Meant to head out at 0430 or 0500 to beat the heat but we’re away for the weekend and my four-year-old daughter had crawled into bed. Tried to extricate myself slowly.
Her eyes shot open: “Where are you going?”
“To exercise.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Never mind just go back to sleep.”
Still managed to get out there before it got too hot. Pace was a little slow since I fielded birthday calls from my whole family.
In some ways my tastes have changed over the years. And in some ways they haven’t.
Early on I liked whacky watches. Skeletons. Micro and indie brands.
I also felt the need to check boxes: field, aviator, chrono…
I always preferred mechanical. But there are a few quartz pieces that caught my eye. (My quartz PRX is at my office with my emergency blazer.)
Throughout I’ve had a special place in my heart for divers.
Sometimes I buy junky Chinese “homages” to see if I should pull the trigger on the real thing.
These days I just buy what I like. And I buy a lot less frequently.
Hi all, appreciate your eyes on this QC. LMK if you'd GL.
Dealer name: TheOneWatch
Factory name: VSF
Model name (& version number): Seamaster 300m 42mm SS/SS Black Dial
Price Paid: $398
Album Links: https://mega.nz/folder/3YwFGJZS#cPLZLX1ZzGhVfojJ-al7Og
Index alignment: Alignment looks good to my untrained eyes
Dial Printing: Looks very good to me
Date Wheel alignment/printing: Seems right
Hand Alignment: Looks good
Bezel: Might be half a click off
Solid End Links (SELs): No idea
Timegrapher numbers: +4–5spd / amp 272° / ERR 0.1ms
Anything else you notice: Overall it looks pretty solid to me.
Here’s my whole collection. I have a Tissot PRX, a Seiko 5, an Amazon special, something from India that was advertised on Instagram, a fucking G-Shock, and one luxury piece — a Tag Carrera. All of them have black or dark blue dials. Jesus Christ. Is that a smart watch unironically nestled in the box? You know that needs to charge, right? Oh my God. You put it there just for the photo. I bet you’re not wearing any pants.
“Where do I go next?” asks OP — a lost soul who is genuinely, tremendously insecure; simultaneously proud of the arbitrary assortment of timepieces no one has ever noticed; and who gives no shits about your answer.
“Hamilton!” one of you very average specimens comments. “Swatch x AP” says the jokester among us. “Doxa sub 200” suggests one of you generous souls who’s never met OP but actually thought about it. “Tudor 1926” says someone seriously engaged yet earnestly out of touch.
OP doesn’t listen to any of that shit. If he’s even looking to add another watch, it’s already in the cart. It’s an Orient Bambino or something. What an amazing value! An in-house movement for only $200! With a white face. Just to really mix things up — to truly sample the spice of life — and take this expertly curated private exhibit to the next level.
And the wheel keeps turning: the circle jerk of un-sophisticates posting shitty performative photos of all their watches at once — their pride and joy, their modest amalgamation of middling horological accomplishments — before ignoring everyone whose advice they’ve just nominally solicited. (Or worse: they might actually listen.)
Panerai makes one watch. They have made one watch since 1993. Sometimes they make it in a slightly different metal. Sometimes they put the crown on the left side. The starting price is $7,000.
At least they finally put an in-house movement inside in 2018.
Panerai buyers are the only people in watch collecting who say “wrist presence” unironically, as if the correct response to buying a watch the size of a hockey puck is to rebrand the problem as a feature.
The fans will tell you Panerai has “Italian soul” — which is generous, given that it was made for the Italian Navy. The Italian Navy! Does Italy even still have a navy? This is the same naval force that, in World War II, deployed frogmen strapped to torpedoes because they couldn’t figure out how to make submarines that could get the job done. (Are we sure this wasn’t originally made for the Polish Coast Guard?) These guys needed a watch that was legible in low visibility because visibility was the least of their problems. The watch outlasted the mission profile by about 70 years and is now sold in boutiques next to cologne.
Now it’s a status symbol for 50-year-old finance bros who watched “The White Lotus” and decided Michael Imperioli’s Dominic Di Grasso — a man whose defining character trait is flying to Sicily to cheat on his wife while processing childhood trauma in real time — was actually kind of aspirational.
And here’s the kicker: Panerai’s aesthetic lives and dies on a thick, distressed leather strap.
