Today's watch is one I can't wear - yet! It is designed to be built before wearing. It is a kit watch containing everything you need (tools included) to make your own watch.

The kit is made by Art of Time Uhrentechnik from Austria. The company was founded in 1996/7 and released the Clockbox as their first main product - the first every DIY watch. The product still exists (costing just under 30 Euros), but the website mentioned on this box doesn't anymore.

The watch you make is a 3-hand dial watch with date at the 3 o'clock position. I think this model is called Geneve from the text on the box, and that fits with the Swiss flag on the face.

I'm still running through my retro LCD watch collection for today's blog entry, and this time it's a Vega.

Vega is another of the ranges of watches by Citizen. It was founded in the early 80s to be a brand for low price digital watches, but Citizen decided to put more emphasis on the mid range models later in the 80s, phasing down the Vega brand.

This model, I think, comes from 1980 or 81 (based on the serial number) and is an Alarm Chronograph model. It has a 5 1/2 digit LCD display, with 3 symbols printed at the bottom of the panel (an alarm clock, bell, and runner). These are used to show when the watch is in the alarm, chime, and chronograph modes. The 9428 module also had a bulb based light. The full model number appears to be 9428-390865.

Today's watch is from the Kenneth Cole clothing company, and is part of their Reaction range. Their watches are made in China for the company, with no information on the actual manufacturer.

First look suggests this is a standard 3-hand dial in a large black case. When you notice the date, you realise this is actually an ana-digi watch! The date is shown at the 3 o'clock position (as is common), but with an inverse LCD display (not common at all). Editing the date shows that behind this 2 digit display is a full watch module - you need to make sure the module has the right time and date (month) to make sure that the date changes at the right time. As there is only one button, you need to be careful setting this, as too long a pause without input moves you to the next character to set!

Original this sold for $85, and has a model/catalogue number of RK3214. There is also a number on the back saying A126-11, which may be the module number.

Happy Star Wars Day to all my readers! May the Fourth be with you :)

To mark the occasion, I had to wear a Star Wars themed watch today, and so chose this one by the Japanese company GSX.

The GSX brand are well known for their collaborations with various products and films, and as part of that, they produced a line of limited edition Star Wars watches for the 30th anniversary in 2007. The release was limited to 300 watches per design.

This one is #35 in the SmartStyle range and is the C-3PO model (-I've covered the Darth Vader version previously).

The SmartStyle range are the main range for the limited edition collaborations, and are big, bright dial watches. They are a 3-hand dial watch, with three small dials at the 6, 9, and 12 o'clock positions. The small dials are for the stopwatch and cover the seconds (bottom), minutes (middle), and two seconds (top).

The character C-3PO is one of the few characters to appear in all 6 Star Wars films, and is a protocol droid to help with meetings, and he is fluent in "over 6 million forms of communication". For the watch design, the face of the watch looks like C-3PO's torso, complete with the wires across his waist. On the top end of the strap is his face (giving him a very long neck! ).

There are many Swiss made watches out there, and I've blogged quite a few. But there aren't many Swiss watches made this way!

The watch is called the Swiss Cheese watch. Normally, names like this mean they look like the name, but in this case, it is actually made from Swiss Cheese! More correctly, it is made from a cheese-like byproduct of milk called Casein. Casein is a protein found in the milk, and accounts for up to 80% of the protein content in cows milk. A 4000 liter batch of milk would produce 180 kg of butter and 200 kg of Casein. Some of the earliest developed plastics were made from Casein, and fibres made from this were a popular material in the 1930s. It is actually splash proof, but can't be submerged, and has a yellowy transparent appearance.

The Swiss Cheese watch is an exclusive model by RHW Eco-Time-Systems, and seems to have been developed in the late 80s or early 90s. As it's made from cheese, the tag line is "As long as there is milk, there will always be the Swiss Cheese Watch".

The watch itself is a 3-hand dial design, and has a Swiss quartz movement.

Sometimes, companies repurpose watches for different functions. With this design from Timex, I've seen the module used for Skiing (the Skiathlom), for surfing (the Surf Timer), and now for fishing.

This watch has the same temperature monitoring module as in the ski and surf models, but in a round case with some extra features. Around the display is a rotating bezel marked High Tide so you can easily see the tide timing, and on the strap is a small compass. The LCD display shows he regular features (time, date, and temperature graph), and the module also has alarm, chronograph, and timer features.

As with the others it's 50m water resistant and has the number 707 (module number?) on the back.

The name of the watch is HOOKS, but the text on the strap is stylized so the Os look like fishing hooks (or Js). It's original sale price was 16,500 yen.

