Comment by 🍀 gritty
Re: "One of my local box chain stores no longer carries regular…"
oh my
— https://www.wristenthusiast.com/latest/manual-wind-watches
Feb 16 · 3 months ago
9 Later Comments ↓
👻 darkghost · Feb 16 at 15:47:
Yeah a lot of these are extreme luxury pieces. Having a ton of little parts including sapphires as part of the movement doesn't make things cheap even for a basic model! A good one will still set you back $600. The Timex ones omit the sapphires for a cheaper and more durable metal alloy (takes a licking and keeps on ticking.)
🚀 lars_the_bear · Feb 16 at 16:27:
I imagine that buying a mechanical watch these days would be seen as a bit of an affectation. There's little to recommend one, as a practical timekeeper, over an electronic watch. If you want a mechanical watch that will perform even as well as a cheap Casio quartz it will, indeed, be expensive. But a cheap Casio outperforms any smartwatch, if all you want is to know the time. But if you just want to know the time, you look at your phone :/ I don't think folks wear watches to know the time these days.
👻 darkghost · Feb 16 at 17:41:
I do but I'm old fashioned. But I can't be bothered to remember to wind anything so it's a quartz movement. One of my better ones was a Citizen ecodrive, one that has a solar panel as the watch face. I had it for 15 years with no maintenance and only moved on because the crystal was getting too scratched to see through. My current one will not last as long.
I do enjoy the watch making/repair YouTube videos
You could probably polish the glass yourself with a $20 diamond sandpaper assortment, or have someone do it for a ridiculous fee.
🚀 lars_the_bear · Feb 16 at 19:16:
@darkghost I don't like winding wither, but I have the good fortune to have a self-winding Breitling that I bought back in the 80s. It never needs winding by hand, so long as it's worn every day or two. And it keeps time to within a few seconds a week -- at least as good as a quartz movement. But the price? Best not even to think about it ;)
You wear a writwatch so that you don't have to pull out and unlock your pocket watch every time, it makes your look cooler. And you don't replace them when they stop working, you replace them when they get a bit worn, unless it's a luxury piece.
s/wrist watch/smartwatch
s/pocket watch/smartphone
nothing changed.
🚀 lars_the_bear · Feb 17 at 08:28:
@namark Young people don't have to pull out and unlock their smartphones: they never put them down. I've always worn a wrist watch -- I can't imagine being without one -- but my kids mock me for how un-cool this is.
@lars_the_brear And then the battery dies and they tie themselves to a wall? I imagine back in good ol days some people would hold on to and swing their pocket watches around too, you can make it work, but you gotta have it in you. With the innovation of a wristwatch you can be a hopeless clutz and still pretend to be cool!
If you wanna be cool today though, you gotta have the smartwatch, and do everything with it: gotta open doors, dim lights, start cars, check out, check in, check point, check mate, gesture control your robot dog, summon a megazord, that kind of stuff.
Wristwatches broke the 'Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch' symmetry...
And the age of hypnosis
Original Post
One of my local box chain stores no longer carries regular wristwatches. sign of the times.