, but then perverting it enough to become incompatible with the rest of the world. They are clearly abusing their monopoly position in operating systems to force changes in world timekeeping."

Service pack 2 (to be released on Febsoft 29th, 2004) will hopefully also correct the direction of the earth's spin. Normally, London time is New York time + 5 hours, not - 1 hour.

+ The site must be on running on the watch too.

+ Their server needs to keep up with the times if they're going to survive a /.

+ Are you telling me that the MSFT watch just BSODd?

So many jokes, so little time.

Oops I did it again, I'll STOP now.

Damn, yet another. I'm done now, seriously....

Is it just me, or do these prototype designs look really bad?

Am I supposed to believe that Microsoft just hired someone from a forum/enthusiast site, and asked them to come up with new designs?

When are they going to realize that if you want to create lifestyle products, design/looks has to be a number one concern? I really don't see it reflected in the current protoype images. I've seen better simulated clockfaces on my 3Com Palm III!!!

MS needs to buy a clue from the Mac design team... become user oriented already!!!!

Why do half of these ads look like they're straight from a fark.com photoshop contest?

Notice in this picture - it shows MSFT stock is down. Nice marketing images designer >:-)

This image shows the watch, complete with BSOD. Sorry - I saw it, had to comment...

If you're into mechanical watches, check out www.timezone.com. It's a website for watch geeks with an active message board.

The Steven Phillips watches built here look awfully impressive. Too bad about the style, particularly the enamelling. There's a reason perlage is the standard movement decoration.

Ok, so I've gotten into this geocaching thing lately, and while working on a cache to be hidden in about 60 feet of water off the coast, it occured to me that a blinking LED might make it easier for divers to spot. No problem, whip up a blinker circuit with an LM3909 and a super-bright green LED and we're set. But what about power? Sure, four D-cells would let it run for close to a decade, but where's the fun in that? The undersea environment is quite dynamic, and there's got to be some power down there that can be harnessed. What I need are some ideas on how to do that.

We keep seeing stories here about tidal power, and that's cool, but I don't see how it can be done without a column rising all the way to the surface. So here are the ideas I've got right now. Keep in mind that the device will probably be housed in a length of 4-inch PVC or ABS pipe, and it needs about 0.5 ma at 1.5 volts:

• Surge power. Put a couple of funnels back-to-back with a CPU cooling fan-sized turbine and generator in the middle, and run the output through a rectifier and capacitor. But how reliable will those moving parts be after years underwater?
• Self-winding watch concept. Float the thing tethered to the bottom and install some sort of pendulum inside with a magnet on it, moving through a coil. The moving parts are protected, but will it be enough power?
• Yank the chain. Again, tether it, but use the varying tension on the tether to drive a dynamo of some sort.
• Nukes. Anyone got a spare radioisotope thermoelectric generator? Any idea how many smoke detectors I'd need to cannibalize to get enough Americium-241?
• Magnetohydrodynamic generator. Like the surge power thing, but using the flow of cunductive seawater through a magnetic field to generate a current. I have no idea how much power this would generate, if any, or how to deal with ion accumulation at the electrodes.

The generator need not fit inside the 4-inch cache tube, but it shouldn't be huge, either. It needs to be practical to build, and not terribly expensive. Above all it's got to be reliable and enduring. Any ideas?

Mechanical watches are made by dozens of companies today, including Swiss Rolex, Omega, IWC and dozens of others, even Swatch. Even Seiko makes mechanicals (although mostly for the Asian market). The Chinese make a bunch of cheap movements and the Russian company Poljot makes an interesting line of affordable watches. Accuracy ranges from +/- 1 second per day on high-end Swiss watches to +/- 20 seconds per day on the Russians. In general anything under +/- 6 seconds per day is considered good. However, there can be a great deal of variation from watch to watch. Rolex, Omega and other mass market companies do little or no hand work in their mass market lines. When you get to a company link JLC, and others, every watch gets some hand fit and finish. However, none of them can be wound only once per month. Most have about a 40 hour power reserve. A few have an 8 day reserve (notably an IWC, and an Eberhard. Of course just about every company offers an automatic watch that is wound by the movement of the wrist through out the day. Those watches should "never" need winding if worn every day or two. Everything you ever wanted to know about mechanical watches can be found at Timezone. Be forewarned, most of these guys think of watches under about $5,000 as "mid priced".

Mechanical watches are made by dozens of companies today, including Swiss Rolex, Omega, IWC and dozens of others, even Swatch. Even Seiko makes mechanicals (although mostly for the Asian market). The Chinese make a bunch of cheap movements and the Russian company Poljot makes an interesting line of affordable watches. Accuracy ranges from +/- 1 second per day on high-end Swiss watches to +/- 20 seconds per day on the Russians. In general anything under +/- 6 seconds per day is considered good. However, there can be a great deal of variation from watch to watch. Rolex, Omega and other mass market companies do little or no hand work in their mass market lines. When you get to a company link JLC, and others, every watch gets some hand fit and finish. However, none of them can be wound only once per month. Most have about a 40 hour power reserve. A few have an 8 day reserve (notably an IWC, and an Eberhard. Of course just about every company offers an automatic watch that is wound by the movement of the wrist through out the day. Those watches should "never" need winding if worn every day or two. Everything you ever wanted to know about mechanical watches can be found at Timezone. Be forewarned, most of these guys think of watches under about $5,000 as "mid priced".

Mine is a Seiko 5, was US $130, after spending $30 on a black leather strap because the included bracelet pinched my wrist hairs. Seiko 5's, when new, range in price from maybe 70 to over 200 bucks.

Citizen and Orient also make new automatics in this price range; I had my eye set on a US $160 orient automatic, titanium with display back, but I went for the Seiko because I like the brand better.

Also, someone mentioned vintage watches which are a good way to get a good automatic at great value.

Finally, as someone also mentioned, you could justify spending maybe a thousand dollars on a good automatic watch (among those in the know, $1000 is not considered a lot of money for a watch), knowing that the watch is likely to outlast you.

There's plenty of watch information on the net, visit timezone for tons of information and discussion forums.