Ok, so I've been to Las Vegas a grand total of three times: two for CES, and once for a nationwide manager's convention for a previous banking career. For some reason, I gravitate to the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace, and have done so each time I've been to Vegas, in the precious "off duty" time there is available. But, I have never seen this place, and could have kicked myself in the head for it.

Apparently, Tourneau has the "largest watch store in the world" nestled here, at least according to several of the salespeople I talked to. One way or another, the place is ginormous, and a watch lover's paradise. To try to give a sense of scale, the photo above is about one third of the middle floor of four separate floors. Yeah. Ginormous.

This was Tag Heuer's display on the top floor... sweet.

Gems were hidden throughout the store, like this jaw-dropping Breguet tourbillon...

And this Jaeger Le-Coultre Atmos, secretly tucked in a display case by the stairwell leading to the top floor.

Overall, I loved being at this store, and could probably have stuck around for hours. I wish they had carried more "obscure brands," rather than the big names, but it is Tourneau after all. One way or another, if you consider yourself a watch addict, and happen to end up in Vegas once in a while, you owe it to yourself to at least stop by.

I felt like I was spending too much personal time writing watch reviews to have them get lost in this blog, and I've found I am really enjoying it.  So I've created a website dedicated to them.  You can find it here:

http://fashionablylate.peterredmer.info/index.html

Enjoy :)  I hope to get more time to write about my other watches soon.

Ok, so I already blew my watch budget for this year. I probably shouldn't have bought this little beauty, but for under $100 shipped, I just couldn't turn it down. Damn email marketing campaigns ;)

The Carbon is a mens sized, multifunction, "Pilot's Homage" watch. I typically don't buy homage watches, as I feel they're cheesy and generally ugly. However, I couldn't find any "established" watch designs that look like this, so I'm not even sure what it's paying homage to.

The Carbon comes shipped in this green velvet-like pouch that provides reasonable protection for the watch.

You also receive this nice envelope containing instructions for the watch and a warranty card; the watch is warrantied against defects for 1 year from purchase.

As you can see from the photo, the watch has a bold, military style with orange hour markers and luminous white hands. The lume is quite nice; I apologize for not having photos. The three dials are intended to give the watch a chronograph like appearance, but in actuality are (counter-clockwise from top) month, year, and 24 hr. time indicators. It also features a day/date display outlined in silver. The dial is textured... it's definitely not carbon fibre but tries to achieve a similar effect of depth. Even though it's not the same as carbon fibre, it's still quite cool, but very difficult to capture in photographs.

The case, in my opinion, is the best feature of this watch. It has an almost-black, gunmetal type matte finish which exudes manliness, and a sweet hobnail bezel that reminds me of flieger style chronographs (ala Hanhart, for example.) It's 45mm - big enough for my wrist but it might be a bit much for smaller dudes. The crystal is domed mineral, and it comes with a nice leather band with a marked buckle.

This whole time, you've probably been wondering how this watch can pack so much into such a low price. Want to know why? It's made in China. Everything, I'm guessing, is made in China. As such, the Alpha Watch USA name can be a bit misleading... the *company* is based in the US, though. (Interestingly enough, about 30 mins away from me, which I didn't know when I bought it.) Anyway, the movement is Chinese and looks Chinese - rough and basically unfinished. The gold Alpha Watch logo on the rotor is nice, though. Looks can be deceiving, though - this watch keeps excellent time and so far has stayed within 10-15 secs. per day.

My overall impressions of the Carbon are excellent, price notwithstanding. This is a really striking watch with a unique blend of black, orange and white that stands out in my collection. It has satiated my desire to acquire an expensive military style watch. Speaking of the price, it's crazy that something so nice could cost so little. I think I paid a total of $93, and that included tax and shipping (tax is only charged to customers in IL, as far as I know.)

If you're a watch collector or just looking for an interesting everyday automatic watch that won't break the bank, look no further. I really like what Alpha Watch is trying to do in that they are taking Chinese movements and components and packaging them into something worth far more than the sum of its parts.

