The Leap Year Watch Challenge

[watchpalooza]

Some really dazzling entries so far! I hope to post mine by Tues / Wed.

[Dub Rubb]

Even though I don't have a vote on this, it is a 3 way tie so far in my mind. My thoughts(not that anyone cares).

1) I am a sucker for Russian watches, so I knew exactly what this one was. However I never did any research nor did I think about how much more robust these needed to be for their application. Super cool watch. I too am a huge fan of the Slava medical that you mentioned as well.

2) this one gave me the giggle guts. So quirky and off the wall, yet for some reason I love it. It is just pure fun and certainly eye catching. Well played.

3) I have no idea what the hell is going on here. But it is sooo freaking cool! While it may not have any official affiliation with Batman, I totally get the nickname. This is far wilder than anything I could have expected and just a very intriguing watch.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

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[Stretch44]

Okay, so here's my entry. I found it while searching through tons of pages of eBay and have never heard of the brand, S'squre. It's a cheap quartz movement and funky, but I kinda like it. When I started the search I had no idea what I was looking for and found a bunch of cool and quirky watched. Settled on this because I'll wear it occasionally and my wife actually really likes it, she has basically stolen it from me. That's her wrist.



Reading the time is a funky. The outer ring is the hour, the middle ring is minutes, and the inner ring is seconds. In the picture below it's 1:47 p.m. I keep wanting to read it as 2:47 p.m.




I got for $29.00 from eBay. It was listed for $39.99.



[mention] Animal Mother[/mention] my wife loves the Queen Elizabeth watch and wants me to find one for her! Haha

[Sporkboy]

I hadn’t seen the Queen Elizabeth watch before. That is fitting variety of that chairman Mao watch, which I may have had sometime in the past. Political watches and commemorative watches are something I didn’t dig into deep during this challenge, but there are definitely a lot of them out there in variety and quantity.

The ‘Batman’ watch is pretty cool, and looks like a prop from a sci-fi movie. In quick searches I am seeing this listed under ‘snake head’ as the design looks like a snake head. Pictures show two lights on the top that light up, but I don’t know why.

I have a watch of that ‘turntable’ design, with the reading of time happening at 3 and the time reads right to left. I am not sure why disks aren’t common where you would read the time at 9 like a jump hour. A total win that your wife is enjoying it.

[PetWatch]

Only 4 entries shown thus far, but you guys are sure making this a tough decision for the voters.

Not a requirement but it would be interesting to know the reason for making one's choice. I'll let you know mine when the time comes. Keeping an open mind.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

[Split-Time]

Let me start off by saying that the main reason that I signed up for this challenge was to force myself to get off of the sidelines and get onto eBay. Since the quirky/odd watch was to actually be used for something, my intent was to find an inexpensive watch for my five year old son that I would be OK with whatever a five year old does to a watch. Preferably it would be a manual wind, just because, but at this point I’m not sure that really matters.

I quickly lost a couple of weeks looking at vintage Omegas that didn’t meet the criteria of this challenge . I didn’t buy an Omega, but I was buying cheap watches like a drunken sailor, and I quickly learned a few things along the way.

I have to fast forward to eBay watch order #6 for my actual submission. As soon as I saw this I knew that I needed it, and not for me. My family has Dutch friends who are musicians and they will be visiting us at the end of April. My father met one of them while he was in Antwerp Belgium and they stuck up a conversation about where my father was from, which led to their band and that they play American bluegrass and gospel. Their first visit was ten years ago and they performed and recorded at one of the famous recording studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. We exchange small gifts each visit and this watch has the bass players name written all over it. BTW, that is a record player for those of you who may never have seen one . The price was $5.99 and unsurprisingly I was the only person bidding on it. My all in price was about $15, not counting the battery that it needed (which I had). Great minds must think alike, [mention]Stretch44[/mention] !





Now, on to the other junk.

Watch #1 was purchased within about 15-20 minutes of creating my eBay account. It is a Paul Saison manual wind in “wonderful working condition.” It arrived with the dial misaligned, hands misaligned and the date wheel doesn’t always align. This was $15.99 plus tax and shipping so I won’t mind opening it up and seeing what I can do if I have time. You may be able to read on the dial that the mainspring is unbreakable, so at least it has that going for it .



Watch #2 will not be talked about or admitted to. It is a franken watch was about $21 all in. It has a long way to travel and isn’t here yet.

Watch #3 I am sort of ashamed of.

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Watch #5 is an affordable that I have had my eye on and eBay made it too easy to keep saying no. Really looking forward to this one, but it also has a pretty long way to travel.

Watch order #4 was the last to arrive and came in Friday. The reason I wanted to become proficient with eBay is an interest in affordable vintage. This showed up one weekend morning and I set it up in Gixen. The auction ended at something like 11:20am, so I set an alarm on my phone. I was on my way to goodwill to drop some stuff off a little after 11. I had some things in my truck that my wife made sure that I understood were NOT for goodwill, but for her Mother. The alarm when off on my phone and I pulled over and had to bid of this watch to get it. It ended up being $33…all in was about $38. I was so happy that I forgot about the stuff that I was not supposed to go to goodwill, and my wife was not happy with me when I got home. It came on a worn out black leather band and part of the right side of the dial appears to be missing. This is the only leather 18mm band that I have. This is the first Roman numeral dial in my collection and I enjoyed wearing the watch all day Saturday.







