That Data can replicate L. Q. “Sonny” Clemmons the best vintage guitar on file and Ralph Offenhouse dodges the guillotines only to wake up to a world where all his money is gone. A future I can get behind.
IMNSHO, high-end mechanical automatic watches are art, just like a Bently. But even if money were no object (which it is), I’d shy away from owning a Rolex because, although it’s a remarkable device, like other artifacts caught in the art investment bubble of late-stage capitalism it’s become a status symbol, and I personally dislike status symbols. Now if my bank account were bottomless I might be tempted to wear an Omega Speedmaster or a Fortis B-42 Official Cosmonauts.
Picked one up on sale for fifty USD thirteen years ago and it’s still going strong. Don’t know what rechargeable battery Casio put in it, but shit’s amazeballs. I’ll be buying another if it ever dies.
Totally get that wearing a watch isn’t for everyone. But I like knowing the time without taking out my phone or having a watch that some electronics company can brick on a whim.
That’s how you properly pronounce the band’s name as far as I know. And I’m pretty sure that its the same word, and they intended to use the term as the band name.
Italian American pronunciation and usages of Italian and Italian derived words is notoriously off base and varies heavily by region. And every Italian American will tell you the precise way they pronounce it is “the real way, like in Italy”. Only to take a Perillo tour of Tuscany and confuse the fuck out of the locals with some words they’ve never heard before.
Foo-GAY-zee is how its pronounced in and around NYC. The Fugazi guys are from in and around DC. I don’t know from DC Italians. But they don’t got the Gabbagool like they does in North Jersey.
Also I’m not Italian American and don’t speak a lick of Italian aside from food terms. So I can’t tell you if it’s even actual Italian or how its genuinely pronounced.
I’m still rocking my twelve-year-old Citizen Eco-Drive, and its built-in rechargeable battery hasn’t needed any replacement. I’ve never had it run out of juice, either. It still kind of blows my mind that a watch can be powered by ambient light.
This is correct. I went to school to fix watches for 2 years, Rolex and several other brands use special tools galore for casing and adjustments in general.
Marks on any fasteners are generally the literal mark of a poorly trained servicer, a good watchmaker would never allow marred caseback screws to leave their shop.
So if you do see tooling marks, that in of itself could be a signal of a fake, because no one with a real one would let a talentless rube fix their watch knowingly.
Biggest and quickest way to tell at a glance with a high likelihood a Rolex is fake is look for diamonds on the dial. While Rolex does and has made such Styles they are very rare and have to be done at the initial manufacturer or under a very expensive purchase order from my understanding for customization directly at the factory. They do not make a line of pre-made diamond dials to pop on and off as an option.
Diamond studded dials are popular with fashionista types who often want a fake Rolex, so many of the cheaper fakes might have this add-on and it’s a quick way to generally tell it’s probably a fake.
My life’s goal is to make a very complex mechanical watch because I’m a mechanical kind of guy.
At the same time the status symbol aspect of it does make me Guillotine worthy I guess to some people. Personally I dislike ostentatious wealth and expensive watches worn when someone can see them for that purpose is just too obvious.
I thought about it a lot and I suppose my motivation for wanting to wear a handmade watch which I make myself, I call it my “f*ck you” piece. I specifically call it that because it is my response when I hold up my wrist to any watchmaker that doesn’t take me seriously because I work as a machinist now, and any machinist who says without papers I can’t be as skilled as them when I’m usually far more so.
A rich man doesn’t make his watch. A skilled one with taste and perhaps a vendetta does.
If you make me angry, I’ll send you a pic of the drawerful of the watches I tried to ‘fix’. One by one, you’ll get pics of irretrievable disasters, inflicted on cheap watches culled from thrift stores…
I’d say the real watches are definitely a Veblen good.
So you could put it that way. These sorts of things there’s often an ersatz version of the super expensive thing you must desire beyond all reason. With fine art there’s posters, prints, reproductions. There are replica/kit car versions of collectable or rare cars. And not just for rare vintage ones, there’s a whole build a replica lambo out of a crown vic thing out there. Counterfiet luxury/fashion goods often fill that niche for genuine enthusiasts who can’t get in on the bellwether marks that are super expensive because they’re super expensive.
