What I mean is that quartz watches are very precise but not necessarily accurate instruments in that the daily gain/loss is consistent. The same cannot be said about autos because their daily gain/loss can be different based on how the watch is positioned. So the gains and losses sort of cancel themselves out over a long enough period of time. The quartz watch however, will keep gaining or losing (but not both) consistently over time. I read about this somwehere but I can’t remember where. I tried it with my roadster and noticed the watch gains when its positioned on the crown side and loses if positioned on the other side. I know several people that do this in order to even out their auto’s divergence. Obviously this doesn’t make it true so it take with a grain of salt.
Actually I cut off my other hand already, when someone put a Tag Heuer watch on my wrist as a sadistic joke
People most definitely look at watches, especially the people who own watches themselves. You don’t need to look too closely - I can tell what everyone wears if we sit around a conference table. Does this make me shallow? Maybe, but not more than other people. Now, is a watch as visible as a Porsche? Of course not. However, my watch does not cost $60k either.
jorge, I don’t know about what you said about automatic watches correcting over time… Most automatic watches are tuned to run fast by about 2-3 minutes per month. This allows a reasonable room for error so that the watch does not run slow overall. A quartz watch is accurate to maybe 2 seconds per month.
An alien from mars probably couldn’t tell the difference between those two watches (or a lexus and kia for that matter) but people in finance can.
Yeah I saw some indian guy on the tube the other day wearing a rose gold Royal Oak Offshore. He looked like he worked in IT, one of these scrum master six sigma black belts. Ill-fitting suit, short-sleeve shirt, he even had square-toe shoes on. I was 1. shocked that he could afford it and 2. shocked the salespeople didn’t throw him out for wearing those shoes.
Watches suck balls. Put the money in your not-yet-maxed-out IRA. You’ll thank me later.
Real men wear $20 Casio from Wal-Mart. 50M water resistant.
I have a Mickey Mouse pocket watch.
I think that the last time I wore a wristwatch I was 17.
haha. I was in a meeting this week with a dude wearing a high dollar Rolex (not your typical Submariner), khakis, a polo shirt, and a blazer. Then he took 20 minutes to tell us how we were wrong/not looking at the whole picture, as is normal for 50 something year old guys, and they like to say that to 2 20-somethings just to make himself feel better.
That ‘image’ you posted of the ‘Nomos’ watch is humungous (OP’s last watch picture). It filled my entire fking monitor. Has to be the largest posted image ever on AF history. I don’t know why I was so, and continue to be, flabbergasted by it.
Got this last year looks pretty nice and 300meter water proof 
Good for casual and dress.
note: that’s not my hand
I had one of these. I wore it down to 100 feet for an hour scuba diving and it worked great. Then I went swimming in the ocean for 20 minutes and it flooded with water. Go figure.
A lot of people like these watches because they are fantastic pieces of engineering (check out youtube videos to see how an automatic works, then look at the high grade designs. I’m not talking Tag, Tissot, or the names you know. I’m talking about hte names you can’t pronounce).
Of course, there are those 50 year old board room guys who subscribe to the Rolex experience and know very little about their watch other than “it’s a Rolex”. We consider them our retarded cousins. As in everything in life, there are always a bunch of douchebags who ruin it for everyone.
The point of a watch these days is not to tell time. Get past that part, it is about sentiment and beauty. Look into a high grade watch and tell me you are not mesmerized by the level of craftsmanship and detail on the face and movement. Our eyes cannot even pick up that level of detail in person, the best way to see it is via whole screen HD photos.
I look at people’s watches all the time. What a person wears tells me a lot about their personality. If i see someone flaunting a fashion watch (fossil, burberry, movado) I know what their level of horological knowledge is. If I see a guy wearing a Tag, I’ll avoid him. If I see an Omega on the wrist, I know this guy’s on his way to Horological nirvana, unless it’s a quartz Bond Seamaster. And if I see a guy with a vintage watch from a reputable house, I will engage him and talk about the watch.
Nobody is forcing you to like high end watches, but to say it’s a waste of someone else’s money , is just poor taste, and we get enough of that in the watch world.
I know how automatic watches work and I’m aware of the engineering involved. But let’s talk about craftsmanship and beauty. This beautiful to you?
http://www.jaeger-lecoultre.com/US/en/collections/master-extreme#55click=megamenu
To me, that is hideous. and reminds me of this: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c7/Two-faceEckhart.jpg
Or for a more sedate design, is this beautiful? This looks like a basic watch that you can find at JCP
http://www.jaeger-lecoultre.com/US/en/watches/reverso-classique/2508412#/t1
Apart from the jewels, this looks very ordinary, I’m sure Citizen could make this design:
http://www.patek.com/contents/default/en/5116R_001.html
Same for this:
http://www.patek.com/contents/default/en/3738_100G_012.html
And this:
http://www.patek.com/contents/default/en/5711_1A_010.html
Or this:
http://www.vacheron-constantin.com/en2/watches/patrimony
This looks like a Fossil to me:
http://www.vacheron-constantin.com/en2/watches/overseas
All from names I can’t pronounce.
AF: can’t understand why women like diamonds, likes fancy watches.
mk17, From my experience, working in sales and seeing a lot of nice watches, imo, it’s very hard to tell anything about a person’s personality from the watch they wear. Like, I’ll always keep and wear the Seiko my mom gave me, the Movado my uncle gave me for graduating, probably will buy an IWC once i start making better money, and something special once I get to where I want to be in life. And I’ll wear all 4 randomly, without rhyme or reason. Maybe that alone says something about me but end the end, it’s just a watch.
Palantir, for you to compare a Vacheron to a Fossil shows you are a lost cause and will never understand.
I’m not talking about complexity of movements, status or price, but on “beauty”. They look the same.
I like (and when I say “like”, I have an interest, I don’t even own any) nice watches because of the engineering aspect, to me it’s a like a sculpture in motion. It’s art to me. I don’t understand why people like certain things that are dug out of the ground more than other things that are dug out of the ground, especially when there are warehouses full of them and the supply is controlled by cartels.
Maybe, but Fossil is widely regarded as garbage. Maybe if you compared it to a brand that was affordable but decent quality like Seiko, Citizen, Hamilton or even Orient, then you may have a point, but even so, Vacheron Constatin is in another league entirely. I’ve had the pleasure of trying one on before and you can definitely tell the difference in quality. It’s the small details that average joe wouldn’t notice nor care about.