State of my watch collection 2021

Lesson #4: Obsessing over accuracy is stupid

There was a point where I was synchronizing my watch to time.gov several times a week. With a quartz movement watch - especially a Casio - this is totally unnecessary.

A plain non-atomic Casio quartz watch (like the F-91W) will only be off by 30 seconds in a given month. And in reality it probably won't even be off even by that much.

Realistically speaking, it's only required to sync a plain quartz Casio watch once every 60 days where at worst the time will only be off by 1 minute.

With mechanical watches, yes, those must be synchronized way more often because you can lose anywhere from 15 to 30 seconds a day. But for quartz on a Casio? Sync it once every other month and you're good to go.

Lesson #5: Thick watches are terrible

I can understand that a G-SHOCK needs to be thicker because of the suspension system inside that helps it withstand shocks. I can also understand why many mechanical watches need to be thicker so they can house the movements they use. And I also understand that certified dive watches need to be thick so they can achieve proper 200m or greater water resistance.

For the vast majority of other quartz movement watches out there, there is absolutely no good reason at all why so many are so thick.

Quartz movements can be made to fit in ridiculously thin watch cases. The Casio A700W (which I own) is a good example of this as it's just 6mm thick. Yes, really.

The A700W has 30m water resistance. The W59 has 50m, and that only has an 8.7mm thick case. The HDD600 has 100m of water resistance and is just 11mm thick.

Any time I put on a watch over 12mm thick, I notice it. For example, I have an AE1000W which, while very lightweight, has a beefy 13.77mm thickness. Any time I put on a coat or long sleeve shirt, the watch catches on the cuff every time. Very annoying. The AE1000W is definitely for short sleeve wear only.

The future?

For now, I'm sticking with my F-91W, A158 and AQ230. Small, thin, light, legible, comfortable.

But I do still scan around for new models out there, and old ones too. My biggest gripe about the F-91W/A158 is that it doesn't show month/day at the same time. Wish it did, but it doesn't. I do have a vintage F-28W that does show that, but it has no stopwatch nor alarm function, and I use both.

Where I really missed the boat is that I should have bought a W-71 back when they were still being made. That sorta/kinda looks like the famed DW200 "Marlin" watch but without the 200m water resistance. Vintage examples are available on eBay and of course are all overpriced, so I won't be getting one of those.

But maybe Casio will release an F-91W style with month/day on the main display. That would be amazing if they did that and I'd buy it in a hot minute.

Published 2021 Mar 4