That being said, where I think Alpha Watch misses the mark is that the majority of their designs are "homage," that is, ripoffs of popular watches such as Rolex and Omega... which I tend to dislike. (Again, I made an exception for the Alpha because I couldn't nail down a watch it seems to copy directly, and even if I did, I still really like it.) The quality, customer service, and image of Alpha is so good that I think they could do quite well with their own unique watches.

Alpha, hear my plea and work on your own custom designs, I'll be there with my credit card burning a hole in my pocket. Let's see some larger sized (Unitas style) handwinds and perhaps a Sea-Gull tourbillon...

http://www.alphawatchusa.com

I was recently bit by the new watch bug.  Not that the bug isn’t always biting, but I was ready to give in.  Being a huge watch nerd, I cast my line in the TimeZone Sales Corner and numerous other online watch stores.  I saw many models I liked but just couldn’t pull the trigger.  I even went downtown to Jeweler’s Row and couldn’t find anything reasonably priced that I really wanted.

To make a long story short, I ended up at Perlman’s Fine Jewelry, a suburban Chicago mainstay of sorts… they’ve been around since the 60’s.  They carry a number of medium grade brands such as Tissot, Longines, and others.  Then, at the end of their store-length watch case, I spotted watches branded… Perlman?

Yep, they had their own brand of watches.  Which wouldn’t be all that surprising (there’s lots of companies that will slap a logo on a cheap watch) except for that these were really, really nice.

I immediately gravitated to the only men’s automatic in the lineup (most were quartz) which happened to be tucked neatly into its own winder.  I had to ask about it, and learned that the watch was packaged with the winder.  Its heavy, solid feel, clean dial, and great looking movement brought me back into the store for a second time.  After a bit of wheeling and dealing, they had a sale (and let it be known, I got a significant discount.  Now is not the best time for sellers of luxury items, another great reason to buy now if you can.)

First, a bit about the included winder.  It doesn’t feel like a cheap, crappy knock off - although I have no idea what brand it actually is.  The dials on the back allow you to adjust the winder for single or bi-directional winding and number of turns (an ETA 2824 requires a different number of turns per day than a Valjoux 7750, for example.)

The first thing you’ll notice about this watch is that it’s damn heavy.  It feels like it weighs a ton, which I like.  I’m a big guy and a big manly feeling watch suits me just fine :)  The second feature of this watch that really struck me was the clean dial.  It’s a stark white with painted numerals, the Perlman logo, and a “10 ATM” distinction, and that’s pretty much it.  The minute and hour hands are a painted blue - a shade which is quite nice, but doesn’t show up well in the pictures.  Finally, the minute hand is also painted blue, but has a silver ring on the short end that I love.  I believe the watch is 38-40mm wide, but have not whipped out my ruler to measure it.

The bracelet has blended brushed and polished stainless steel links which give it a sporty look.  It balances out the dressiness of the watch, making it suitable for jeans or a suit, another quality I like in a watch.  The clasp is so-so, it holds together firmly but is easy to accidentally disengage if you bend your wrist downward.  That’s the only thing I don’t like.

The classic Swiss workhorse, the ETA 2824-2, is featured as the powerplant in this tank.  I’ve seen a LOT of examples of this movement, some completely rough and boring and others spectacular.  This is somewhere in the middle.  The rotor (which is marked “BTC,” a Google search turns up nothing) is decorated with Cotes de Geneve and the rest of the movement has some nice perlage and striping.  It has a great look and shine when seen at the right angle, and as any watch lover knows, that is very difficult to reproduce in photographs.

The watch keeps fantastic time, within 10 seconds per day, as would be expected from a fine grade ETA movement.  I also forgot to mention that the crown is screw down and the movement hacks, which is nice.

All in all, I would give this watch an 8/10 (marks down for the clasp and un-rhodiumed rotor) and for the price, a solid 10/10.  In addition, the service at Perlman’s was fantastic and it was a pleasure shopping there.  The watch has since been removed from their shop, as there was only one available, and has not been re-added - so it might be tough to get one of these!  If you can snag one, you won’t be disappointed.

