Tissot PRX Triple Pointer Date Moon phase

Today let us talk about a piece I am so glad and ecstatic to own.
It is a Tissot PRX Triple Pointer Date Moon phase  R80 quartz watch , with is a Swiss made chronometer in stainless with gold tone bezel and day date.
I have been finding or trying to get my hands on a vintage moon phase timepiece.
I am glad to announce, I now finally have it.


Though it may not be that old, it is still a 26 year old piece in good working condition.
What makes it all the more special is that, I received confirmation from Tissot on this piece.
At first I was a rather sceptical, as little or close to no info was available online for this particular piece.


There were many PRX models but one with moon phase seemed almost impossible to find any information.


I wished to be able to have more info on this lovely looking piece, to understand its history more.
Unfortunately I really could not find anything online or anywhere else to help ease my queries.
As of now, all I got are little bits and pieces from here and there.
Though I am thankful to have a valuable source of information directly from Tissot.
Their reply to my enquiry gave some basic info on my timepiece.
Below is a response I got from Tissot in Switzerland,
“
We can inform you that this model PRX is a Tissot production from 1989.
The watch is fitted with a quartz movement,  and is 10 bar (100 meters) water resistant.
The case are made of PVD/steel. This model was also available with gilt, white or black dial.
”

Though I can only think of one set back, which is that the watch size is a little small but this was the case for timepieces made back in the day up till the 90s.
So unlike the big watch faces we are used to seeing these days or the heavy size, back then it was somewhat petite.


Personally gold coloured moon phase watches looks a tad more classy and gives it a luxurious feel.


To further break down this timepieces below are its specs;
Tissot PRX - Quart 7 jewel Swiss movement.
Dual tone colour combination “18K Gold electro plated and Steel”
White dial with three sub dial indicator column for “Month, Day and Moon phase”.
The second hand sub-dial located at moon phase, while the long needle with a tip resembling a red crescent is a hand pointer date, date version of the circular dial.
Index Strip hours marker.
Solid SS bracelet with a variant of the gold-steel tonnage segment.
Three folding clasp.
WR100m, scratch-resistant glass (sapphire crystal).
36mm diameter crown. 7mm thickness.
Fixed bezel ring pattern formation 12 angle.

If anyone out there has more info on this lovely timepiece, I am all ears!

Mr. Jones Sun and Moon Miyamoto

Alright, I got an interesting piece to talk about today.

It is Mr Jones Watches from UK. Well firstly, Mr. Jones is not your average line of watches.

It has an artsy feel about it with many witty designs. Most of the time (pun intended) it forgoes the usual conformity we are accustomed to seeing on a watch face. Instead it has vibrant, bold colours, artistic and imaginative designs in place.

Their unique styles make telling the time an altogether different process.

It makes time telling quirky and hip!

They have a whole Sun and Moon range, which unlike your usual timepiece that shows you ‘day and night’ through separate dial on the piece. Mr Jones, makes use of the movement of the sun and moon and they have referred to this as the “hour disc”. The hour disc is used to tell the time and the hands on the face are used to show the minutes and seconds.

So today I am going be to talking about my Mr Jones Watch.

It is a limited edition Sun and Moon Miyamoto.
This piece is inspired by the world of Super Mario Bros, and pays homage to its creator Miyamato.
Limited to 100 pieces. (or so I thought when I ordered mine)

So about 3 weeks later after my purchase, this piece seems to have been added to their regular line of Sun and Moon pieces. Which means it is no longer limited edition but a regular sale items.

 
To be honest, I am a little disappointed as I thought that I was one of the privileged 100 to be able to own this piece.

As why to this particular piece was reinstated is perhaps due to the reason it was very successful and sold out rather quickly. I have checked their website again and they have relaunched the piece to keep the vast number of customers happy. This is one of those times where the collaboration done by the watch maker, seems to have been done right.

To be fair, Mr Jones probably saw it as an opportunity too good to pass up.