The Casio G-Shock range is popular worldwide, but some designs are less common than others.

Today's model of G-Shock, the G-8100-1 is not particularly common in Europe (as a fellow watch fan pointed out to me today). It has a much squarer design than the usual G-Shock models, and has a more integrated plastic case and strap.

It uses a round inverse LCD display which is split into two segments. The top half has the date, and the day part uses a small dot matrix array. There are also dots around the edge that fill and empty with the seconds (ones on the left, and 5s on the right). The bottom half of the display is the time showing 5 1/2 digits.

The watch has a QW-3078 module, and the front says it is a dual illuminator model. It has all of the normal G-Shock modes including world time (48 cities), multi alarm (x2 + a snooze alarm) , timer, and stopwatch . The illumination is through an el-backlight triggered by the big silver front button.

Here is the second of my Spaceman watches that I've posted, and I think it was the first one that I bought.

The Spaceman watches were designed by André Le Marquand to commemorate the 1969 space launch. He was commissioned by Claude Lebet and Francis Bourquin, the owner and director of Catena Bulle Switzerland, and came up with this unique design. The watches were released under various companies, including Omax like today's model.

Various different versions were released with manual or automatic mechanical movements, and with or without date. This particular one has a date at the 3 o'clock position, and has an automatic movement.

The back of the watch features the moulded fiberglass picture of a Spaceman as with the other models. It also has a Dupont Corfam (artificial leather) strap which is in one piece and fits around the watch head.

Working through my watch collection has definitely informed me of many different Japanese hero series.

Today's watch is from the series Beetle Fighter, or Juukou B-Fighter, and was part of the Japanese production company Toei's Metal Hero Series. In the series, 3 members of the Earth Academia find out that the insects of the world are swarming against an alien menace. The group develops bio armour which is infused with the life force of various insects, and these enable their owners to fight back as the B-Fighters. The action footage from the series was used in the West as the basis for the series Big Bad Beetleborgs.

The watch was made by Bandai, and is part of a range called Charatch (as in character), and features the head of one of the B-Fighters. Like many of this type, the 4 digit LCD display is revealed by lifting the lid, and the watch has time, date, and seconds modes.

It is from 1995 which is when the series was released, and was made in Japan

When the Citizen Independent 1481010 range was released, they did several sets of limited edition watches in collaboration with famous Japanese artists. You can find lots on the 1481010 watches in my overview page.

This watch today is one of the two watches that was designed by the founder of the Superflat postmodern art movement, Takashi Murakami. Tokyo born Murakami studied originally to become an animator before majoring in traditional Japanese art. One of his recurring themes in his art is the pop icon character he developed called Mr DOB, and this watch came in a box shaped like one of the more scary variants of Mr DOB.

The watch itself was released in 1998 as a limited edition of 999. It is based on the 1481010 jump hour model with a 6160 module. The design has been heavily updated for this model with many small touches. The watch face is decorated with parts of faces with cute anise style eyes, and the seconds triangle has been replaced with a rotating disc with an eye on. The front is also printed with the Hiropon name, above the 1481010 name. The metal band has also been updated and features etched anime eyes all the way around.

The back of the watch also has an etched DOB in a quick sketch style. The back also reveals that this is George's by X-Large. The X-Large brand is a US clothing line popular with Urban and hip-hip artists.

The full model number is 6160-L18919

I'm going out to a 70th birthday party today, so it's time to break out another of my smart looking watches.

The watch is by Orient and part of their Three Star range. The Orient Watch Company is Japan's largest producer of mechanical watches, and is now a subsidiary of Seiko. The Three Star range was originally a range of mechanical watches for export, but some models were sold in Japan. They became so popular that a new line were produced for the Japanese market with a more bright and exotic set of designs.

This is one of the new line of Three Star watches and is a rounded rectangular (oval) 3 hand (well, the seconds hand is more of a triangular pointer) dial watch. It has a date marker at the 3 o'clock position, but as the face is slightly transparent, you can just see the dial with the other numbers behind. One unusual feature is that there is a windows where you can see where the stem of the crown meshes with the internals (so you can see the different positions when you set the time or the date).

It has an automatic mechanical movement, and has a model number of ERAH-A1. The catalogue number was WV0511ER, and it's original sale price was 17,850 yen. The watch was assembled in China and is 5 bar water resistant. These is also a leather strap by Orient with a part number of QU7612.

While collecting, I end up with very interesting watches that aren't really my style, and today it's one of those.

