I translated this for you:
OK.
Think about this:
I have noticed over the last 6 years of collecting watches that most Swiss watch companies want us to believe that what they make as "SPORTS WATCHES" is IMHO not really SPORTS watches.
You see, when I hear SPORTS WATCH I think of :
rugged
very durable
dial reading is super fast and easy
easy and fast to put on and take off
light weight
But in fact when you examine what Swiss companies make, I hardly see a TRUE sports watch. For example, a DIVING watch is in itself a SPORTS watch as it refers to a highly skilled/physical apllication done by the wearer. Well, watches like Subs and Seamasters are made to serve the diver but in fact them being so espensive, so hard for their parts to order and professionally install that in fact the watches become less practical as they have to often be BABIED. Such expensive watches can also come with gold and diamonds: now you tell me why a diver would need a diamond studded watch to dive with? To impress the fish below? And many of these Swiss "diving" watches also are not effective tools: the have hard-to-read dial that are too busy with decorations, gimmicks or cumbersome design flaws. Why does a Submariner need Mercedes hands on the dial???? Does it help the diver read his oxygen time better?
And then, these Swiss companies will give you their marketing BS. They will tell you that their watch has a very effective bezel that is easy to turn with diver's gloves (LIE) or they will guarantee the watch to have indices that are super luminescent under deep dark water (another half-myth).
And then they will tell you that their band is super secure with their flimsy "diver's extension" or they will guarantee you the watch can go real deep (better buy a Bell & Ross only for that) or they might even tell you that the watch will regulate itself thanks to a helium release valve (HMMM)
While some of these technological advancements of the last 30 years are great ideas they are yet to justify the costs of putting those on an otherwise ordinary timepiece in relation to what they actually acheive under water.
I am not talking about swimming or snorkling in shallow waters but DIVING. Check it out and you'll quickly notice that most serious professional divers actually use watches we do not discuss or cover on this forum. (Can yo name any?)
My above arguments also apply to the Swiss made so called "pilot watches", you those platinum, diamond incrusted, blingy gold, flashy Breitlings. Yes, a few Breitlings can be used for air navigation but in fact don't planes have all the instruments the pilot need to help him fly the bloody plane? YEEESSS.
A good friend of mine who works for Air Canada (he flies them machines) told me himself: most pilots don't get so anal about what brand of watch they wear on the job , as long as it tell time down here or 50,000 feet up there, who cares, we've got control, co-pilots and the electronics on board to tell us what time we left, what time we arrive and so forth.
OK, so he did not cough up 9,000 for the "Breitling" flavour of the month and he is still a dam good pilot.
Pretty much the only type of watches I feel meet expectations of practicality and true fulfilled purposes is: the military watch. For example, why are most military watches cheaper than the fancy Swiss "tool" watches you see in the fancy watch stores? Because they are purpose driven and focussed on the task they perform: tell time easily without any margin of error. On the battlefield, (I'm ex-infantry), if you need to coordinate manoeuvres with a batallion far from you, you may need to synchronize watches but you may be doing it while choking in a thick cloud of gun smoke, gaz, sand dust or heavy rain. So, you need to read time super quick, without squinting or looking twice. A soldier needs all of his gears to be easy and fast to use because in battle, you work with super fast seconds. That is why a good military watch has a super simple dial with large clean numerals that show the 24hr clock system. The hands will be large and unobtrusive. The strap will be very simple, plain but RELIABLE at ALL TIMES. A good one will be resistant to most water invasions and have a crystal that can take a good beating but still works for its soldier. In other words, that is what a PRACTICAL USEFUL WATCH really is.
Most everything we have in those clean fancy jewelry stores are PRETEND watches: they look the part but they come short or being ultimate performers in rugged elements.
But don't get me wrong: some Swiss watches are actually pretty close: Hamilton (USA) makes some pretty decent "tool" watches but pretty only their military line. Then a small company like St-Mortiz makes watches that you often see in diving shops and many divers swear by them. Seiko (OOOH, not a fancy Swiss name,YUCK!) makes a few solid dive watches, and of course the ultra expensive from Bell & Ross. In "Airborn" types, Breitling does make one of two that may do the job up there but the Navitimer with it gizillion slide rule values and spins only mean one thing: I have a big fancy watch and it's complicated! WHO CARES!!!!!!!
