53 millimeters of steaming hot steel from San Marino. It’s massive, it’s sexy, it’s red and black, it’s got three movements, and it’s from the coolest little country noone’s ever heard of.

With a chrono and two other time displays, this beast from the mountains surrounded by Italy is awesome. The movements are Miyota, it also comes in a silver dial with black hands and an all black model, and it comes in a heavy duty, air tight, carrying case. With the cut-outs on the dial and exposed allen screw heads, this watch has the whole heavy industrial look like nobody else, which is really ironic from a quaint little nation that you could walk across in a morning (in good mountain boots).
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The Dievas Vintage 2533; inspired by a Panerai prototype from the 1930s, the Dievas Vintage 2533 is a magnificent lump of contradictions. Big, but comfortable, sized like a status watch, Spartan in design and function while still being handsome, simple, but sublime. And the dial is perfect for eyes that aren’t what they used to be. Read more…

And Success! An analog tide watch that meets the need.

The Rip Curl Tidemaster watches have what a body needs on the beach. When you’re carrying your fins, mask, and snorkel or your surfboard out the the jeep, you don’t want to have to run back to check the tide charts. Rather than bother with the chart in the newspaper or on the web, carry the current tide information with you.

The Rip Curl Tidemaster Automatic Tide System (ATS) gives you an easily read and intuitive display of tide data. Two sub-dials provide tide information. The one at 3:00 indicates the current tide and is marked in thirty minute intervals. High, low, coming or going out is discernable at a glance, and with only slighty more effort you can read the time to or since the tide you’re interested in. The second subdial at 9:00 is for spring and neap tides, indicating how great the difference between high and low tide will be (spring tides are the extreme of difference, and neap are the least change between high and low). Comparing the two dials give you a good idea of what sort of tides and water levels are waiting for you on the reef and allow for some degree of planning for the day.

The watch is a bit on the chunky side at 43-44mm w/o the crown, and not quite 12mm thick. The hands are silver. Because of this, you may prefer the black dial to the silver dial as the lack of contrast makes it a little difficult to read. The luminous material on the hands is adequate, but there is no luminous reference on the dial, making it less friendly at night. The date is a little small but legible. The moon phase display is easily read and adjusted. The unidirectional bezel is calibrated as a conventional dive bezel, but also has markings to help track surf heats (gives you the time remaining out of twenty minutes). And the crown is well protected by ears on the case. The polyurethane strap has an excellent feel to it, solid and comfortable despite the weight of the watch, but I’ve had bad experiences with PU straps and and adopting the “wait and see” position on that.
On the plus side, the strap will fit over a wetsuit, or can fit your little grom’s wrist.

There are several traits to quibble over on this watch, but it fits the need for a tide watch well and is solid and comfortable, and there are several other models with this movement (including the titanium case and bracelet… Nice!)

Van

I recently developed a burning need for a watch that displays tides. No, not the University of Alabama Crimson Tides, the ocean’s tides. High tide, low tide, slack tide, whether the tide is coming in or going out have much more import for me than ever before.

This calls for a new watch.
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The Eins B from Kazimon Watches in Netherland is a handsome watch with a little extra flair. This 39mm watch with a black face, white markings and hands, and red highlights has a good balance of class and color. An ETA 2824-2 movement in a stainless steel case, with a sapphire crystal, and rated to 100m water resistence. The watches are made in Germany for this Dutch Company. It is available directly from the manufacturer for 790 Euros, a fair price for a European made watch with a Swiss movement.
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Anders Tan at Gnomon Watches rolled out a new model that has it going on.

Start with a first rate movement, like the ETA 2452 automatic, put it in a watch styled after World War II German pilots’ watches, and jazz it up with some color. This is a complete winner. Big, but not too big at 42.5mm, with a simple, classic dial, this could have been a ‘so what’ watch, but Anders added red hands and blue lumincent markings that add just enough, but not too much flash.

Watching Ander’s line grow and mature has been a real pleasure. This one shows a great balance of class, taste, and style, and an interesting direction for his line. I am itching to see the next one.

Pink tritium illumination; now there’s something you don’t see every day

A 44mm lady’s watch, water resistant to 100m, with tritium illumination. Pink tritium illumination. Words fail me. And in a brilliant (one might say ‘glowing’) example of things that can be done whether or not they should be done, Traser is attempting to enter the lady’s watch market.