The watch is a ladies watch and part of Seiko's high tech Wired brand. It also seems this is a Japanese only model, and it was released in 2004.

It has a very unusual strap arrangement where the strap is only connected to the head on one side. The other side has a loop which the loose end of the strap goes through, and then this clips back on itself to hold the watch in place. The strap is pink leather, and has a part number of B24.

The display on the watch is a thin 6 digit white and silver LCD display, with the digits split into pairs. The 3 buttons are above the display, and inside the loop where the strap threads. The mode button switches between time and date (which has text above the numbers to say which is year, month, and date), and the other two are for up and down on the time adjustment.

It's original sale price was 15,750 yen, and the catalogue number was AGDL029. The full model number is W543-0AB0

It's back to the Casios again today, with a model from their Futurist range.

The Futurist watches were where Casio put out various high tech looking watches with a futuristic design style. They are meant to be the range for fresh, young fun, and fashion watches from within the Casio line-up, and seem to be primarily aimed at women.

This model is one of the Vibrating Alarm models which has the option to make the watch vibrate on your wrist to help notify that it's time (in case you sleep through the beeping sound). It uses a 1922 module which has timer, stopwatch, alarm, and dual time modes. It is also a Casio Illuminator watch and has a large button on the front to activate the electro illuminescent backlight.

The watch has a large 2 line LCD display, with the time shown in large digits across the middle (-6 digits with smaller seconds). The top line shows the day, month, and date by default, but switches to a time display when in the other modes.

There are many cute designs of watch out there, but none match the combination of cute, high tech and functional as today's model.

The watch is the Friendly Memo watch by Casio. It is part of their Data Bank range and has a model number of DBJ-24. The cute part is the most noticeable when you look at the display - one third of the LCD panel is devoted to an animated picture of a cat's face. The cat displays various emotions from happy to sad, it yawns, and even sleeps during the night. Holding the forward button also makes the cat pull funny faces (the reverse button makes it show the date). It uses a dot matrix array for the cat, but it's not a full grid, only covering where the cat will be.

To the right of the cat is a grid with hearts, people, and pencils which fills with the seconds during time mode, and seems to have something to do with the data bank too.

The time is displayed across the bottom of the LCD panel with a standard 6 digit display.

The data bank is quite special in this watch too. As normal, you can add a name, phone number and birthday, but then you also get to choose a character. The character changes the cat picture to a range of different cats and dogs where you can pick the type, and separately select a face :)

Apart from the data bank, the 1537 module gives this watch alarm and stopwatch functions, and another unusual feature called 'fit'. In this function, you select two people from your data bank and the watch works out their compatability, giving a number of hearts and a percentage score!

I'm not exactly sure when it was released, but I think it is from the 80s. There doesn't seem to be much info online about this watch except a couple that have been for sale - that did show that there was a couple of colour variations.

With my collection, I've also noticed that a lot of the major watch brands don't keep their ranges particularly separate, and mix functions across the different lines they produced.

Today's watch by Alba is one of their Panelight watches, but also part of their Hot Gear line. The Panelight refers to a set of watches they produced with a specific backlight arrangement (which is activated by the big button on the front). The Hot Gear line was one of many 'Gear' lines that Alba produced in the mid to late 90s, and seems to mainly be a way of grouping and marketing their sales (although there was no major styling or function difference between some of the lines).

This particular watch was made in 1998 and features a W620 module. It is a standard 2 line LCD display, but with two intermediate lines of markers.
The top line is for day and date (or time when in other modes), and the other line covers time (or the other chosen mode with up to 7 digits). Between the lines is a small line of 9 markers which fills with seconds, and along the bottom of the display are markers to indicate the mode. The modes available on this model are alarm, timer, and chronograph, and there is a pace function for lap timing.

The full model number is W620-4020, and the strap part number is FC49HB. The original price was only 4,500 yen, and it had a catalogue number of ACDW007.

Today is my second Casio Data Bank of the week, and they couldn't be more different. The last model was very cute and plastic, while today's has a lot of curved metal surfaces, and looks more like something that Iron Man would wear!

The styling is the first thing you notice about this model, as the head and strap are integrated in a mixture of steel and plastic, looking a bit like a metal armadillo. The back follows in the style with a curved metal plate and large screws. It has even been nominated on one forum as one of the best looking digital watches!

It is part of Casio's e-Data Bank line which are relatively high tech and sci-fi styled memo watches. This one seems to be the EDB-100CJ as it has the metal strap, with the 100J models having only a plastic strap.