If you are still reading…”thank you!” This was a lot of fun.

[Stretch44]

Great minds must think alike, @Stretch44 !

Hahahaha, fantastic!!

[Sporkboy]

[achment=9]Olaf 1st.JPG[/attachment]

It has no information on country of origin or water resistance level. A search on the internet showed a previous listing of the model on an Indian e-commerce site, with only a stock pic and basic information.  I could not find any real-life pictures.  

First off, this is definitely unique. I was looking at several different LED designs myself as there are a lot of neat looking ones out there. I’d like to use this as a learning moment as we are stretching beyond normal WIS territory with this, and hopefully future, challenge(s).

I was able to find this model with an initial search leading to the name of ‘snake head’ and that leading to ‘snake head watch’, which led to plenty of sellers. I realize my Google-fu may be strong, but I would like to share a handy tool with everyone. If you find something that seems unique and hard to research, try a reverse image search. On desktop computers you can do this within Google. You can also use a third party site such as tineye.com.

Please note that I am not taking the piss at all, I am just trying to help everyone learn one of those quirky things about finding stuff on the internet.

[Sporkboy]

Even though I don't have a vote on this, it is a 3 way tie so far in my mind. My thoughts(not that anyone cares).

1) I am a sucker for Russian watches, so I knew exactly what this one was. However I never did any research nor did I think about how much more robust these needed to be for their application. Super cool watch. I too am a huge fan of the Slava medical that you mentioned as well.

Don’t worry, you will be able to agonize over this with the rest of us as the plan is to have a ‘competitors vote’ and a separate ‘open vote’. This way everyone gets to take part and hopefully build more excitement for another challenge.

The Slava Medical is cool, but way out of my price range and I have never taken a pulse. I was super lucky to get some deals on lots including some Russian watches, so my collection of them is slowly growing (Amphibia, Komandirske, Admiralskie, Big Zero, watch for the blind, which needs a better name). Does anyone know the Russian word or phrase for blind person? I found window blinds, but couldn’t find what you would call someone without sight or with limited vision.

This watch was on my radar for a long time, but there never seemed to be a reason to buy it until now. I am really glad I did as it is a nicer wearing watch than I thought it would be, and it grew on my quite quickly.

[Sporkboy]

Only 4 entries shown thus far, but you guys are sure making this a tough decision for the voters.

Not a requirement but it would be interesting to know the reason for making one's choice. I'll let you know mine when the time comes. Keeping an open mind.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I totally forgot to add my reason for picking this watch and who it was for. This one was for me as I wanted to be able to check the time in boring meetings without looking at my watch. Since the dial is so nice and I like it as is, I am reluctant to touch it and wear it down. The condition was better than expected, otherwise I would be training my fingertips on reading the minutes hand since I would probably know the hour already.

[Rabirnie]

Only 4 entries shown thus far, but you guys are sure making this a tough decision for the voters.

Not a requirement but it would be interesting to know the reason for making one's choice. I'll let you know mine when the time comes. Keeping an open mind.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I totally forgot to add my reason for picking this watch and who it was for. This one was for me as I wanted to be able to check the time in boring meetings without looking at my watch. Since the dial is so nice and I like it as is, I am reluctant to touch it and wear it down. The condition was better than expected, otherwise I would be training my fingertips on reading the minutes hand since I would probably know the hour already.

Hahaha this may be the greatest use of the watch in human history! Seriously, now I need to track one down so I can check the time in boring, useless, redundant meetings all without looking down! I work remotely, so no one really ever knows how often I check my watch during meetings, but damn that’s perfect.

You could use that angle as a way to name your watch. TUM (Timing Useless Meetings), SYFTT(Saving Yourself From Terrible Timewasting), etc. I’m sure someone more creative can figure this out.


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[Sporkboy]

Only 4 entries shown thus far, but you guys are sure making this a tough decision for the voters.

Not a requirement but it would be interesting to know the reason for making one's choice. I'll let you know mine when the time comes. Keeping an open mind.

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I totally forgot to add my reason for picking this watch and who it was for. This one was for me as I wanted to be able to check the time in boring meetings without looking at my watch. Since the dial is so nice and I like it as is, I am reluctant to touch it and wear it down. The condition was better than expected, otherwise I would be training my fingertips on reading the minutes hand since I would probably know the hour already.

Hahaha this may be the greatest use of the watch in human history! Seriously, now I need to track one down so I can check the time in boring, useless, redundant meetings all without looking down! I work remotely, so no one really ever knows how often I check my watch during meetings, but damn that’s perfect.

You could use that angle as a way to name your watch. TUM (Timing Useless Meetings), SYFTT(Saving Yourself From Terrible Timewasting), etc. I’m sure someone more creative can figure this out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I am glad that you liked by justification. I would like to give it a Russian name, but Time by Touch or TbT seems to be broad enough to work. I guess it depends on an acronym or initialism is needed. I will think about it.

[pdsf]

^Mine already has a name!

[Animal Mother]

@ Animal Mother my wife loves the Queen Elizabeth watch and wants me to find one for her! Haha

I love that design, especially the way the logo goes around.

PM me your address and I can send your wife an early Christmas present.

[Animal Mother]

Awesome work so far everyone. I'm so glad you've all been enjoying it.