Mr. Jones has managed to leverage on the vast number of Mario fans out there, whom by now should be in their late twenties to early forties. Indeed a good target market and with the style of the watch being so androgynous that it appeals to both man and woman (another plus point for sales and style). The team behind it did a great job, this would be somewhat like their golden goose.

Let’s face it, it is definitely a great piece but also a cash cow for now.

I am sure it would outsell may of their other pieces, just due to the fact that it is somehow linked to Super Mario. Well done and good move by Mr Jones, to bring it back to both satisfy the cravings of customers (definitely more than a hundred) and ring in the profits.

Only difference is that, when I got mine it read "No 45 in an edition of 100". (as you can see from the picture below)

For the regular pieces on the back case, the ‘No XX in an edition of 100’ words on the backing are no longer there, as shown below.

 

Taken from: http://mrjoneswatches.com/sun-and-moon-miyamoto/

As I have mentioned, there is a unique or unusual way of time telling on this watch.

The sun and the moon are the indicators for telling the time, sort of like your hour hand.

Before I get onto my take of this peice, let me share some info from their website.

The website explains it in detail how you can read the time properly. (Taken from http://mrjoneswatches.com/sun-and-moon-miyamoto/)

“The position of the sun or moon in the crescent shape indicates the hours.

The crescent shaped sky represents 12 hours with the time running from left to right.
At 6am the sun 'rises' on the left of the dial. The sun slowly climbs in the sky until it reaches the apex of the crescent noon.

The sun descends until it reaches the right hand marker at 6pm.

After 6pm the Sun ‘sets’ and disappears from view, meanwhile the Moon ‘rises’ on the left.
The position of the Moon in the sky shows the hours from 6pm until 6am.”

As for the minutes and seconds, it is displayed in the middle and tells the time in the conventional type of way.

So let us get down into this piece.

The first thing that definitely stands out is its cool Blue and Grey strap with pink stitching.
The strap surely is something funky and cool, the metal buckle also has a nice crisp finishing. The watch has a nice clear sliver lug with a mostly white face, with the hour disc having the day and night designs of the Mario world.

The design on the hour disc is not too complicated, it is done simple enough to be admired and I feel it makes use of the space flawlessly, without making it too congested with over complicated graphics, it is perfectly balanced.

It would look nice both on the wrist of men and women. It is nicely assembled to look good nice on a man's wrist not too small, and neither too big for a woman's wrist.

It feels good on the wrist, not heavy or bulky, just nice.

Since all the detailing was on the hour disc, the main point was to visualise the landscape moving along as time ticks on. They left it at that, leaving minimal details for the markers around the minute and second hands.

Having done a range of sun and moon pieces, the balance in this piece is perfected harmonised.
 
Thought it is a nice piece, when looking at it I must admit the finishing looks a tad bit shabby.

 


Especially 2 particular points. First it is the block markings (see in above picture) on the face along the "hour disc", there are 12 blocks which are used to help tell the hours as the sun or moons are directly below it. The colours of these markings seem to look faded, as though a poor printing method was used. It gave it an overall poorly finished look. If the colours were more saturated it would have come out looking more vibrant and eye catching, unfortunately this finish seemed to be below par.

The second point which I have to highlight is the print finishing on the back case of the timepiece. Once again here, the printing looks mediocre and somewhat like a childish finishing. It does not look good and professional. If the printing would have been more sharp and perhaps a shade darker to make it stand out a little more, that would have been enough to make it look more satisfactory.

Lastly, another confusing point was that on the back case of the piece, it says “Made in London”. Though when the item came and on the parcel box, country of origin was declared as “China”. This is perhaps another point to ponder on? I would not really think too much into it but it makes you wonder if the watch was indeed pieced together in London or not?