Athletes who want to measure their elapsed time on the track dont need a 4,000 Tag Heuer or Speedmaster or Daytona: their pit crew or coach(track & field) will measure time for them. Not one sprinter worries about what some watch on his wrist says at any given time: they all focussed on the running and their body. Replay some olympic coverage of running and see if any of them is wearing a Tag????? And do you know that Schumaker Ayerton Senna dont always wear a watch when they drive?? But yet, hey, we all want those elusive watches that bear their names.
Back many years ago, a pocket watch served one purpose: tell time. But then as human nature always dictates, whatever man uses to make his life easier, he tries to embellish so his surrounding odjects may look appealing to the eye. So, from making fancier looking pocket watches to making watches with diamonds and precious metals, me seem to have shifted our focus. We lost the path to TRUTH. The watch collecting hobby did what the comic book and stamp collecting did: went out of touch and out of control. So many watches we are to scared to wear and bruise, so many comics we are scared of reading (like a $200,000 Spiderman #1).
But what does that really create? It creates a omen of dreaded stress and anxieties and so we end up coping with that by cherishing, overprotecting and babying those "precious" watches. So, in the end, they are NOT watches, they are artifacts, pieces of mere jewelry. Their telling time does not seem to be so important as the way they ,how attractive they are and so how sellable they are. We have put them in a bubble of artificial existence.
We worry about a milimetre here, a lug there, an anti-reflective crystal over here or a crooked bezel there.
No, a watch is what I described earlier: a mere simple tool with an ease of use.
The rest is all pretend and all fluff.
But we do enjoy the fluff, it makes us feel something....
There are exception where the pretense ist'n really there as much: Patek Phillp, Perregaux,etc.
The small Swiss houses that will create "MASTERPIECES OF TIMEKEEPING", so many of their watches do not pretend to be DIVERS or PILOTS, instead they deliver WORKD OF ART, sheer ecstacty for the eyes, objects of pure beauty. Their complications serve a specific purpose: to go a far as they can with the mechanic of time keeping: an art form in itself.
These watches are few in between and deserve to be admired because they are "the art of being a watch"...
DOC
OK.
Think about this:
I have noticed over the last 6 years of collecting watches that most Swiss watch companies want us to believe that what they make as "SPORTS WATCHES" is IMHO not really SPORTS watches.
You see, when I hear SPORTS WATCH I think of :
rugged
very durable
dial reading is super fast and easy
easy and fast to put on and take off
light weight
But in fact when you examine what Swiss companies make, I hardly see a TRUE sports watch. For example, a DIVING watch is in itself a SPORTS watch as it refers to a highly skilled/physical apllication done by the wearer. Well, watches like Subs and Seamasters are made to serve the diver but in fact them being so espensive, so hard for their parts to order and professionally install that in fact the watches become less practical as they have to often be BABIED. Such expensive watches can also come with gold and diamonds: now you tell me why a diver would need a diamond studded watch to dive with? To impress the fish below? And many of these Swiss "diving" watches also are not effective tools: the have hard-to-read dial that are too busy with decorations, gimmicks or cumbersome design flaws. Why does a Submariner need Mercedes hands on the dial???? Does it help the diver read his oxygen time better?
And then, these Swiss companies will give you their marketing BS. They will tell you that their watch has a very effective bezel that is easy to turn with diver's gloves (LIE) or they will guarantee the watch to have indices that are super luminescent under deep dark water (another half-myth).
And then they will tell you that their band is super secure with their flimsy "diver's extension" or they will guarantee you the watch can go real deep (better buy a Bell & Ross only for that) or they might even tell you that the watch will regulate itself thanks to a helium release valve (HMMM)
While some of these technological advancements of the last 30 years are great ideas they are yet to justify the costs of putting those on an otherwise ordinary timepiece in relation to what they actually acheive under water.
I am not talking about swimming or snorkling in shallow waters but DIVING. Check it out and you'll quickly notice that most serious professional divers actually use watches we do not discuss or cover on this forum. (Can yo name any?)
My above arguments also apply to the Swiss made so called "pilot watches", you those platinum, diamond incrusted, blingy gold, flashy Breitlings. Yes, a few Breitlings can be used for air navigation but in fact don't planes have all the instruments the pilot need to help him fly the bloody plane? YEEESSS.