MB-Microtec manufactures the tiny little glowing tubes full of tritium (an isotope of hydrogen) used in Luminox, Marathon, and other watches. Traser is their own brand of watches. Until a few years ago, they had been focused on the military and law enforcement markets, with utilitarian, heavily water resistant models. Then they released a few models with automatic movements and very gradually experimented with styling beyond the strict utilitarian. They’ve always shown good taste in movements, sticking with ETA and Ronda. And now they have made a leap, surprising in both direction and scale with these lady’s models. Pink, powder blue, rose gold, mother-of-pearl, Swarovski crystals, and pink illumination are a far cry from the matte black and synthetics that they started with. The range includes basic three hand watches, subdial chronographs, and an alarm model with leather and silicone straps and a steel bracelet as an option for the alarm model.
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If you don’t really look, it’s a conservative, 42mm watch based on the workhorse automatic movement of Europe, the ETA 2824. But it has only one hand. No minutes, seconds, or day, just an hour hand. Look a little closer, and you’ll note that there are too many hash marks between the hours. The markings are five minute increments between the hours. Wait, what?
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I have nothing but respect for competent, innovative marketing tactics. But when marketers fail to their homework and are clumsy with an unconventional approach, I will be first in line to call the ugly baby ugly.

Stephen D Time tried a clumsy attempt at guerrilla marketing on Amazon.com. A shill entered into the discussion groups spouting the merits of Stephen D watches in a forum inhabited by a number of watch nerds, including yours truly. Rather than rant and flame, I tried to be open and look at the merits of the watch.
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Yes Watch appeals to me on several levels. The complexity of all the things it does goes straight to the inner nerd. The utility of the things it does is a siren call to pragmatist. The simplicity of the design draws the aesthete. And for their 10th anniversary, they re-released their original concept. This is a sweet timepiece.
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A pet peeve of mine – using the words accuracy and precision incorrectly, and failing to make a distinction between the two.

Accuracy;
“degree of conformity of a measure to a standard or a true value”
accuracy. (2008). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
Retrieved October 6, 2008, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/accuracy

Precision;
“the degree of refinement with which an operation is performed or a measurement stated”
precision. (2008). In Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary.
Retrieved October 6, 2008, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/precision

In watches, accuracy is how well the watch keeps time and reflects the time according to an accepted standard. That is to say, how many seconds the watch gains or loses in a given period and how close it is to the Observatory clock. A Movado with no markings may be as accurate as an Omega with a similar movement, if they gain or lose time similarly (so many seconds a week, for example) and are set correctly.
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Reactor was kind enough to give me a Fall Out for evaluation. This is a watch ready for harsh treatment. Reactor mills a billet of stainless steel and embeds a first rate Japanese movement under a heavy duty, domed crystal. The bracelet is attached with machined rods of steel with hex head screws. This thing is better made than a Russian tank.
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I’m usually a function over form type of guy, but the Oakley watches have frequently struck a chord with me. The Timebomb™ really stood out in the crowd, as did the GMT. But these were originally listed well over $1000, and for a watch based on a Seiko movement, I can’t get there from here. I eventually ended up with both of those watches, but had been able to negotiate a better price. I like these watches a lot, but not at full price.

Oakley has released some new watches, but now the prices are a little more reasonable. The two that jumped out at me are the JUDGE® II Dual Time, and the 10th Mountain Division HOLESHOT™ Watch. The Judge Dual Time is a little steep at a list price of $825 ($725 for the leather strap), but the Holeshot is a little more reasonable at $550.
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I’ve done too many pieces on watches out of the price range of mere mortals, now for a serious timepiece that working Joe’s (and Jill’s) can afford. From one of the creators of Freestyle watches, we get Reactor watches. Jimmy Olmes split off from Freestyle a few years ago and has approached watches from a new direction. The over-riding objectives were the durability needed by action sports athletes and to develop a distinctive style. They succeded, and went on to create some very tasteful watches that wouldn’t look out of place with a suit while still being designed to bear up under the lifestyle of active people. They also made some really chunky watersports (and snow sports, rockclimbing, etc) watches that look excellent.
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Badollet is a venerable name in watches, going back over 350 years in France. Today, a maker of luxury watches headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland bears this name. There was a disruption in their trade during the French Revolution, and break in continuity of the Badollet as watchmakers from the 1920s to 2006, but the name has returned.
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