Swatches and Watchgang Five-William L

Swatches

 

I already told the story of my first Swatch, and I recently bought the updated version while on a trip to New York. I was very happy with that first one, and it was my day to day watch for a number of years.

The left is original and the right is the new version.

Swatches were cheap, and looked cool, so I ended up with several of them throughout the 90s. They were always a touch small for my small wrists, but wore them anyway.

I actually have owned a few more. In the 90s I had both a Diver and a Chrono that were in heavy watch rotation until the bands disintegrated. They're probably still around the house someplace, and I've bought a few replacement Swatch bands. But many of the bands were part of the design, so the watch really loses something without them. 

I also was always bummed when the batteries would die. Back in the 90s, before Amazon, finding the right battery could be a challenge. That's why I was thrilled when Swatch started making automatics. The Earth Day one on the right I still wear pretty frequently, even though I had to change the band.

The band on the right is a replacement

I have a few Irony Swatches as well, but they aren't that comfortable to wear.

Finally, I have this Mark Spitz watch. As a club swimmer during the Munich Olympics, Mark Spitz was my hero. Seven Gold Medals! How cool was that? And everyone cared about swimmers in the Olympics.

I found it for around $50 on eBay about 10 years ago. 

In the 00's I stopped wearing my Swatches. Tastes change, and there weren't any that really appealed to me the way they did in the 90's. That, and they're just a little small for my wrist. I don't think I have particularly large wrists, but the Swatches just don't seem to sit on my wrist as well as my other watches. 

Watchgang Five-The William L

The William L Mecaquartz 70's Chronograph

 The William L came wrapped in a white box, which held a grey travel case.

The white box vaguely resembled the box that my checks used to come in. Nothing to get too worked up about.

The grey travel case looked nice, and I might be able to get some use out of it. I have found that I travel with a couple of watches, for no other reason than I have a bunch and like to wear them. On first glance, I hoped that maybe I could carry two or three watches in the case, which would be nice.

Interestingly the zipper pull came off the zipper almost immediately. A small thing that I just corrected with a pair of pliers, but a detail that makes you wonder what else is missed.

I unzipped and found the watch.

I don't have many metal band watches, so I was a touch disappointed when I saw that. And the watch also has a brown face, definitely an interesting color choice. I went to the William L website, and found the list price of 211 Euros, or about $240 dollars.

I tried the chronograph feature, and unlike some of my other watches, it stopped and started and lined up back at the 12, a good thing. The stopwatch didn't do splits, though. I'm never going to take splits on this watch, but I thought I'd check anyway.

The unidirectional bezel moved well enough, but the push buttons for the stop watch and reset didn't feel particularly solid. Again, I don't think I'll use those features much-my Timex Ironman handles all my timing needs, but it seems like those buttons shouldn't feel flimsy.

Interestingly, it has a see through back, something you see on automatic watches where the movements do something. On a quartz watch, I guess you can watch the battery drain. It's a Seiko movement, which is very reliable, and a mineral crystal, so it shouldn't scratch too bad.

William L, according to their story, "does not hide its Chinese production. Each piece is conceived in Paris and manufactured in Shenzhen," not necessarily bad-the Chinese can make good watches, but not carrying the same cache as a Swiss or Japanese watch. 

On my arm, there's some heft to it, and I'm going to have to wear it about to get a feel. On the William L website, they have the watch with a brown leather band, and I think I like that better than the metal band. With the silver bezel, it doesn't feel like there's enough contrast on my wrist to make it stand out. 

Otherwise, it's not a bad watch at all.

For The Win Smash Burgers/Kettle Glazed Doughnuts

 

A rainy day road trip with my son and a craving for a good hamburger led us to For The Win for smash burgers.

First, what is the difference between a smash burger and a regular burger? The smash burger is a patty cooked on a hot grill, smashed down with the spatula so that more of the patty is in contact with the high heat. The idea is that more proteins in the meat break down, giving the meat a more charred flavor, while still retaining some of it's juiciness.

 

 A Double with Cheese

 

Apparently, it's proper to use a soft bun as well, and keep the extras to a minimum.

