Share your best unknown watch

I’m going with this guy, the Vulcain Cricket. Many will have heard of it, I’m guessing few have one…

Have had my eye on that but I already own a Seiko Bell-Matic, which has a similar function. 🤓

Is it as loud as they promise?

I don’t know what other watches are like, but it’s pretty loud.

The Seiko isn't loud at all. It's more for the vibration.

🤔 I think maybe this

Lol that's my wife's name.

Are the markings on the bezel some kind of dive table?

Yes i think is a decompresion table

Well for one, “Mir” is the model name. Since it has «ЧЧЗ» on the dial, it’s quite old, prob late 50s/early 60s. That the abbreviation for Чистопольский часовой завод, or Chistopol Watch Factory. The font for the numerals is awesome. 18 stones and anti-shock are what it says above the 6 index. Very cool find

That's awesome info. I didn't know any of that. I chose it because I loved the dial design. I agree the font is 😘

I love me some Russian watches… and it helps knowing Russian too 😊

Gonna go with watch(es) 😂.

Granted I'm sure some on here might come along and fess up to owning at least one of these, even if not currently in the collection.

Pretty confident I have never seen the Vostok Driver dial, Mako Gen I, Arken Instrumentum, LongIsland Mini-Spork-ish, TC-9 bronze turtle, Bombfrog 500m, Timex Midget, and Orient Defender Gen I on here before tho...👀🤏🏻😅

And I'm 98.9869% on the Athaya Vintage. Yes it's a Turtle homage, but from a now mostly defunct micro back in the early days of microbrand explosion.

I feel pretty sure that no other Crunchers have this watch.

This little quartz beauty is the Timex Women's Waterbury Neon. The Waterbury collection honors the female watch and clock makers who were the heart and soul of the Waterbury Clock Company.

Timex released some lovely women's watches under the Waterbury collection, including a very brief run of the Neon, a take on the women's Waterbury Traditional with a unique trick up its sleeve. There were 3 refs released for the Neon; polished stainless steel, gold tone, and rose gold tone.

Activating the Indiglo feature reveals a hidden design in the dial, and Timex used some unusual Indiglo colors for the Neon; yellow, pink, and bright blue (not the usual blue-green, but a true blue). It's also rocking Timex's top-tier Indiglo, which is bright enough to charge the lumed hands.

Each Neon ref had a different case finish, Indiglo color, and hidden design. The only clue to the Neon's secret is the accent color on the second hand and the pips above the indices. It's a dress watch for the subversive - a traditional facade, but punk rock underneath. 🤘🏽⚡

Mine came on a matching gold tone bracelet, but I mostly wear it on a brown, leather strap.

#timex

So cool!

Everyone has such cool pieces. Mine is nowhere near as unique but I think it’s quite underrated, it’s the Casio F105. This is to the F91 what the A168 is to the A158. Essentially the same watch but with a better backlight (the illuminator).

I have two potential candidates for unknown and slightly unusual watches.

The first is the SD-1 from Dietrich which is a skin diver with a floating sapphire dial (you can see the shadow of the text and indices if you look for it). There were not a lot of them to start with and they are becoming rarer since Dietrich closed shop in 2023.

The second is the MT369 from, well it's technically from Mathey-Tissot but it was made exclusively for Asia Mechanical Watches Group (AMWG), and while it looks like a Rolex 1016 clone/homage, it's really a re-creation of a much older and obscure model - the Explorer 5500 aka the Air King Explorer from the 50's. At 34.5mm it's also much smaller than a 1016 and more period correct for a 5500.

What a coincidence. Just posted this on WRUW:

Very special!

I'll stick with the Russian theme and go with the Vympel...

As some one who collects strange rare prototype-ish watches. most of my watches can be classified as things people haven't seen. 😅

A couple of new things for me in this chat too though. Nice russin watch too.👍

Yes! I have an F105. It's one of the two watches that got me into this. Such an underrated member of the F91w family!

Woah! It's this in watch form

Maybe this Junkers? Love the bauhaus aesthetic, one of my favorite watches (and one of the loudest movements ever).

Slava pulseometer medical watch (Chernobyl☢️)

I have only seen one other example of each of these:

This, on the other hand, is rare for a reason...

XEMEX Off-Road 211 automatic. I have never stumbled across another XEMEX owner. They are such a weird company.

I'm pretty sure that the watch in my profile picture is the only Preisig Schaffhausen Day-Date on WC. It's one of 200 with a Swiss German day wheel (Mäntig, Zischtig etc.) made by Mr Ueli Preisig, a watchmaker from IWC's home town whose workshop closed in 2015. The only other model with this complication that I'm aware of is the far more modern and expensive Maurice de Mauriac Züri Date (which seems to have exactly the same date wheel with the same font that doesn't suit the rest of its design in my opinion).

This mainly because they went out of business, but most of my watches are only known by enthusiasts.

I’m from Russia, this watch is made in my home country.

If you like this USSR style, also look at Amfibia (Амфибия) watches. They have good divers for less than a $100

Pretty sure this is different than what most would have. Nowa Concept-01.

Resco Instruments: created by a SEAL for desk divers & a few better known UDT divers