Types
Can anybody explain me the difference between dress watches, diver watches and field watches? New into watch collecting.
Thanks in advance.
10 comments
Sort by
Can anybody explain me the difference between dress watches, diver watches and field watches? New into watch collecting.
Thanks in advance.
This account is verified. WatchCrunch has confirmed that this account is the authentic presence for this person or brand.
Hello, and welcome to the site and the hobby! They are watches designed for different purposes. A dress watch will generally be a smaller thinner watch which often has a very plain/simple dial design. It is smaller and thinner so it will fit easily under a dress shirt cuff.
Dress Watches
A field watch is a watch designed for outdoor activities. The most common design is based on the Mil Spec for a watch for an infantryman. It will generally have a secondary ring of numbers for 13-24 inside the primary Arabics, although there is a lot of variation in field watch design.
Field Watches
A diver's watch is designed to assist a scuba diver with timing the length of the dive. A true diver's watch is ISO rated and will generally have the word Diver's on the dial. It will have good lume that lasts to be visible under water, have a high degree of water resistance, at least 200m for most diver's watches currently, and have a unidirectional bezel with a lume pip at the 12:00 position, and numbers around the bezel for at least the first 20 minutes.
Diver's watches
Hope this helps!
Hello, and welcome to the site and the hobby! They are watches designed for different purposes. A dress watch will generally be a smaller thinner watch which often has a very plain/simple dial design. It is smaller and thinner so it will fit easily under a dress shirt cuff.
Dress Watches
A field watch is a watch designed for outdoor activities. The most common design is based on the Mil Spec for a watch for an infantryman. It will generally have a secondary ring of numbers for 13-24 inside the primary Arabics, although there is a lot of variation in field watch design.
Field Watches
A diver's watch is designed to assist a scuba diver with timing the length of the dive. A true diver's watch is ISO rated and will generally have the word Diver's on the dial. It will have good lume that lasts to be visible under water, have a high degree of water resistance, at least 200m for most diver's watches currently, and have a unidirectional bezel with a lume pip at the 12:00 position, and numbers around the bezel for at least the first 20 minutes.
Diver's watches
Hope this helps!
Ohhhh I’ve been eyeing that tank Seiko! It’s been in my”shopping basket” for a while but haven’t pulled the trigger…
IMHO these are only the suggested categories for these watches, that does not mean you can wear them only while engaged in that particular activity. I wear a nice "dress" watch with T-shirt and flip-flops, and a "diver" or "tool" watch with suite.
What Candide3693 said.
A couple more pocs.
Dress
Field
Dive
Ohhhh I’ve been eyeing that tank Seiko! It’s been in my”shopping basket” for a while but haven’t pulled the trigger…
If it is the solar model like this one, I would go ahead and get it, as Seiko stopped producing it and replaced it with a straight quartz version and I have started to see the price on the SUP880 creep up.
If it is the solar model like this one, I would go ahead and get it, as Seiko stopped producing it and replaced it with a straight quartz version and I have started to see the price on the SUP880 creep up.
😖 it’s not in my basket anymore sold out. it’s only the quartz that’s available hmm I don’t mind the quartz though…
Hello, and welcome to the site and the hobby! They are watches designed for different purposes. A dress watch will generally be a smaller thinner watch which often has a very plain/simple dial design. It is smaller and thinner so it will fit easily under a dress shirt cuff.
Dress Watches
A field watch is a watch designed for outdoor activities. The most common design is based on the Mil Spec for a watch for an infantryman. It will generally have a secondary ring of numbers for 13-24 inside the primary Arabics, although there is a lot of variation in field watch design.
Field Watches
A diver's watch is designed to assist a scuba diver with timing the length of the dive. A true diver's watch is ISO rated and will generally have the word Diver's on the dial. It will have good lume that lasts to be visible under water, have a high degree of water resistance, at least 200m for most diver's watches currently, and have a unidirectional bezel with a lume pip at the 12:00 position, and numbers around the bezel for at least the first 20 minutes.
Diver's watches
Hope this helps!
Beautiful. Thanks!
😖 it’s not in my basket anymore sold out. it’s only the quartz that’s available hmm I don’t mind the quartz though…
Not surprising. Seiko seems to be removing many of their solar models and replacing them with quartz versions. The SUP880 and SUP250 (28mm version) are not the only Seiko solar watches to have this happen. Here is another example.
I used to have the blue version of the solar model, but gave it as a gift to one of my cousins a couple of years ago. C'est la vie.
Beautiful. Thanks!
You are most welcome. Have fun on your collecting journey!
One thing to keep in mind with watch categories is that there are few, if any hard lines between them.
To be an ISO diver's watch there are specific requirements, but most "dive" watches aren't ISO rated.
Pilot's watches are whatever a brand decides a pilot's watch is.
Dress watches are just generally "fancy", some are complicated, some are simple time only watches.
Field watches are often military inspired, but not always. Some people consider a Rolex Explorer a field watch.
Sports watch is a catch-all for pretty much anything that doesn't fit neatly into one of the above categories.
Last point, don't think you need to own a watch from every category. Eg. If you like dressy watches, but hate dive watches, don't feel like you need to buy a dive watch.