A time to watch

Over the past year, with the enforced lockdowns and restricted travel, I have indulged in a new hobby. Collecting wristwatches. Perhaps not quite a new pastime because I have been buying new wristwatches every few years or so but I had not paid much attention to the details of the watches that I bought. Neither did I make any proper attempt to take care of them or store them in a neat way. I had mostly bought them based on looks and of course, price. All my watches are cheap, or to use a more polite term, in the budget range.

With the extra free time because of MCO restrictions, I began to read up additional information about wristwatches and viewed many Youtube videos on watch reviews. I learned many new things which I had previously not cared about. I began to understand the significance between quartz and automatic (mechanical) movements, the important case dimensions to take note of and many other aspects of a wristwatch such as dials, hands and lume. To a wristwatch enthusiast, the term 'complication' does not mean a problem. And jewels are actually bearings and not precious stones. I noted that watches can be classified into a number of types : divers, field watches, dress watches, chronographs and pilot watches, just to name the most common categories. Looking at my personal collection, I mostly have quartz dress watches and chronographs. My next target would be an automatic field watch. I already have one in mind (launched a few months ago) but am holding out until the price drops to a more affordable level.

As a first step towards organizing my collection, I bought a watch storage box made of wood with a glass top. It has 12 slots, each with a small black velvet pillow or cushion to enable the watches to be nicely displayed. Initially, the box held six of my watches and six belonging to my better half. When I bought a few more of my own, I decided that another storage box is needed. The next box that I ordered has 6 slots and is made out of PU leather. Not as classy looking as the wooden box but not too shabby either. This smaller storage now holds all of the lady watches in the house.

As of today, I have six (6) watches that are in working order and wear on a rotation basis. I have a few which are not working, either the batteries have run out or the movements are totally gone. In my younger days, I would simply throw these faulty ones away but now, with this new hobby, I will attempt to check first by replacing the batteries myself. The watch repair toolkit I ordered via Shopee arrived yesterday. I am now able to open the caseback of the non-working watches without the need to send them to a watch shop.

In this post, I do not wish to give a full list of the watches in my collection but rather, introduce the latest acquisition which I ordered online and arrived earlier this month. It is the Timex Expedition Metal Combo Black Dial TW4B17200 analog/digital quartz movement. I bought it from the Timex Official Store on Shopee because it had a huge discount during the 9/9 sales. I ended up paying less than RM300 for something that was normally sold at RM480.

To me, this watch looks great. Very suitable for day-to-day wear. It is 40mm in diameter with a lug-to-lug length of 46mm, a lug width of 20mm and a thickness of 12mm. It fits nicely on my thin wrist. The caseback is made of steel but the material of the watch casing itself is not indicated. A youtube reviewer has mentioned the case is made of brass, which gives the case a seasoned and tarnished look. It is a look that I actually like. There is a rotating black plastic bezel but since all the bezel markings are also in black, I fail to see how it can be useful. No matter, I prefer the black look anyway. But the feature that I like the most is the digital display window at the bottom. The digital component of this watch is in effect, a separate counter. We can use it to mark a second time zone, set an alarm, use it as a day-date display or utilise the stopwatch function.

Prior to buying it, I had searched Youtube for reviews of this watch. Not many of these reviews are positive but I went ahead and bought it because the discount was too good to ignore. Furthermore, this is the second Timex Expedition that I'm buying. The first Timex I own is also an analog/digital combo that has served me well for more than 15 years and still works.

Timex is an American watch company with some history. Nowadays, most of its watches are assembled outside of the USA. This particular model I believe is made in the Philippines. 

The watch originally came with a tan leather strap but I swapped it with a black nylon one. I think it looks even cooler. I am extremely happy I bought this one.

As is, out of the box

On wrist photo shot

My 1st Timex. Has undergone a few battery and strap replacements. Still reliable.