RouseWorld | Wayward Packet -- For the Week of 1/23/05

For the Week of 1/23/05

What time is it?

(RouseWorld Labs) — It has been a long time since I've worn a watch.

The last watch I can remember actually wearing is a little "Stunt" Swiss quartz wristwatch that was a graduation or Christmas gift in 1986. I think it lasted until the early 90s. Before that I remember a mechanical watch I managed to ruin as a child, a few digital watches, and there is a quartz Lorus watch in my junk bin that I might have gotten after the Stunt died.

Since that time I often carry around three electronic devices (cell phone, Palm and iPod) — all of which tell the time. It seems silly to wear a watch, when most cell phones sync with a reliable time signal and other electronic devices are just as capable of keeping accurate time as any kind of wristwatch.

Even still, I do like mechanical things.

Until I got my first digital camera — and left the darkroom for good — all of my cameras were essentially mechanical, from a Nikon FM2 to a view camera. I even bought an old Bolex 8mm camera (sadly not one of the 16mm cameras).

Levers and gears, shiny bits of metal (or metal with black enamel) alongside leather, can make for both compelling design and reliable equipment. Analog watches, in particular the rare breeds of mechanical watches, are the modern standard bearers of old-style mechanical design — particularly now that almost all professional cameras are either mostly electronic or fully digital.

And yet, the precision and reliability of modern microprocessor electronics is amazing. The manufacturing craft needed to create a 178 million transistor microprocessor seems worlds beyond even well executed guilloché engraving. And although the tiny gears of a watch can be works of art, have you ever seen the mechanism of a modern hard drive?

A reasonable person would just be happy with the cell phone's clock.

I can't remember exactly when and why I started to get interested in mechanical watches. Perhaps the first spark happened while reading about William Gibson collecting watches through eBay. And perhaps he had the best explanation of why these atavistic devices were so attractive:

But mechanical watches partake of what my friend John Clute calls the Tamagotchi Gesture. They're pointless in a peculiarly needful way; they're comforting precisely because they require tending.

So I was interested, but not interested enough. I'm not one who is into jewelry and watches are pretty much jewelry, no matter how functional they are.

A few years later I happened across the Time Zone website, a gathering place for watch enthusiasts and collectors. Aside from the forums there are a number of watch reviews and technical articles that serve as a good introduction to mechanical wristwatches, from history to current manufacturers. Learning about watches, of course, made me even more interested in owning one.

Now the problem was expense.

As a rather extreme example, you can spend $8,000 for a Breguet Aeronavale. This would be a sports watch — not something in gold or platinum but stainless steel. A nicer dress watch from Breguet might cost $34,000. Well, I'm not looking for a watch from a company that has been making them since the 18th century, but even the less exotic mechanical watches can be $1,000 to $2,000 and up.

After some looking around I discovered a company called Glycine that made some almost affordable watches. But even at the time I was looking the they were in the $400 to $500 price range, a bit more than I wanted to pay for a watch.

I eventually discovered the Russian watch company Volmax through (if I'm remembering correctly) a Time Zone article. The company is interesting because it makes its own mechanical movements (in two lines, "Poljot" and "Molnija") and because they are relatively inexpensive.

After looking around, I decided what I really wanted was one of the Molnija 3603s in a Buran case. These watches have clean lines, but interesting faces. A little dressy, perhaps, but they did have a bunch of Cyrillic writing which seemed fun. I talked to the folks at Russia2all and for about $120 they sent me one.

I was pleased with the watch, although the dark dial made reading the hands a little difficult. Then, unfortunately, the mechanism stopped. The folks at Russia2all were really nice about it and let me choose another watch. I choose a watch that doesn't have any Cyrillic on it at all, in fact it is just marked "Classic" and has a stylized knot as a logo. The mechanism is an older Molnija 3602. But it does have a white face, which seems more readable to me.

Here is it is:

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but the watch face is very Breguet-ish, although the hands don't have a hollow at the ends. The face is engraved (or stamped) in a machine-turned pattern, except for the seconds dial and where the roman numbers are printed. Nice, but hopefully not too blingy.

The design of the face aside, the watch is large and loud. With a movement originally designed for pocket-watches it measures 45mm across and is 12mm thick. Depending on my surroundings the ticking can be audible with the thing several feet from my ear. It isn't too heavy, but does have a substantial feel to it.

What makes it fun is the "Classic" mark. I can't find notice of this brand anywhere, so it could be a grey-market import.

As with many mechanical watches these days, the watch has a display back — a little glass window that allows you to see the watch mechanism in action. The mechanism's finish isn't as nice as more expensive watches (that often don't have the display back) but it does have the Côte de Genève polishing patterns on the big metal pieces, blued screws and nicely colored jewels. Some beveling was done, but it isn't really fancy.

Of course about the only thing that moves enough that you can see it is the balance wheel, which is the "heart beat" of the clock and the escapement, which regulates that heart beat. In the picture the balance wheel is off-center gold-colored wheel to the right side of the watch. The picture was taken at about 1/4 second exposure, so the wheel is a bit blurred.

I've worn it for a few days now, and so far I've been very happy with it. Again, it seems pointless to have one, but it is pleasantly pointless.

So what is next? I'd kind of like to get a HMT watch from India. Those seem like another under-appreciated non-european brand.