The specs of this piece shown below;

Case: brushed stainless steel

Strap: navy and grey leather with pink stitching
Mechanism: Ronda 515-24H single jewel quartz mechanism
Width (3 o'clock to 9 o'clock): 37mm
Height (from lug to lug): 46mm
Waterproof: 5ATM
Smallest strap diameter:150mm
Largest strap diameter: 205mm

Now let us delve into the story of this piece, so we know the inspiration came from the graphics of the highly popular Nintendo game Super Mario.

The image of the hour disc showcases the landscape of the scenes from the game. If you played Super Mario while growing up I am sure it would strike a chord with you.

Remembering the times you had to run pass the turtles and trying to get your mushrooms. It shows both the day and night landscape or 2D background as we would have known it back then.

So why is it called the Sun and Moon Miyamoto, is basically because this piece pays homage to the designer of this game Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto.

As I have mentioned Mr. Jones tends to be an artsy-fartsy sort of brand. They have an explaination the story behind the design of this piece. You can read more from, http://mrjoneswatches.com/sun-and-moon-miyamoto/ in the description tab.

All in all, it is a nice piece and especially if you are a Mario fan.

 

Deconstructing the Tachymeter

Alright today let’s talk about the tachymeter complication.

A tachymeter gives a timepiece a sporty look, something that when you look you associate with sports such as racing or for the military.

It add lovely contrasts to many timepieces, making the overall look more sophisticated.

Though a lovely complication which adds dimension to your timepiece, it may be totally foreign or alien to some on how to use it.

Like seen from the below picture, my Seiko Criteria SNDG13P1 (which I will write about soon)

 

Some people go out having their timepiece without ever using the tachymeter function.

To a major share of watch uses, they may simply purchase a timepiece with the tachymeter function due to the fact that it add aesthetic value to their timepiece.

So let us cover how a Tachymeter actually works.

A tachymeter scale is a scale sometimes inscribed around the rim of an analogue watch. Usually with Arabic marking around the dial as well.
 
This function is used to either measure a distance based on speed or speed based on travel time. The markings have spaces in between them on the tachymeter dial are consequently proportional to 1/t where ‘t’ is the elapsed time.

A tachymeter’s performed function is independent of the unit of distance be it kilometres, miles or any other only as long as the unit of measure is equivalent for all calculations. In essence, a tachymeter is a way or means of converting ‘elapsed time in seconds per unit to units per hour’.

To get a little mathematical below is some info on calculations to work it out;

“To use a tachymeter function to measure speed, start the chronograph at a starting marker of a known distance. At the next position, the point on the scale adjacent to the second hand indicates the speed of travel between the 2. The typical scale on a timepiece converts between the number of seconds it takes for an event to happen and the number of times that event with occur in a hour. The formula to create this

kind of tachymeter scale is     T = 3600/t   

Where ‘T’ is the tachymeter scale value and ‘t’ is the time in seconds that it takes for the event to occur and ‘3600’ is the number of seconds in an hour.

So lets work out an example, if it takes 35 seconds to travel 1 kilometre then the average speed would be 103KM per hour. Do take note that the tachymeter scale only calculates the average speed.”

So with that, we are more or less through with the practical of a tachymeter.

Lastly, just some history, the first rotating bezel tachymeter was introduced by Heuer, now Tag Heuer which was back in 1958.

By the late sixties chronograph timepieces where sky rocketing, demand grew invariably and watch manufacturers around the globe were contesting to opportunities to patent automatic versions and wanted exclusive rights. It has to be known that without the chronograph the tachymeter complication would have no place as well.

Let me share a little fascinating history on some very lovely chronograph movements which came into being.

Around that time Breitling, Heuer and Hamilton partnered up with Dubois Depraz to develop the first ever self-winding chronograph. It was a clandestine affair in which only a handful of professionals involved on a need to know basis. This great development was unveiled in Geneva and New York on 3rd of March 1969. Called the Chrono-matic, the Calibre 11 movement would wind itself using an off centre micro rotor.