 

For The Win started during the pandemic, the remnants of the owner's high end restaurant. It's a small space, but since it was raining, my son and I were easily able to find in door seating.

He's a young man, and ordered a triple cheese with bacon. I just can't eat that way anymore, and wanted to get a doughnut from the place next door after, so I went with the double with cheese. We bought french fries and brussel sprouts, too.

So at twice the price of a comparable In-N-Out burger, was it worth it?

Maybe. The smash burger technique does add a more complicated flavor, toasty across each bite instead of just the edges. I liked the potato buns better than In-N-Outs, too. The cheese was nothing special and might have benefited from being a sharp cheddar. The fries were ordinary. 

The brussel sprouts were very good, though. They were grilled and had a very strong hint of citrus that really set off their flavor, and I wish we'd have gotten a second order of those and skipped the fries altogether. 

 

The staff was friendly, even allowing me to buy a Mexican Coke from the liquor store next door and bring it in since they were out. The service was fast, too.

I won't make a special trip, but if I'm in the area and don't feel like a Tommy Burger, I'd definitely eat there again. They're open until 9 PM.

Kettle Glazed Doughnuts, next door, was also good and not too expensive. My son went with the s'mores, which he said was good.

I had this, which was also good. We were there late in the day, and the doughnuts were still soft and fresh, not like a stale doughnut that's been sitting in a case all day. With the burgers, it was a tasty, high calorie meal.

 

 

Philz Coffee, San Francisco

 

I haven’t written about coffee in awhile, mostly because I’ve hit all the coffee places in Ventura and don’t really have anything else to say about them.

But I’m in San Francisco at the moment, and while walking by the Marina Yacht Club, I spotted a coffee truck with a bit of a line, and thought it must be pretty good for people to wait for coffee on a 45 degree foggy morning.

Philz coffee is all over the Bay Area, but I’m not up here that often to know. They do pour-overs made to order, and the line was moving fast. I ordered one of their dark roasts, the Tantalizing Turkish. They describe it as “cardamom, herbs and tobacco” but I got more chocolate and smoke, with a hint of mint at the end-they add mint leaves to the coffee. There was no bitterness to it, and it went well with the cream, sugar and cinnamon that I normally add to my coffee.

At $3.80 for a medium cup, it wasn’t outrageously expensive and well worth the wait. Definitely a place I’d come back to.

Antique Watches and Watch Gang 4-Spinnaker

 40 years ago I was working in a harberdashery in Downey, California, called Miller's Store for Men. An independent men's clothier, it was owned by Bill Miller and Kevin Kelly, and though Mr. Miller was still around, Kevin was the one that actually ran the day-to-day operations. He was possibly the best salesman I've ever seen. Many of the customers were regulars, and would often come in to talk to Kevin, and he knew what he could sell them. But even when it wasn't a regular, if you came in for clothes, he'd set you up well. Kevin wasn't heavy handed by any means, but worked with the general philosophy that if you were, say, buying a shirt for some event, that you'd likely need pants, and if you needed pants, a new belt would probably look sharp, and you wouldn't want to ruin the look with beat up old socks. So he'd lay everything out for you, show you how you could use your purchases and add a few other elements to make it more personal, let you decide what you wanted, and in the end, whether you just bought the one shirt or the whole outfit, you left feeling good. I tried to use that same philosophy when I worked at Nordstrom in later years.

 

In the store, Kevin was always dressed in a custom made, tailored Le Baron suit and tie. But he didn't do tie bars or cuff links, instead opting for nice watches. I asked him about it, and his feeling was that since he didn't wear jewelry, nice watches were in order. 

The first vintage watch I purchased for myself was this Elgin, bought in a vintage clothing store in West LA in the late 80s. I was about to graduate from college, and though I knew my Mom was going to buy me a new Seiko that the UCLA Alumni Association put out, I saw this watch and thought it was simple and classy. The owner of the store refurbished watches as a hobby, and I remember that he was asking $150  for this. Sharon, from the last entry, was with me and said she liked it, so I bought it. It's hard to tell, but the best guess for it's manufacture is sometime in the 1940s, USA made, and a quick check on Wikipedia reveals that Elgin went out of business in 1968.