If you can’t afford a real Rolex, and may not ever be able to afford one. And you’re appreciation isn’t neccisarily down to proving you can. A knock off gets you a little piece of the real thing, and a better knock off gets you closer. So there’s this weird thing where people collect lower cost legit watches and pick up a few knock offs here and there. Till they finally get the one they desired enough to seek out knock offs of in the first place.
The people I’ve known who are primarily into fakes, have a bit of that going on. They appreciate the design, history and mechanics of the particular makes just the same. But they find the ingenuity of the fakery itself intriguing, and the jank of the lower quality ones fun. And the entirety of it kind of subversive. So they actually want the cheap fakes, and the middle grade fakes, and the expensive fakes. Friend of mine from childhood wanted to have everything from the crappiest Rail-oxx battery watch, to the almost real mechanical self winder. In the same model, year, and design. And line it all up with the real one. Real completionist in that sense. That was the collection for him. Each particular watch he admired, shittiest fake he could find, straight up to the real thing.
I’ve often heard the better fakes referred to as “replica” and “reproduction”. Though that’s kind of gilding the lilly given that most of these exist to con rubes into paying real watch money for them. And a lot of the time we’re talking about the sort of collectors who don’t actually wear these watches often. For the most part they’re collecting and displaying them. I even met a guy one who owned a big collection of insanely expensive watches. Probably millions of dollars worth. And he never wore any of them. For each watch he had he’d find a matching, high end fake and wear that. Said he didn’t want to “put his collection at risk”. Though he was a filthy rich douche nozzle so I’m willing to bet he was talking about investment value.
The subversive aspect is an urge I understand pretty deeply. So if I had the money for a real Rolex, I’d probably go out of my way to buy the $1000 fake. Though I’d probably pick a different watch, never liked Rolex.
Indeed, I find people who spend a cool grand on watches to be fools. Ten grand, ten times the fool.
As long as I am complaining, has anyone noticed that bizarrely huge watches have become fashionable for men? Which is great if you’re a huge man, but if you’re a tiny man with skinny wrists you just look A. Silly or B. Like you’re compensating.
I really have no idea. I’ve noticed it though. My old boss was one such a skinny guy, and he also liked to do dramatic flourishes around the office (like briskly power-walking out of meetings).
I’ve been using a pocket watch for 30+ years. My current one has an alarm, two time zones, and tritium markers. It is more convenient than taking out a phone to check the time.
Yep, precisely those reasons for wearing a watch. And mine is solar, so no battery ever, and time is satellite radio updated every 24 hours. Waterproof to 100m, mebbe more, it doesn’t boast.
You can toss it off a four storey building onto concrete sidewalk and it’s fine.
Sure, I have watchy feelings for the nices, but hard to get round my current watches (two g-shocks - one digi, one analogue + digi).
Funnily enough, it was a tongue-in-cheek website called “The Watch Snob” that steered me, and a surf instructor that shut the trap.
Of course also less costly mechanical and quartz watches will stay completely functional. An dof course a waterproof watch will resist to actual diving, a thing that a smartwatch will not. The correct questio is because one will buy a fake Rolex instead of a real Seiko https://store.seiko.ie/products/srpc93k1
“Holds it’s (sic) value well”. That would be for people who have FAR more money than me. If You stop wearing a watch, you pretty quickly notice how many public timepieces there are (and which ones are working).
English isn’t easy and I an shit at writting Finnish too. I love central clock systems especially pre quartz (I Even own a working The Magneta Time Company Ltd subsidiary of the British Vacuum Cleaner Co. (B.V.C.) electric master clock model 37), clock towers so I do notice those.
As a man who usually wears the “women’s” version of a watch, I’ve also never understood the giant watch thing. It’s really become very prevalent lately too - men who are “in the know” love to talk about their weird expensive watches… Now that they are completely funtionless they serve as a pretty good totem of pure luxury and it’s fairly sickening. The watches don’t even have the bs “green” sheen of something like a Tesla car.