A dive watch. On leather.
Leather — a material that rots when wet, stretches when humid, and smells like a soaked dog on a hot afternoon — is the stock choice for a watch built for underwater combat operations.
The rubber strap option exists, but nobody wears it, because rubber doesn’t say “rugged Italian heritage.” So instead, Panerai owners swap in a gorgeous honey-tan leather strap, wear it to brunch in the West Village, where they try to explain how utilitarian the thing is to their very uninterested dates.
The strap is nice though. I’ll give them the strap.
OK. I’m finished.
This is a safe space. Paneristi, feel free to roast me back.
You should take your A-11 / MIL-W-3818A / MIL-W-3818B field watches and toss them in the trash. Or leave them with your WW2 cosplay costume. The only “official” modern military watch is the unofficial issue G-Shock. You can run it over with a tank, drag it through dirt and sand and leave it a the bottom of the ocean for a few days and it’ll still work.
Anyone else having problems with RuckWell lately? It’s been pausing in the middle of my rucks and recording only half my data / doubling my pace. Think it started after latest iOS update. There’s also a new auto-pause option in the app, which I’ve deactivated.
First rep. Pretty impressed with the finish. Aqua Terra 38mm via Steve.
Barely taking it off. Just woke up from couch nap.
My modest grail [Doxa Sub300t]
I came home Wednesday night after a 12-hour day and poured myself two fingers of decent bourbon. The house was quiet. My wife and kids had long since gone to sleep. The dogs curled up at my feet. After midnight, I opened the FedEx box.
Cool packaging. Almost missed the rubber strap — thought they hadn't included it. But it was wrapped in paper and tucked into the corner of the box. I couldn't find my spring bar tool, so I snuck into the bedroom with my phone flashlight, hunting around without waking my wife. I was afraid to cut the rubber to size, so I went one section at a time. By 1 a.m. the fit was perfect.
This was a purchase five years in the making. I bought the watch as a gift to myself. I just marked a career-defining and life-changing promotion. My family was lucky and we had an unexpectedly modest but meaningful windfall. And I just had rotator cuff surgery and was in need of a moment of small, private joy.
I guess I caught the collecting bug back in 2019. One of my best friends was getting married. He's a watch enthusiast and the morning before his wedding he gave me a Tissot Automatic III with a display case back as a groomsman gift. The movement enraptured me. My first and only “real” watch was actually a Tissot T-Touch — a bar mitzvah gift from my cousins (in like 2001). I was wearing it and swapped it for the Automatic. To this day, that’s still my go-to whenever I have to wear a suit. And when it was my little brother’s turn to stand by my side at my wedding, he needed a watch to wear. He’s got his own growing little collection now…
The first watch I bought myself was a CIGA Design Z-Series, a ridiculous, chunky skeletonized thing obviously inspired by Richard Mille. It was advertised to me nonstop on Facebook. It grew on me. I researched. The New York Times wrote it up as a serious challenger to the big Swiss brands. The company had won a Red Dot. I yielded. And I still wear it when I'm feeling funky.
This was during the worst of COVID. So boring… “Tiger King.” Rewatching “The Office” reruns. Drinking in the park. Endless Zooms. I reached the end of social media and spent long nights staring at watches and making lists. The Doxa Sub 300T showed up on mine early and never left. First the orange. Then the aquamarine. Eventually, the Caribbean.
It's not that I couldn't afford a $2,200 watch — there was always a reason it was a little too much. A house. Then a car. Then a bigger car. Medical bills piled up — my son spent four weeks in the NICU and had major surgery after he was born. Kids and life aren't cheap…
So I tided myself over with little purchases here and there. They were mostly indie and microbrand pieces. Phoibos, Zelos. Junky Russian stuff. Vostok, Poljot. Cheap Chinese homages — including a string of Doxa look-a-likes in all three colorways to test the cushion case on my own wrist. Serious-but-affordable pieces, too. A grey-market new-old-stock Seiko SRP483K1 to scratch the orange itch. A beautiful mint-dial Tissot PRX in quartz (the Powermatic 80 was too expensive). A Hamilton Khaki. Designs and “heritage” spoke to me more than the idea of impressing anyone (does anyone in the real world even notice a watch anyways?).
