A Tale of Two Homages

It's funny what I've bought over the years without realising exactly what I'd bought until fairly recently. I had no idea that these two watches were homages. Yes, actual homages rather than clones or lookalikes.

The Ingersoll diver (or maybe "diver style" if the 100m doesn't qualify it as a "real" diving watch) is the first watch I ever bought from eBay back in 2002. It came from a company selling straps as their main business and cost me the enormous sum of £23.

As someone whose usual watch purchases were around £10 or less for the latest thing my local market stall seller had to offer, £23 seemed like a huge amount of money to me at the time. When I showed my mum, I did Rodney's line from Only Fools and Horses, "I always wanted a deep sea divers watch," which she didn't pick up on and replied, "Well, you've got one now." She also gave me the money to pay for it since it was nearly my birthday by the time it arrived and she couldn't think of anything else to give me.

Anyway, enough with the personal stuff. I was happy with this Ingersoll watch apart from the very stiff plastic "concertina" Seiko-style strap it originally came on which dug in me, and I had no idea that it was a fusion of now obvious design elements from Omega and Seiko, maybe with a bit of Citizen in there too. It was and is essentially a combination of all the popular diver watches in one cheap quartz homage. All it lacked was a cyclops to pull in the Submariner too, but opted instead for the same crown guards.

My second watch, the Slazenger, was a fairly recent purchase again from eBay. I think I got it 4 years ago simply because it was something like £2 with free shipping. I never see bargains like this anymore. At the time, new ones were selling for £9.99, so still a bargain. This was an ex-display model. The original brown leather strap on it had fallen apart due to sun damage and been replaced by the seller with a new black rubber strap which is now on the Ingersoll.

As much as I liked the soft black rubber strap on the Slazenger, I bought a new 22mm blue diver strap for it and wore it all Summer, and never realised it was supposed to look like a Seiko with a Citizen bezel. In case you wonder, there's no lume in those indices, although there are similar looking Slazenger models with lumed indices and fully lumed dials. It's not a diver (but neither am I) and has a water resistance of 30m (supposedly). I've worn it while mowing the lawn, chopping down trees, and while sitting in my paddling pool. It survived without water ever getting in it, and that's all I can say about that.

I'm pretty sure that anyone seeing these watches from a few feet away would think that I'm wearing Seikos (and according to their quartz movements, I suppose I am), or maybe think the Ingersoll is a re-cased Franken-Omega, which only goes to show yet again that you don't have to spend a lot of money to get the look of more expensive watches.

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I had no idea my Accurist was doing its best impression of a Speedmaster Date when I got it either. In fact, I only looked it up a few months ago.

Truth is, watchmakers (and the companies) borrow design elements left right and centre all the time and very few haven’t done what we would call an homage or even a clomage at some point in their history. It’s just a thing sometimes overlooked.

(Like the way we now look down at a watch bracelet without solid end links — but even Rolex was using those until relatively recently. Or acrylic crystals. Or only 100m water resistance. Or AR coatings, which I think Rolex in particular are still not using, except on the cyclops. It’s all just choices.)

If a watch collector or enthusiast likes certain design elements, they have a plethora of brands and watches to choose from hopefully. (Unless you like Omega style scalloped bezels. Sigh.) The same is hopefully true if people prefer a certain brand simply for its history, or sentimental reasons. Hopefully that brand gives them a diverse set of choices.

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casiodean

The whole sapphire crystal snobbery amuses me too. Whether I've worn a watch with acrylic or normal mineral glass, I've never scratched or cracked any of them. I have no idea what mischief some people get up to while wearing their watches that means they live in constant fear of scratching them because I don't baby any of mine. Crystals of all kinds are cheap as chips to replace anyway.

Oh, I have scratched the living daylights our of plenty. Even the odd chip — but that is on watches that were my fathers beforehand, and he spends a lot of time with tools. More than me anyway.

Fundamentally, it is possible that one of us could one day smash a sapphire Crystal. No problem, whatsoever. Or scratch one. (Diamond files…)

Really it’s just the thought that a watch roughly on a par with a high end one of ten, twenty or thirty years ago is inferior, whilst still lauding those high end watches of ten, twenty or thirty years ago — completely confusing.

Brand loyalty, borne out of their history or heritage, no problem, perfectly fine. But those are intangible things, subjective things. Other aspects? Not so much.

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casiodean

The whole sapphire crystal snobbery amuses me too. Whether I've worn a watch with acrylic or normal mineral glass, I've never scratched or cracked any of them. I have no idea what mischief some people get up to while wearing their watches that means they live in constant fear of scratching them because I don't baby any of mine. Crystals of all kinds are cheap as chips to replace anyway.

It is not snobbery, sapphire is objectively better than mineral. Just because your watches with them don't have marks doesn't really mean anything other than you are rather lucky 🍀

I have owned plenty of mineral crystal watches and all of them if worn as intended and not babied ended up a scratched up mess unfortunately.

Given the choice sapphire is the way to go and even watches at the affordable end usuualy come with it these days.

That being said external AR coatings on sapphire is a head scratcher IMHO.

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OxandBuck

It is not snobbery, sapphire is objectively better than mineral. Just because your watches with them don't have marks doesn't really mean anything other than you are rather lucky 🍀

I have owned plenty of mineral crystal watches and all of them if worn as intended and not babied ended up a scratched up mess unfortunately.

Given the choice sapphire is the way to go and even watches at the affordable end usuualy come with it these days.

That being said external AR coatings on sapphire is a head scratcher IMHO.

If you expect it to get banged up, there’s a decent argument for mineral (or even acrylic) over sapphire. That includes on dive watches. Simply because it easier to polish scratches out, and they break in a specific manner.

Sapphire is harder, toughest of the tough, but… if it goes, it goes kinda catastrophically. It’s more brittle. Meaning sharp shards (maybe mineral is better for display casebacks in which case) and impacts that may scratch the crap out of mineral or acrylic, and lead to replacement, may break sapphire in a way that lets water in and wrecks a whole watch. Not a common problem for the most part — but an edge case that for some people is more of a concern.

So yeah, objectively better, but in certain circumstances (or for certain looks) you may want another material there. (It’s a bit like Titanium versus steel in that regard… each has its pluses.)

Once upon a time it was a luxury material, but it’s not so much these days — really now it is down to design choices.

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JaimeMadeira

If you expect it to get banged up, there’s a decent argument for mineral (or even acrylic) over sapphire. That includes on dive watches. Simply because it easier to polish scratches out, and they break in a specific manner.

Sapphire is harder, toughest of the tough, but… if it goes, it goes kinda catastrophically. It’s more brittle. Meaning sharp shards (maybe mineral is better for display casebacks in which case) and impacts that may scratch the crap out of mineral or acrylic, and lead to replacement, may break sapphire in a way that lets water in and wrecks a whole watch. Not a common problem for the most part — but an edge case that for some people is more of a concern.

So yeah, objectively better, but in certain circumstances (or for certain looks) you may want another material there. (It’s a bit like Titanium versus steel in that regard… each has its pluses.)

Once upon a time it was a luxury material, but it’s not so much these days — really now it is down to design choices.

Some good points Jamie 👍