Mechanical Watches

Piso Mojado said:
If you don't mind going east, try a Vostok Amphibia.

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$65 to $70 + $15 postage from Russia. You will want to replace the bracelet, but the Cold War is over and you can wear a Russian watch on a NATO strap. Figure $100 total cost for a 200M divers' watch.

A Vostok Komandirskie is around $40 + $15 postage.

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In case you didn't guess, these are military-style field watches. They come with tanks, submarines, guided missle cruisers, the KGB sword logo (!), or just a red star if you want to be discreet. 100M water resistance and a 17 jewel movement, but they work. You will really want to replace the strap or bracelet.
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I had the same watch the airborne one got it in the 80s wore it for a long time before i killed it was a good watch . Got mine from a surplus store bet you can still find them in the states.
 
docbp87 said:
Seiko SNK805

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Runs about 65 bucks. Automatic movement, decent lume, looks awesome on a NATO or ZULU strap.
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I have this exact watch and wear it everyday. I got a NATO strap and also a leather pilot style strap with rivets if I wanna dress it up a little. I love mine, runs great. I would say the only thing you have to be careful of is some particular samples don't keep the best time, so I would wear it carefully for a week to see if you got a good one, if not, then exchange it. I've had 3 total, 1 got lost, 1 broke after I dropped it one too many times, only 1 of them had an issue (it lost about 1 minute per day). Since it's a mechanical, this really isn't a huge problem for me because I end up resetting it every few days anyway.

I am pretty tough on my watches, bang em on everything (no, not on purpose), and this watch has been a champ. The one that I had that broke was with me for 3 years of pretty rough use and it finally broke after I dropped it on concrete and one of the hands broke off. The watch also comes in black, green, tan, and blue
 
Piso Mojado said:
If you don't mind going east, try a Vostok Amphibia.

$65 to $70 + $15 postage from Russia. You will want to replace the bracelet, but the Cold War is over and you can wear a Russian watch on a NATO strap. Figure $100 total cost for a 200M divers' watch.

A Vostok Komandirskie is around $40 + $15 postage.

In case you didn't guess, these are military-style field watches. They come with tanks, submarines, guided missle cruisers, the KGB sword logo (!), or just a red star if you want to be discreet. 100M water resistance and a 17 jewel movement, but they work. You will really want to replace the strap or bracelet.
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X2 on the Russian Vostok Amphibia. I have the "Scuba Dude" version, and love it. I wear it a lot even though I have mechanical/automatic watches that cost much, much more. I can't post links for these but if you search on a certain, popular auction site, you can easily find them.

A notch up in price, but an excellent watch would be the Seiko SKX007 series for around $200 new. They're great.
 
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Just ordered one of the Maratac SR-35 watches last week. First winding watch I've had in about 35 years so I expect a bit of a learning curve.
 
LEGION 12 said:
Question for some of the youth challenged people. Does anyone remember the dive watch Sears used to sell that was packed in a clear plastic tube filled with water?
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That description evokes minds-eye images of a Citizen dive watch that had a depth sensor built in (and proudly displayed as a bump-out on the side of the watch).

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Maratac watch arrived today. Very nice, also came with a watch taco that I don't recall being mentioned on the description. Some pics to follow after I've worn it for a bit.

And yes it was still running after a long drive up from the San Francisco area to the interior of BC.
 
So a week in and it's looking like its' gained about a minute and 5 seconds so sounding pretty good for this level of mechanical watch.
 
Yikes, you shouldn't be gaining that much in a week. I gain 20 seconds a month.
 
Charlie Mike said:
Yikes, you shouldn't be gaining that much in a week. I gain 20 seconds a month.
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I haven't given it the leave it on it's side, then it's top, and so on routine. From what I read that's in the ball park for this particular movement. I'll probably set the time again tonight and see how it's running after 2 weeks of wear.
 
Definitely try that or have it regulated. I had an ETA movement watch that ran +10 per day. Ended up taking it to my watch guy and had it adjusted to +4.
 
Charlie Mike said:
Yikes, you shouldn't be gaining that much in a week. I gain 20 seconds a month.
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20 sec. per month is very good for a mechanical watch. The standards for COSC to be qualified as a certified chronometer are something like +6/-4 per day.

There are cheap quartz watches that may not do 20 seconds a month. From my experience the V7750, the ETA movements such as 2824 and 2892, and some of the better Seiko such as 6R15 can get close to COSC standards. The more common Seiko 7S26 movement while many people report them within 20 per day, I've owned over 10 of them and they were all over 30 per day. The even cheaper citizen movements that you find in lots of various small brands might be doing good to do 2 minutes per day. I had one that did 2 minutes per day so I made a few attempts at regulating it. What I found was I might get it to do within 5 sec one day but the next day it might be 1 minute, it just varied a lot from day to day.

It is rare to find a watch enthusiast that wears a watch more than a few days at a time so accuracy really doesn't matter all that much. (Similar to knife enthusiasts that carry a different knife every day.)
 
+20 seconds/month is a Rolex Deepsea.
 
But my 7750 run +3 seconds/day. I've heard that a chronograph will always be less accurate than a time of day only watch.15111988882002003442821.jpg
 
Charlie Mike said:
But my 7750 run +3 seconds/day. I've heard that a chronograph will always be less accurate than a time of day only watch
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I don't think there is any reason for that unless you are using the chronograph a lot. The V7750 in your watch is as good as any mechanical movement that 3rd party watchmakers can buy. Some mechanical chronographs actually are a mechanical movement with a chrono module piggy backed onto it, so when the chronograph is not running it is as if it's not there. Movements with integrated chronographs might function the same way for all I know. And +3 per day is very good for a mechanical movement.
 
I use mine a lot... Heat treating with the Evenheat and tempering in the kitchen are why I bought it.
 
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