The next two were also purchased with Sharon, this time on a trip to the big island of Hawaii in probably 1989. We stopped at a 2nd hand shop, and the owner had several watches on display. I liked both of these, and couldn't decide between the two. I knew I'd wear the one on the left more, but I liked the flash of the one on the right. Neither are name brand watches-the equivalent would be knock off watches you find at Kohls, but they both have a vintage look. The Crestwood on the left is Swiss made, and imported by some company in New York. It's likely from the 50s or 60s.

I've seen other Louis watches, but can't find any information on them. I vaguely remember the owner saying it was a knock off of a Cartier watch from the 20s. I think the shop took cash only, and we didn't have any cash on us when we first stopped. We came back later, just as he was closing, and the owner gave us a couple of the beers and told us a few stories, and I ended up buying both. Sharon bought a watch, too, but it was a better one-I think an Omega-and she paid $200. I think I bought both of mine for $125.

I liked those three watches and wore them a lot all through the 90s. 

 

I bought a more vintage watches, and I overpaid for all of them. I have a couple of others that pretty much fell apart after I bought them.

And the ones that fell apart:

 

Which brings me to this one:

I picked this one up in an antique barn of a store in Arizona in '95. It quickly became one of my workhorse watches. I liked the 60s vibe of it, and I think I paid far more than it's worth when I had it repaired about 10 years ago. I just liked the look. This brand still exists and seems to be on junk watches at WalMart mostly. But I like it and I wear it frequently.

I was given these two Bulovas recently. The one on the left looks like it's seen a pretty hard life, but the one on the right is pretty nice-I added a new band because the old one was too small. I wear them, but these days I'm pretty hard on my watches, so usually wear something a bit more substantial. The one on the right has a marking of 'L2', meaning it's from 1952.

I wound all these watches up this morning to see how they're all running. The newest one, I think, is the Pierre Jacquard, and that one is at least 50, and was serviced last 10 years ago. All of them are keeping reasonably good time. The cool thing now, though, is that I don't really need my watch to keep time. My phone does it better, so the watch is really now just for show.

Watch Gang 4

Spinnaker is the first watch of the four Watch Gang watches that I'd heard of before I received it. They constantly advertise on Facebook, and I'm on their mailing list. They have some great looking watches, and a quick look at the Spinnaker website shows a variety of quartz and automatic watches ranging in price from $199 to $650. Still, dropping a couple hundred bucks is a difficult concept for me, and though I have many watches in that price range, I haven't seen a Spinnaker watch that makes me think 'I need that.'

The packaging for this one was rather ordinary. A Spinnaker box inside of a plain white box.

But the watch inside was pretty nice. This is the first automatic that I have received, and I really do like automatic watches for no other reason than I never have to worry about a dead battery.

The watch is a Hunley in Woodland Green, currently sold out on the website, and with the retail price of $305. It's a good size, with a case diameter of 41.5 mm, and it features a Seiko NH-35 movement.

It's water resistant to 200 meters, though with the hunter green leather band, I'd never wear it in the water. The power reserve is at least 24 hours

I don't know that I would've ever picked green, but I did take it on a recent trip to New York City, and comfortably wore it. I like the feel of it on my wrist-heft, but without too much weight.

It's a good watch, and the first that I've been excited about right out of the box. I also may take another look at the Spinnaker website and I'm sure that I'll pull the trigger on a few more.

Russian Watches and Watch Gang Watch Three-Chronologia

Sharon Tinkle.

Who is that, all eight readers might ask, and what does she have to do with Russian Watches? 

I'm throwing Sharon's name out there because years ago I punched her name into Google and landed on someone's blog who was complaining because Sharon was named most likely to succeed in their high school class, and apparently the blog writer felt she should have been so named. 