As I had mentioned in my previous post, lately I had been eager to acquire a new mechanical watch.  When I realized I hadn’t even been wearing a watch these days, I knew it was time to start looking… and return to my timekeeper-obsessed roots.

I had my eyes on Vostok-Europe for quite some time, as they seemed to produce a unique, in-house mechanical movement with some unusual and striking designs… for a bargain.  Usually, they could be had for anywhere between $175-$300 USD, not a bad deal.  I always liked the Metro series, and I saw one of the other models on Amazon for about $109 USD.  I almost bit, but I really liked the “other” model better, and ended up finding a stunning deal on eBay… which I snapped up after thinking for about a nanosecond.  I am not regretting my decision.

The Vostok-Europe Metro is actually made by the Koliz company, based in Lithuania.  As to where the Vostok name comes from… the movements are created and finished by Vostok, a watch factory in Russia.  This is what really attracted me to the watch… an “in-house” movement for this price?  You gotta be kidding.  (When I refer to in-house, that means “not mass produced,” such as the high quality, but extremely common movements made by ETA of Switzerland.)

That isn’t to say that Vostok doesn’t make a lot of movements… as I’m sure they do.  However, the nicely finished movement inside a Vostok-Europe is much less common than the “standard” Vostok movement.  I’ll show you the movement in just a bit, but let’s talk about the rest of it first.

This particular model is a tonneau shaped wristwatch with a stainless steel case and mineral crystal.  The dial is black and quite shiny due to “faux” guilloche, which actually looks quite nice.  The addition of a day/night indicator is nice, but the “day & night indicator” text below it may be a turnoff to some.  The hands are of moderate quality, and the applique numerals are nice, but don’t stand out much.  (I apologize if this is difficult to see in the photos - it’s hard for anyone but a pro to really capture a watch in photographs.)  It’s quite big, measuring in at about 38.5mm wide… definitely well-suited to a bigger guy like me.  The previous owner had included a nice Swiss Banda leather clasp wristband, which I’m sure doesn’t come stock with the watch.

The movement is gorgeous, especially for the price.  This is what I was most worried about, as sometimes photos of watches are doctored up to make the movement look super sweet, only to disappoint upon arrival.  While not finished in the most eloquent of ways (read: a little rough and not super-high-end,) the 31-jewel Russian movement still has a nice sparkle, with cotes’d’Geneve on the rotor and blued-steel screws.

Overall, this is a wonderful watch for a man with big wrists or who is looking for a large, classy mechanical watch that has its own unique character (there are only 999 pieces worldwide.)  For the price, Vostok-Europe offers up quality you couldn’t hope to find elsewhere, and I’ll wear mine with pride.

For more photos, click here.

While I wouldn’t call myself a WIS (watch idiot-savant) I really, really enjoy mechanical watches.  I became fascinated with them back when I was given a Fossil chronograph by my family back in middle school.  I distinctly remember staring at the dial of the timepiece, playing with the registers and watching the chronograph hand whittle away the class period.  Working at a chain jewelry store as an assistant manager didn ‘t help either… I couldn’t resist walking over to the “higher-end” jewelry store across the way in the mall and drooling over the wares.

This soon transitioned into a specific passion for mechanical watches.  It’s amazing to me that so many tiny, tiny parts can be assembled to create a machine with such amazing durability and precision.  It’s a throwback to a greater era, where craftsmen would toil for hours and hours perfecting their most recent guilloche technique, making measurements down to the micron when they didn’t even know what a micron was.  The fact that such an amazing invention as the tourbillon was invented over 200 years ago completely blows my mind.

As such, I firmly believe that quartz watches have no soul.  Expensive or cheap, mechanical is the way to go - I always feel like I’m wearing a work of art on my wrist, and they capture my imagination every time I look at them.  You can easily spend $1,000 on a quartz watch that isn’t nearly as fun, quirky, or interesting as a $100 mechanical.  Since I’m more in the $100 range these days, I set out to find a new watch at a good value that would satisfy my desire for mechanical beauty on a budget.