I spotted a vintage Doxa 300 Aqualung on a neighbor's wrist at a pool party last summer. The Caribbean dial popped in the afternoon sun in a way it never had on a screen. I said nothing — even though I probably should have. I just appreciated it from afar and felt grateful I wasn't wearing one of my “homage” Doxas. That's when I started seriously considering the colorway.
Almost went a different direction. The turquoise Omega Seamaster Aqua Terra — nearly $7,000 — struck me. It's genuinely gorgeous. I even reached out to a few ADs to start negotiating. But I couldn't make the price tag make sense. Not in the way the Doxa does. In a world gone brand-crazy, Doxa is different. If you know, you know.
For the uninitiated: Doxa launched the Sub 300 in 1967. It was the first dive watch built for recreational divers, not the military. It boasted a bold orange dial for underwater visibility (studies were conducted, later called into question). It has the patented no-deco bezel. A very 70s cushion case. Cousteau wore one. Clive Cussler put one on Dirk Pitt's wrist for 50 years. (I'm 36 by the way and had never heard those names before.) Robert Redford wore one in “Three Days of the Condor” in 1975 (haven't seen it).
Then the brand went dark from the early 1980s through the 2000s, missing the exact decades when modern watch culture was being built around names like Rolex, Omega and Tudor. That's why most people still don't know the name. And the last famous person to wear one (according to my Google search) was Matthew McConaughey in the 2005 film “Sahara.” The brand doesn't have its James Bond, F1 sponsorships, moonshots, or special film releases.
But it does still have cachet. And people who wear one recognize each other on sight.
Most people who deign to notice my wrist will see “some blue dive watch.” But every once in a while, maybe the Caribbean blue face will catch the sunlight just right — and the ones who know will know…
This won't be my only watch. I love the weird and eclectic little collection I've cobbled together. Phoibos and Zelos are in heavy rotation. The Tissot and Hamilton are for when I need to be serious but not too flashy. The CIGA when I want to get weird. The Seiko when I want to make a splash. The Vostoks even come out once in a while.
For special occasions there's a two-tone 28mm Santos de Cartier. My grandfather was a gambler and he won it on a trip to Macao or something. He passed it down to my father, who thought it was junk for years. It sat in a kitchen drawer. My dad assumed it needed a battery. (It's automatic.) Their house got burgled once. Everything expensive walked out. The Cartier survived because it was buried behind a pile of batteries.
I wore it when I proposed. My now-wife was wearing the diamond my grandfather had used to propose to my grandmother. My grandmother lived to see the engagement. She passed away before the wedding.
The Cartier will go to my 4-year-old daughter one day. A 28mm two-tone will fit her wrist perfectly. Feels a little weird passing it sideways instead of straight down a male line that runs grandfather, father, me — but it's the right home. She even has her own little microbrand watch to help teach her how to tell time.
And the Doxa will be for my son when I don't need it anymore. He's only 20 months old — too young to ask about my watches yet.
This is it: my own modest grail. If I'm lucky, I'll cultivate an appreciation for it in him before it becomes his. Because at the end of the day, is it even about the watches? Or is it really about the stories we get to tell about them?
Hi. I'm a first time rep buyer, first time poster and apperciate any guidance here.
Dealer name: TheOneWatch / Steve
Factory name: VSF
Mode number/name: OMG-1258 / Aqua Terra 38mm SS/SS Turquoise Blue Dial VSF VS8800
Price paid: $378
Album Links: https://mega.nz/folder/vFgFlR6K#ETncj66NTwIpSbeCO_Zjlg
Index alignment: looks good to me
Dial Printing: seems right
Date Wheel alignment/printing: look
Hand Alignment: looks spot on to me
Bezel: N/A
Solid End Links (SELs): look good to me
Timegrapher numbers: -4spd, amp 274, B.E. .2ms, BEAT 28800
I've never done this before — any expertise appreciated!
Thank you, Reddit.
About to go in for shoulder surgery and will be on at least four weeks of total rest. Since I haven’t been able to lift at all I was able to focus on rucking — got my mile splits down nearly 3min and worked up to 5+ miles. Two steps forward, one step back…
Just got a new pair of Garmont T8 Bifidia combat boots to replace my old Oakley SIs. Knocked more than a minute off my pace and they’re not even broken in yet.