What's in a name?
I think that part of my resistance to all things Seiko is that Seiko has never named their watches. Sure, some have been given nicknames, but every iconic watch is a salad of letters and numbers that allow watch enthusiasts to communicate in their own private cant. I prefer my watches to have proper names like the Ranger pictured above. There is nothing esoteric about a proper name.
I think that given the knowledge base of this community and all of the recent hype about the Ranger, I could post a picture of this watch with the name and brand obscured and over 90% of you could name it without difficulty.
What about other famous named watches? Could you identify them?
I have crudely obscured the brand and name of the watches below. I tried to group them roughly into the same era, but they are a diverse group. Take a crack at it. Guess the brand and watch name for each. The winner is allowed to be unusually smug for the rest of the day. I will stop by later with answers.
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
(All pictures have been stolen from the internet and badly defaced by a person with poor reflexes.)
Restitutor Orbis. Aristocrat of beauty. Autocrat of time. (Trying to perfect trolling over at theescapementroom.com)
A. Timex Marlin
B. Guandong Ching Le Ga Lo Mo
C. Seiko SBGJADJASDKSDFASKJ463
D. Vacheron Corn de Flakes
E. Rolex Grand Wizard White Dragon
A. Timex Marlin
B. Guandong Ching Le Ga Lo Mo
C. Seiko SBGJADJASDKSDFASKJ463
D. Vacheron Corn de Flakes
E. Rolex Grand Wizard White Dragon
Nailed it
A. Timex Marlin
B. Guandong Ching Le Ga Lo Mo
C. Seiko SBGJADJASDKSDFASKJ463
D. Vacheron Corn de Flakes
E. Rolex Grand Wizard White Dragon
Maiahahah!!! VacheRon Corn de Flakes!!!!
A. Timex Marlin
B. Guandong Ching Le Ga Lo Mo
C. Seiko SBGJADJASDKSDFASKJ463
D. Vacheron Corn de Flakes
E. Rolex Grand Wizard White Dragon
I'd thought B) would be be a Henan Fuk Yeh Man. What's the difference?
Atlantic Worldmaster
Benrus Sea Lord
HMT Janata (guess)
Zodiac Autographic
Favre Leuba Sea Chief (guess)
Ehem
In the eastern world, naming things yourself would invite jealousy and thus, many backstabbers and haters to you unless you really are really, really hot shit to end all hot shitz. I guess Seiko followed that trend too hence why you don't get a Seiko with official names unless you start with a 'Grand' in front of Seiko.
Clap clap
I have given you a piece of wisdom from the ancestors. Use it wisely.
Ehem
In the eastern world, naming things yourself would invite jealousy and thus, many backstabbers and haters to you unless you really are really, really hot shit to end all hot shitz. I guess Seiko followed that trend too hence why you don't get a Seiko with official names unless you start with a 'Grand' in front of Seiko.
Clap clap
I have given you a piece of wisdom from the ancestors. Use it wisely.
The Skyliner disagrees.
This is just a proof of how bad I am at watch spotting.
The Skyliner disagrees.
Yeah, and that was in 1969 when Seiko thought they were all that and more. Mind you it took until the economic collapse in the 90s to kick Seiko's teeth in a bit, so, yeah...?
Still backing dugong's point, have not seen argument to say otherwise from @Aurelian-san
Seikos are so good they don’t need a name. If you don’t see this, you may be missing out. 😉
Naming things is just marketing. If a product is just great the way it is, all that marketing is just not needed.
Seikos are so good they don’t need a name. If you don’t see this, you may be missing out. 😉
Naming things is just marketing. If a product is just great the way it is, all that marketing is just not needed.
You could argue that good marketing also makes a product… I think that Smash mash potato is pretty average, and I do not buy it very often if at all (although that may change as the UK is pretty desperate right now), but I always remember the advert with the aliens when I see a tub of it.
Seikos are so good they don’t need a name. If you don’t see this, you may be missing out. 😉
Naming things is just marketing. If a product is just great the way it is, all that marketing is just not needed.
The White Birch must be shoddy using that logic.