Soon enough, Zenith had produced the El Primero (Which might I add, is absolutely stunning!) which used a central mounted full rotor and was capable of measuring time to one tenth of a second.  Seiko the Japanese giants also released their automatic chronograph called the 6139 Auto-Chrono.

Out doing themselves once again, Seiko created the world’s first quartz watch, a giant breakthrough in Horological history, thanks to this hefty invention it somewhat marked an end and seemingly rendered chronographs virtually obsolete with the Seiko Quartz Astron 35SQ.

Back to our modern day and age, the chronograph is making a comeback and is appreciated by many once again.

With many lovely pieces from Tag, Seiko, Breitling, Hamilton and so on.

Though some of us may not entirely know how it functions or its practicality, it may serve as an aesthetic feature. Nonetheless the tachymeter is a lovely complication, you will never know when it may come in handy.

What is a Chronograph?

So have you ever asked this question, what exactly is a Chronograph watch?

It may seem like a really absurd question to most people who know a thing or two about watches.

But guess what, I have been asked this question before. So why not explain it?

Firstly, before I carry on, yes I do know there are a ton of websites and books out there that already explain or give you the answer you are looking for with regards to “what is chronograph or tachymeter” and so on. Well yes it is true, there are so why exactly am I writing then?

I am doing this to help myself further understand and learn from what already little or much I may know. As you can never know too much.

Similarly I do live by the principle of, "We learn new things everyday". So writing helps me to learn and express. 

Carrying on, so the most basic kind of watches out there are the ones that only show you the time. It has numerals (most of the time, some omit numerals altogether) and 3 hands (Hour, Minute and Second) like shown below.

(TAKEN FROM : HTTP://Global.timex.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/product/t2p128_0.jpg  )

Some basic watches do have other patterns or designs, like the Nomos Tangente, which right now is one of my favourite pieces out there. This particular model has a separate second hand counter. ( On a side note, this is such a lovely and classic piece that I would really like to own, soon)

  (TAKEN FROM HTTP://WWW.nomos-store.com/out/pictures/master/product/1/tangente_font(1).png)

Before I carry on, we owe it all to Monsieur Louis Moinet, the inventor of Chronograph. So the back story was that in those days the "aristocrats" were interested in the cosmos, so this invention was actually used for tracking astronomical objects.

In essence, chronograph watch is basically a watch that has a stopwatch function added into it. Chronograph watches can be either automatic or quartz and feature various complications at once and have several sub dials to read off the measurements. The most basic chronograph has a separate or independent sweep second hand which can start and stop, and return to zero. There can be up to four dials on the face to indicate hour, minute, seconds and 24 hour indicator(some dials show even up to a tenth of a second), like the  Eberhard And Co. Chrono 4 Grande Taille 31052.1 shown below. 

                 (TAKEN FROM HTTP://azfinetime.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/eberhard-and-co-chrono-4-grande-taille-31052-1/)

Majority of the chronograph's  features works by pushing a start button. Usually most of the start buttons are placed at the Two O Clock position to get the timer moving to record time and by pressing the same button to stop the time recording and returning to zero by pressing it over.

Each individual function of the chronograph is independent of each other. What this means is that your timepiece can tell the time and function as a stop watch concurrently.

Not to be confused, Chronograph is known as a complication of a timepiece and not its movement (of the watch).

Just to add in some technical stuff, there are 2 kinds of chronographs the automatic and digital. Difference being, automatic chronograph depends only on kinetic energy as a source of its power. The digital on the other hand works very much like a common hand help stopwatch and is run by batteries.

So what is Quartz & Mechanical

I have been absorbed into the very fascinating world of Watches.

I can’t seem to have enough of them, these fine timepieces have gotten the better of me.

This year I have been reading up countless pages online on different watch movements and history of certain timepieces. Expanded my knowledge of many more amazing new and vintage brands.

Learning the differences between functions and movements.

I still have so much more to learn and grasp.

The art of watch making is amazing, all the unbelievable kinds of functions in every time piece, each in its own style and each brand having it’s open particular speciality.

