If you’ve lived all your life in the Western hemisphere, your opinion of Seiko most likely is that Seiko makes “cheap” watches. That they are not very high-end.

If you haven’t lived all your life in the Western hemisphere, or you are a true watch person, then you know that is absolutely false!

In fact, the Seiko Credor Eichi II is quite possibly the most interesting and best-finished watch in the world. It goes toe-to-toe, literally, with the Laurent Ferrier Galet Micro-Rotor and the Philippe Dufour Simplicity. Furthermore, the Credor line also contains some higher-end complication watches, such as the Credor Repeater, Credor Sonerie, and the Credor Fugaku Tourbillon. These are complications that only a hand full of companies can compete with. Rolex, Omega, Longines, and many other traditional “big” brands from the 60's can not, and never have!

Much has been made of the Quartz Crisis, and the implication that Quartz watches are not as good as mechanical ones. 

The Quartz Crisis was devastating to the watch industry to be sure, and I do agree that mechanical watches are much better than Quartz, but as is always the case, there are exceptions to the rule, perspective matters, and its always a good idea to at least try to have some knowledge to back up your claims.

So, what is Quartz?

As a follow up to a previous article where I discussed the connection between the Omega Speedmaster manual movements, and the Vacheron Constantin 1141/1142, and the Patek Philipper CH 27-70, since they all used the same Lemania based caliber, I also 

thought it’d be a good idea to give some more background on who Lemania was and is, especially their intimate connection with Omega via the SIHH.

It's been a while since I have posted anything, but that doesn't mean I haven't kept busy or that you haven't made inquiries. I have and you have, and thank you!

And seeing that Baselworld 2015 has ended, I figured this would be a great time to resume with actually posting something.

Actually, one of the reasons why I felt a need to post about Baselworld this year is because I need to vent my frustrations.

This year, without a doubt, the them of the show was some kind of perverse identity crisis among many brands.

Even Patek Philippe, one of my favorite brands was not immune to a certain level of "issues", who accompanied the usual suspects: Rolex, Tudor, Omega, etc.

High-end, it is not: doesn't have a mechanical movement and neither is the movement made in-house, has zero pedigree, and no where near a vintage.

But, what it is, is clever!

The slow watch has just one hand and shows all 24 hours in a day on it's dial, not just 12. The number 12 is at the usual position, but to it's left are the first 12 hours of the day and to it's right the last 12.

So if the hand is where the 9 usually is, it's actually about 6:45AM. If it's where the 3 usually is, it's about 6PM.