Sharon and I met in college, and she played a part in my life for the next ten years. And one of the more minor yet still significant things she did for me happened when she was living in Northridge, and she came across a watch shop in the mall that was selling Russia Watches. I'd say it was sometime around 1990, and I saw this watch:

Officer's Watch with big ugly band.

which the shop owner said would have been a Russian Officer's watch. It's a Vostock, one of the companies that Stalin insisted would use no parts from the West. The watch is big and chunky, especially for that time, and he said to throw a big ugly band on it, which I did, and wear it. It's an automatic, which means that I never have to worry about batteries, a feature I like when I put it in the drawer for a month. No band or literature came with it, so when I changed the date I would wind through the 24 hour cycle until I caught up. About 15 years ago I learned that I didn't have to do that, something it would have been nice to know sooner. I wore it a lot when I bought it, and still wear it quite a bit. It runs great. He had one with a tank and one with a submarine. I'd never seen them before, but saw several after, all for much more money than he charged me, which I'd like to say was somewhere between $50 and $75 at that time.

I wish I remembered the name of the shop, because they also did watch repairs at a very reasonable price, but the mall has since been remodeled and it's been 30 years, so I don't know if it's still there. 

A few years later, around '92, I bought two more Russian watches from an Arab trader at the Brandenburg Gate, including this Raketa:

The trader said that Gorbachav wore one like it. I don't know if that's true, but it's still cool. I think I paid around $10 for it, and bought a cheap East German band at a nearby shop for it, thinking it fit the esthetic of the watch. It wasn't really the right size, so I changed it for the simple black band you see here.

Since then, I've picked up a few more off eBay:

This feels flimsy but looks really cool.

 

and this one on sale at Restoration Hardware from around 15 years ago:

Yes, it's a KGB Watch!

 

Why it was at Restoration Hardware is beyond me, but it was cheap, had a band and came in a box with a manual. It's a Vostok like the first one, and the watch guy in Northridge had this one, too. The manual was in Russian, so it wasn't a lot of help. No matter, I set it and wind it up when I feel the need.

And now, Watch Gang Three....

The Chronologia Watch

The Chronologia Rescue Trailer has heft. It's a thick watch (15.5 mm), which according to their website is designed for high visibility. It came in a large black zip nylon case, and interestingly also included a headlamp for nighttime trail runs. I like the black face with white numbers and markings, and the red accents give it a bit of flash. With a case size of 44 mm, it's one of the larger watches I own.

The stop watch feature has a big red second hand, making it easy to see, and the minutes that pass are the small dial on the left. I can't imagine ever using the stop watch feature for any serious timing-that's why I have all those digital watches, but it is a nice touch. The small dial on the right is a 24 hour dial. It's a bit harder to read, but I guess it could come in handy if I'm ever stuck in a cave. The date is a good size and contrasts well, but doesn't have that little 'cyclops' magnification you sometimes see. There is no running second hand, and I had to check the time to make sure that it was actually running.

The headlamp

The watch is made of carbon fiber, making it surprisingly light for it's size, and though initially I was put off by that, I've been wearing it for the last hour (after pulling some links out of the bracelet to accommodate my skinny wrist), and I'm finding it to be reasonably comfortable. The colors look good on my arm.

 

Unlike the Filippo Loreti or the Aeromat, there is enough contrast to attract the eye, and as I type this without my glasses, the size is such that I can read the dial easily. The watch features a Seiko movement, which isn't a bad thing, and mineral glass.

The list price on their website is $270, and the site says sold out. In fact, a quick look at all their collections shows most of their watches to be sold out. At the moment, a few are up on eBay for $150-175.

Thick when compared to my Seiko Skin Divers

I actually got this about a month ago, and now that I've adjusted the bracelet, I think I like it. It's not a slam dunk, but it's a wearable watch for me.

Watch Gang-2nd Watch, and my Dislike of Digital Watches-Filippo Loreti

    I never really liked digital watches, though I in fact own quite a few. Back in the early 70's, digital watches were very expensive, but the price dropped rapidly and by the 80s most were pretty cheap. Either way, I never wanted one. I liked being able to tell time, I liked watching the second hand on my watch and checking my resting pulse (often in the low 40s in high school-I was in great shape and was very much a distance swimmer. Even checking my resting pulse right now, it's still in the low 50s. If only my blood pressure weren't so high...) during dull high school classes. 