Firstly a movement is something like what runs the watch like an engine or heart of the timepiece ( in my own words).

The most basic being either quartz or mechanic.

A quartz movement is an electronic movement. It is called a quartz movement, because a small quartz crystal is integrated into the electronics. This is done as every timekeeping devices needs something constant in which it can measure time against. When current is run through a quartz crystal it will oscillate almost perfectly at a constant frequency. Hence the reason why quartz watches have such an amazing accuracy. The better the quartz, the more accurate time keeping will be to within few seconds a year.

Most quartz watches run on a battery, which can usually last from 2 to 5 years before a replacement is needed. The more basic the watch the longer the battery may last. More complicated movements which may include a compass or stopwatch may result in a shorter battery life.

Mechanical watches seems like a thing of the past in our current day and age. Yet it is an important movement as it may have led to more modern movements. So there may be self-winding or manual winding mechanical or automatic. The technology used in mechnical watches may somewhat be centuries old. This movement is powered by springs that turn gears in which is a regulating mechanism, eventually the hands. Mechanical movements have a range of 50 to 300 parts. This usually depends on the movement. If properly maintained and kept in good care, whose to know how long it may last?

From reading maybe articles, it is said that the jewels used in the movements is a reason that mechanical watches have such longevity.

The most common form of mechanical watches are the automatic. Automatic watches have a rotor that spins on the back of the movement. This turns a gear which winds the main spring in turn working the watch.

Mechanical watches may start simply by keeping time, showing hours, date and stopwatch features to complications such as perpetual calendars alarms and minute repeaters. Such complicated mechanical watches are known to fetch high to exorbitant prices. Watches such as Vacheron Constantin or Philippe Patek.

Just like changing the battery on a quartz watch, for mechanical watches it requires cleaning and maintenance after every few years. For this cost it varies from hundred dollars onwards.

As I have mentioned, I am new and this info is what I have amassed from reading articles and posts online and in books. So I may be wrong in some parts, and I am open to learning more if anyone can help me improve.

Thanks for reading and for anyone new to this hope you have learnt something.

 

Cheers.

Introduction to my obsession

It was back in 2011, when I stumbled upon an exhibit in our local Museum in Singapore on fine timepieces. It was an exhibit by Vacheron Constantin and my god were the timepieces amazing and nothing short of exquisite. To cut the story short, since then I have been hooked.

The history, the art, the finesse, the immaculate work, the scrutinising detailing, everything I saw was simpliy mind blowing.

Below is the link of some of the gorgeous timepieces I laid eyes on;

https://www.flickr.com/photos/rajvind/sets/72157649658323870/

I was privileged and blessed enough to be invited to an exclusive closing event by Vacheron Consantin including a private tour for the exhibit and a closing party in Fort Canning Hotel in 2011. The highlight was the night was a private tour with a watch experts who expounded further on each timepiece as we walked past them. Each piece telling a marvellous and intriguing story. From being a famous heirlooms of monarchs and to personal pieces belonging to notable historians. At that very moment, like a fish swimming towards the bait, I was hooked.

Since then, I have been to number of other exhibits available locally. I am constantly trying to grow my understanding on timepieces and chronology. I am still a baby, weaning and am slowly growing my capacity and intellect on the meanings of all the different kinds of watches and movements.

Back then I was a student, having just started working I hope to start a small watch collection and hope to grow it to a decent collection someday.

Who says it's wrong to dream? As I told my wife, it would be a dream to work for any timepiece company out there, to expand my knowledge and grow my fascination and love for timepieces.

Having seen, read and learnt of so many brands around the world, each great and momentous in its own right. I dream to be a proud owner of a Vacheron Constantin timepiece one day, to me it is the Crème de la crème.

Who knows, from my little humble blog, an opportunity may come along. Allowing me to work with timepieces as a living. What a life!

So let's get started! I look forward to more posts and use this page as a means for me to learn and share.