The front of the watch is dominated by the large squarish LCD screen. The 6 digit time display takes up at least half of the area with two other lines above and below. The top line covers the normal day and date, and the bottom line is an array of dots (5x30?) showing the city chosen in the World Time options. When the other modes are chosen, unusually it is the bottom line that they show on, except for the data bank input.

The 2417 module is an illuminator model, and has a 30 slot data memory, world time, alarm, and stopwatch. The illumination can be set to activate on wrist movement alone, so you don't need to press any buttons.

Guessing from the fact that the date adjustment starts at 1994, I guess that this is a 90s model, and references online seem to suggest that it had a sub-$100 sale price.

Today was another opportunity to wear a smart watch, so I thought it was time to go back to the Citizen Independent line of watches.

The Citizen Independent line are a set of high fashion watches aimed at young people.

This watch is one of the mechanical watches from that line, and has an automatic 8225 movement. On the dial, there is a round window at the 4:30 position which gives a view of the movement inside. It is a 3 hand dial, but the second hand is on a second spindle, and is centred in the middle of the round window. The back of the watch also has a glass panel where you can see the rotating weight for winding the mechanism.

The watch has a model number of 8225-002895, and a catalogue number of ITX21-5123. It was out in the 2000s (around 2008), and had a price around the 35,000 yen mark.

This time I'm wearing a more colourful watch to celebrate today's Eurovision Song Contest final.

The watch is by the Hong Kong brand o.d.m (or odm) who were established in 1999 to make watches that were original, dynamic, and minimal.

As part of their range of watches, they produced their jelly watches which had a wide rubber strap which the module stretched into. In that set of watches, they had a couple of models with a scrolling dot matrix LCD display which would display the time and a scrolling message. For one of those types (today's Mysterious V scrolling message watch), it is possible to change the message, however you need a special device that was to be bought separately from odm (and i will include in a later post). You can tell the adjustable ones by two electric contacts on the back.

Today's model is part of a line called "23:59 Never too late", which has the message that even though you've reached the last minute, you still have another 60 seconds before the day ends. And even if there is just one minute, it is still a good time to strive to fulfill your dreams. As part of this line, the default scrolling message says "Never too late" (and this is followed by the time in inverse). With this watch, you also got a small plastic character toy with a square head and 23;59 written on its face.

From a module perspective, it has an LCD display with a 7x30? array of dots which shows time, date, and message. There is also a movement sensor where a 45 degree turn of the watch brings it back to showing the time (or switches between hours and minutes in setting mode).

The model number of this was DD99B-55

Another smart shiny watch again today, and from a brand of watches I've not featured so much.

This watch is made by one of the Seiko sub-brands, but not Alba (as with many in my collection), but by Pulsar (which was more the European brand).

The watch is one of the Spoon watches. This line came out in the mid 90s, and we're the first of the major lines of fashion watches (and a forerunner of the Seiko AKA and Citizen 1481010 lines).

This model is one of the more unusual Spoon watches with a vertically elongated design, and I think it was part of the Spoon Ingot line. The Ingot watches were all made I'm shiny metallic colours (and this makes it hard to get good photos of). It has a 2 line inverse LCD display with date and day in small digits along the top, and a 6 digit time display (with very large hours and minutes, and small seconds). The W170 module also has a chronograph, timer, alarm, and dual time. When switching between modes, the top line shows text as to which mode you are about to use.

The strap is a shiny dark blue colour, matched to the body, and has a part number of 71Q7-G-E.

The full model number is W170-4A20, and the instructions on the W170 can be found on the Pulsar Watches website. I think it came out in around 2000, but I haven't see it in any catalogues.

We've been having unseasonably warm temperatures here this weekend, so i found a nice retro thermometer watch for today's post.

The watch in question is the Casio TS-150 from the mid/late 80s (the module date setting starts at 1985, but some sources state a 1989 release). The TS-150 was the Japanese version of the TS-100 watch and only shows temperature in Celsius). You can plainly see the metal sensor under the display, and there is a bar across the top of the LCD that shows the temperature reading. The watch is quite collectable, and relatively hard to find, especially if you want one with the lettering still in place on the front.

It uses an 851 module and has a few other tricks up it's sleeve than just temperature measurement. It has world time, along with temperatures for the cities, alarm (x5), timer (up to 24hr in 1 second increments), and stopwatch functions. To show the world functions, there is a map in the top left with an LCD overlay showing the time zone being used. Next to the map is a small 2 line LCD area which has the day and date, and the top line can also show the temperature and shows which mode you are in (-that line is also an array of dots). The main time is shown on a standard 6 digit LCD display.