[SOTC] New box acquired - Here's the state of my collection

ottop1

7 months ago

Watch box

So I ordered a new watch box a few weeks ago from AliExpress and it arrived yesterday.

Originally I was looking at pelican-style cases, but turns out that those are expensive, even when bought from China. Instead, I came across this suitcase watch box, which I bought for 27€ or so.

The box fits 18 watches, which means that it can fit my 18-watch collection (not including my quartz Khaki Field that I am trying to sell).

The case opens up such that the lid stands up as above and the inside has foam, which holds the watches down while the case is closed. This means that the suitcase can be moved without any issue as there is no room for the watches to move around inside and the foam is of course soft and thus won't scratch the watches.

The pillows are made of soft foam, which means that I can actually close my bracelets around them as opposed to my previous box in which the pillows are too rigid for that.

The handle has a lot of play and the components on the outside are generally built cheaply from what I think is plastic, as one would expect from a cheap product.

My collection

Now that I have talked a bunch about the case, it's time to move onto the watches.

I have organized the box in accordance with the watch types. On the left of the bottom row I have the divers. The bottom and middle right have my general use watches. The middle and top left have watches with complications and to the right of the top row, we first have my one dress watch and then plastic watches.

So here are some thoughts about each watch, starting from the top left:

Casio Lineage - Titanium for relatively cheap. Good design, ana-digi form factor and while the alignment is not perfect, it is far better than most quartz watches. Great watch with good functionality.
Brew 8-Bit - Great quality watch with a great movement and a themed design that fits my interests. Not much to complain about this one.
Sea-gull 1963 - Got this one from my father after I returned from my summer in China. Great looking watch with interesting history. That said, the movement will probably die at some point and repairing these is not cheap.
Certina dress watch - A vintage watch I got from my grandfather who got it for his 50th birthday a few decades ago. The watch is gold coated and has a basic quartz movement. Pretty much what a dress watch should be and the only one of those that I have.
SmileSolar - Really cheap for a solar powered watch. Uses a very cheap solar movement with a plastic build. Looks cool and is ridiculously thick for its diameter. Marketed as sustainable, but movement is fully sealed, so no repairs can be done there.
Casio something - Don't remember the model. Basic plastic watch that looks nice. Better stuff is available for the money.
GA-B001 - A G-Shock that actually fits my wrist with a more modern design than the other ones.
GMW-B5000 - A nice fully metallic G-Shock in a great colour. Strap attachment system doesn't bend down properly, so the watch ends up wearing too big. Doesn't get worn a ton, but has been a loyal companion in skiing last winter and will likely continue as such during this one.
Modded AE-1200 - Modded this one with a SKXMOD kit to give it a full metal case. Besides some alignment issues from the original Casio and poor display viewing angles, I have absolutely no negatives for this one whatsoever. This watch is so well designed it's insane.
Nomos Club - Pretty much flawless as far as I can tell in terms of quality (alignment, etc). Great simple design that is very versatile and a light, but not entirely white, dial that actually looks great as opposed to almost every other white dial in existence. Movement works well and runs at a consistent +1s/day as long as I wind it daily, which is really good for a mechanical. Will be expensive to service, though.
Escapement Time King Seiko homage - Nice watch in a fun colour. A meca-quartz movement that, due to being meca-quartz, is superior to pretty much every mechanical movement in existence besides Grand Seiko's spring drive, though those are kind of meca-quartz as well.
San Martin Ranger homage - Actually a good size as opposed to the original Ranger and the quality is great. The movement is slow rather than fast out of the box, though, which is a negative.
Leijona Järwi - Nice diver with a reasonable price from a Finnish brand. I really like the sunburst dial implementation on this one. The bezel has quite a bit of play, though.
Seiko Tortoise - Another great watch. In typical Seiko fashion, it has received a cringy nickname in the form of Land Tortoise, which is even used by some sellers. It's a really cool design and I love the friction bezel (I am indifferent about the compass aspect, it's useless either way). The crown position is nice and it wears very well. That said, the alignment is quite bad at the 9 marker and a Chinese homage would probably be better at a fraction of the price.
Vostok Amphibia - Worst watch in terms of quality by far. The caseback attachment works really badly and the physical build is meh at best. The movement is also the worst of my watches as it lacks hacking and doesn't even have a quick set for the date, making it a pain in the butt to set the date. Accuracy is also bad. I have been trying to regulate it, but the lever is really stiff, which makes that process very difficult. That said, it has a really unique design that makes it special and the size is spot-on for how I like it.
Khaki Field Mechanical - Love the design of this field watch. The movement is okay. Pretty much on par with a NH35 or Miyota 8215, but with a longer power reserve, though it will also be more expensive to service/replace. Crown used to be very uncomfortable, but it has been fine after a week or 2 of wear. The crown also makes time adjustment really nice and the winding action is great. No quality problems that I can point to either.
Timex Expedition North Field Post Solar - Great size, got it for really cheap at 69€ (nice) and it's a good watch overall. Solar charging is slow, but the charge lasts okay. Dial could benefit from more contrast and the movement misses the markers just as badly as swiss quartz watches do.
Camel Trophy watch - Got this one from my father. Old watch with a cool story that is well sized for me. Basic quartz movement and quality is pretty much what you would expect from this type of a product.