    Nerds and rich kids had digital watches. In the early 80s Casio made watches with calculators, but that was for Math people, not me. I stuck with my analogue watches.

    Until the late 80s, and I started training for the San Francisco Marathon. I'm not really a runner, though I've logged five marathons, and many 1/2 marathons, 10Ks and 5ks over the years. When I was training for that first one in '91, I really didn't know much about what I was doing. The friend I was going to run with suggested a system of run ten minutes and walk one, and in order to do that effectively, a digital watch was necessary, especially with a timer. I could set the time for 11 minutes, and when the alarm sounded, I'd walk for the first minute and run the next ten. Even now, I can run a long way using that system.

    I looked around some, and settled on the Timex Ironman. With the Ironman, I could time my runs as well as use the run 10, walk 1 system. I was also doing triathlons (slowly) during that time period, and the Ironman could track each split of my race. And most importantly, they were cheap.

My 2nd and 3rd Ironman

Fellow Ironman Wearer, Bill Clinton

 

    I only wore it for running or triathlons, and the one I like the best is the classic Ironman. Over the years, I've picked them up where I could-the problem is that most people used them when they had them, and old ones are pretty beat up. Apparently I wasn't the only one who liked the classic Ironman-while watching that Hulu documentary on Hillary Clinton, I noticed her husband Bill wore one all through his Presidency. I wasn't a big Clinton fan, and that might have been a deal breaker for me had I been aware. No matter-my Ironman (Ironmen?) watches are tools that I often use-they're great for timing splits in swimming, and the watch is easier to use than many stop watches.

 

 I bought two or three Ironman watches in the late 80s-early 90s, and then picked up two more on eBay in the last six years to have more colors. What I like about the original is that the Start/Stop button is on one side of the face, and the Split/Reset button is on the other. I think it makes it easy to get relay splits, and my other digital watches-even from Timex, have the features set up on different buttons.

When Freestyle Shark watches came out in the late 90s, I really liked the colors. But they were digital, and I don't buy digital watches...until I saw this red one on sale at Urban Outfitters two or three years ago. I initially didn't like it because it was hard to read, but then discovered that the battery was worn out when I got it, and when I put in a new battery, reading it was much easier.

The Redsand watch I bought at Pacific Sunwear about 10 years
ago. Even though the movement is like an analog watch, since there are words and not hands, it's a digital watch also. I thought it looked pretty cool, and though it wasn't on sale, it wasn't too expensive, so I bought it on a whim.

   

 

 

 

 

 I love almost all things Apple, but I do not have an Apple Watch. Though talking into my watch like Dick Tracey

has a certain appeal, everything I've read says what the Apple Watch does best is.....be a watch. And yes, I know that you can set it to mimic an analog watch, but then why not just wear an analogue watch?

I think these are actually all my digital watches. The last one I bought at a thrift store, and use it for yard work.

And now, what most people are waiting for-the unveiling of my second Watch Gang watch....

  

The watch was delivered in a plain white envelope that contained the box on the right inside the box on the left. The illustration of the chronograph got me excited-I like a good chronograph, even though I don't really use all the dials. It just makes the watch seem more important.

I opened the box, and saw the above watch in a rather nice package. Interestingly, it was running when I opened it, and set to Ventura time. It was a Filippo Loreti, a brand that I had not heard of. Before Googling the watch, I took a good look at it.

Stainless steel, a solid build, screw down case back, and kind of thick, all things that I like. But....

It's very monochromatic, and I like my watches to have a bit of pop. This is all shades of silver. I checked the spec page of their website. The Odyssey comes in eight different colors, ranging in list price from $197 to $262, and every other one I prefer to this color. It is a good wrist size, but just like my first Watch Gang watch, the Aeromat, the monochromatic nature doesn't thrill me. It has a Seiko movement, which is okay, and is supposed to be water resistant. It has a cheap crystal, and it isn't very luminous.

So, the short version is I'm not really thrilled. Two watches, two strikes. Let's see what next month brings.