A good friend of mine who works for Air Canada (he flies them machines) told me himself: most pilots don't get so anal about what brand of watch they wear on the job , as long as it tell time down here or 50,000 feet up there, who cares, we've got control, co-pilots and the electronics on board to tell us what time we left, what time we arrive and so forth.
OK, so he did not cough up 9,000 for the "Breitling" flavour of the month and he is still a dam good pilot.
Pretty much the only type of watches I feel meet expectations of practicality and true fulfilled purposes is: the military watch. For example, why are most military watches cheaper than the fancy Swiss "tool" watches you see in the fancy watch stores? Because they are purpose driven and focussed on the task they perform: tell time easily without any margin of error. On the battlefield, (I'm ex-infantry), if you need to coordinate manoeuvres with a batallion far from you, you may need to synchronize watches but you may be doing it while choking in a thick cloud of gun smoke, gaz, sand dust or heavy rain. So, you need to read time super quick, without squinting or looking twice. A soldier needs all of his gears to be easy and fast to use because in battle, you work with super fast seconds. That is why a good military watch has a super simple dial with large clean numerals that show the 24hr clock system. The hands will be large and unobtrusive. The strap will be very simple, plain but RELIABLE at ALL TIMES. A good one will be resistant to most water invasions and have a crystal that can take a good beating but still works for its soldier. In other words, that is what a PRACTICAL USEFUL WATCH really is.
Most everything we have in those clean fancy jewelry stores are PRETEND watches: they look the part but they come short or being ultimate performers in rugged elements.
But don't get me wrong: some Swiss watches are actually pretty close: Hamilton (USA) makes some pretty decent "tool" watches but pretty only their military line. Then a small company like St-Mortiz makes watches that you often see in diving shops and many divers swear by them. Seiko (OOOH, not a fancy Swiss name,YUCK!) makes a few solid dive watches, and of course the ultra expensive from Bell & Ross. In "Airborn" types, Breitling does make one of two that may do the job up there but the Navitimer with it gizillion slide rule values and spins only mean one thing: I have a big fancy watch and it's complicated! WHO CARES!!!!!!!
Athletes who want to measure their elapsed time on the track dont need a 4,000 Tag Heuer or Speedmaster or Daytona: their pit crew or coach(track & field) will measure time for them. Not one sprinter worries about what some watch on his wrist says at any given time: they all focussed on the running and their body. Replay some olympic coverage of running and see if any of them is wearing a Tag????? And do you know that Schumaker Ayerton Senna dont always wear a watch when they drive?? But yet, hey, we all want those elusive watches that bear their names.
Back many years ago, a pocket watch served one purpose: tell time. But then as human nature always dictates, whatever man uses to make his life easier, he tries to embellish so his surrounding odjects may look appealing to the eye. So, from making fancier looking pocket watches to making watches with diamonds and precious metals, me seem to have shifted our focus. We lost the path to TRUTH. The watch collecting hobby did what the comic book and stamp collecting did: went out of touch and out of control. So many watches we are to scared to wear and bruise, so many comics we are scared of reading (like a $200,000 Spiderman #1).
But what does that really create? It creates a omen of dreaded stress and anxieties and so we end up coping with that by cherishing, overprotecting and babying those "precious" watches. So, in the end, they are NOT watches, they are artifacts, pieces of mere jewelry. Their telling time does not seem to be so important as the way they ,how attractive they are and so how sellable they are. We have put them in a bubble of artificial existence.
We worry about a milimetre here, a lug there, an anti-reflective crystal over here or a crooked bezel there.
No, a watch is what I described earlier: a mere simple tool with an ease of use.
The rest is all pretend and all fluff.
But we do enjoy the fluff, it makes us feel something....
There are exception where the pretense ist'n really there as much: Patek Phillp, Perregaux,etc.
The small Swiss houses that will create "MASTERPIECES OF TIMEKEEPING", so many of their watches do not pretend to be DIVERS or PILOTS, instead they deliver WORKD OF ART, sheer ecstacty for the eyes, objects of pure beauty. Their complications serve a specific purpose: to go a far as they can with the mechanic of time keeping: an art form in itself.
These watches are few in between and deserve to be admired because they are "the art of being a watch"...
DOC
