The IWC has been overpriced and over rated - for decades...Even the Milgauss has more history and better value for the buck.

Guess I have been lucky 🤪...Or maybe becuase I was speaking English? Anway maybe Wempe will make a difference...

IF the glass is really chamfered sapphire, then that is probably the most expensive part of the entire watch....But I am a bit doubtful they really mean 'sapphire'; it's likely only PR talk.

Atomic Time app on iPhone..

Go to one of the several Rolex dealers in Munich, Germany. So far, always friendly and polite.

9F is just superb....The older Citizen Chronomaster (still findable on sales sites here and there, but slowly dissappearing) is more accurate, and has a perpetual calendar window - very handy in everyday life!

But the 9F has the spring to counter seconds hand backlash, a sealed movement, a two step seconds hand motion (invisible to the eye) and a super fast date change. It also looks classy 🤗

I don't know how the battery driven Citizen Chronomasters are compensated for time keeping, but the 9F is just simplicity iteself: the quartz oscillator's abberrations and drifting is recorded/calibrated and fed into a chip in each movement so that these can be 'zeroed out'.

And most important (for me anyway!) : there are parts for 9F repair for decades into the future... I am not so sure that will be the case if a damaged Chronomaster needs work 15 years from now...

It is news to the people at Seiko Japan because:

For many, many years, their own PR kits handed out to us at Baselworld press meetings supplied the +/- 5 seconds rate per year for the 9F for almost two decades. This is why you will see it stated on many older websites/blogs/articles if you look around the net.

Now, officially online, they talk about +/- 10 seconds a year, which seems to be a misnomer of their PR department or they don't know what they want to really say 🙃. Or they are being very clever...

In watchmaking jargon, a watch with +/- 5 seconds per year rating means it can (will) run in a range between 5 seconds fast to 5 seconds slow - therefore the watch has a rate spread of 10 seconds a year.

However, IF the +/- is being used as general PR commment, (non-technical horologically) then the latter 'spread' is inferred (i.e. the +/- sign means equal to 'about' 10 seconds a year.) They have lost something in translation here...Or they are making it deliberately murky, to supply buyers a reason for purchasing a higher priced model, with no more accuracy than the base 9F supplies because it has a star now on the dial...If they really meant technically +/- 10 seconds a year, this is a rate spread of 20 seconds per year, which is rather mediocre for a quartz wristwatch in this price class, and nothing to be proud of!

I don't know exactly when this 'star' system on the dial was implemented for these 'more accurate' 9F based models, but I have three watches with the 9F, none of which has a 'star' on the dial, and the oldest, a Seiko Astron Anniversary model (from 2002? 2003?) still keeps time at +/- 3 seconds a year with battery and gasket change regularly done.. The other two 9F movements, (2008? 2010?) - also lacking the star), have never gone outside the 5 seconds fast/5 seconds slow - it is uncanny how good the 9F powerhouse is.