The comments are getting spicy here
The comments are getting spicy here
ANYWAY
back on topic, I have been informed I have a number of incorrect answers… so game on!
These are all different models by Universal Geneve.
I'm not put off, but I do ignore you when you rave about the Seiko SDKEU1149 because I can't be bothered to memorize random strings of numbers and letters. And I'm not alone here, most people find it difficult to remember strings of letters/numbers without context. You really really have to love Seiko to learn those "names", especially when each color of each type of watch has its own code. There are literally hundreds of these codes. So while I won't refuse to like a watch because its name is a code, I kind of resent Seiko; it's like they're making things difficult for the sake of proving who the real fans are. Or like the real fans learn these numbers to let the rest of us know we're not in the club.
HMT and Longines were the toughest because they look like so many other vintage watches. But after staring at the pictures long enough the details revealed themselves. If I didn’t see India, I would have never got HMT.
Same - and even then it was a guess as to which model though. The Longines case does look like a Sea Chief.
It is the dial though… I was well out.
Congratulations @celinesimon
Case closed. @celinesimon swept the field. @SteepleOfKnives got 4/5 quickly. He was stumped on the Admiral.
My poor eyes didn't catch the India in the glare of the photo. Without that I don't know how easy it would have been.
Which was the hardest to get, which was the easiest?
I think what this exercise has taught me is just how big the gaps in my knowledge are with regards to any watch made before 1980.
Great kudos to @celinesimon for the win and @SteepleOfKnives for quick and mostly accurate guesses.
I'm not put off, but I do ignore you when you rave about the Seiko SDKEU1149 because I can't be bothered to memorize random strings of numbers and letters. And I'm not alone here, most people find it difficult to remember strings of letters/numbers without context. You really really have to love Seiko to learn those "names", especially when each color of each type of watch has its own code. There are literally hundreds of these codes. So while I won't refuse to like a watch because its name is a code, I kind of resent Seiko; it's like they're making things difficult for the sake of proving who the real fans are. Or like the real fans learn these numbers to let the rest of us know we're not in the club.
There, there. Why do think I write down the reference number/descriptor for my Seikos here the first few times I post one?
This way I don't need to Google and get stuck for 15 minutes trying to find shit like 'the Seiko with the polka dot dial and the founder's gold fillings seconds hand'. 🥲😓😮💨
Atlantic was one of the few Swiss brands that turned to Eastern Europe to sell watches. I think that their best market was Warsaw. If you lived in the Eastern Bloc Atlantic was your aspirational watch.
GS’ model numbering convention (XXXX-000) allows for 456,976,000 unique model names. I was thinking they don’t possibly need that many individual model names but then I remembered their limited editions and thought Yeah, they probably do.
Atlantic was one of the few Swiss brands that turned to Eastern Europe to sell watches. I think that their best market was Warsaw. If you lived in the Eastern Bloc Atlantic was your aspirational watch.
Exactly that. And they're still big here. The watch shop I worked for had Atlantic, and I sold a bit of them. Mostly this had to do with it having been - as you've put it - the aspirational watch. The popularity of it here started with...smuggle - Atlantics were commonly smuggled in by cargo ship crewmen, who bought them in Sweden, which initially was the market of choice for Atlantic.
As for Seiko... They named scores of their watches. Speedtimer, Skyliner, Sea Lion, and the list just goes on and on.
I don't know any if them 😳
I didn't know any of them! My only uneducated observation is that Orient are even worse at giving their watches rambling model numbers than Seiko if that is even possible?
A. Timex Marlin
B. Guandong Ching Le Ga Lo Mo
C. Seiko SBGJADJASDKSDFASKJ463
D. Vacheron Corn de Flakes
E. Rolex Grand Wizard White Dragon
Response of the day 😁
I just love how SRPD73K2 rolls off my tongue. Then again, I also speak German, and words like "Rechtsbehelfsbelehrung" have a brittle charm.
Is this not the case with Casio as well?
And that's why I had to get rid of my 318i. I couldn't take all the numbers and letters. I replaced it with a properly named car, a Mercedes 250 SEL.
Not only BMW. A car called "911" can't possibly sell and be in production for more than a few years, right? 😉