Oh, my. Orient AP0003S 'Bambino Small Seconds'

Pictures say a thousand words. *Drool*

The Orient 'Bambino Small Seconds. With the new Orient Cal. F6222. features hacking and handwinding. As its name implies, it has a small seconds hand on the dial at 6 o'clock. This is also the first watch where it doesn't say "Water Resist" on the dial. Good call!

Get your Bambino Small Seconds here (Black dial) | Silver Dial | Rose Gold | Cream dial

Blue-dialed Seiko 5 SNK793K1 Review

It's time for a review of my Seiko 5 SNK793. If you love blue dials, this model has a very nice dark-blue dial with a sunburst effect in the middle section. Being a Seiko 5, this has the following features standard;

- Automatic 7s26 movement, 21 Jewels
- Day/Date
- Some lume
- Hardlex crystal
- Display caseback
- Basic water resistance


Having a width of 36mm in diameter, the case has a big polished bezel around the extremely nice blue dial. For those with 7inch wrists and smaller it would look OK provided the straps are the same width or you could get a wider strap but with notched ends and it would not look out of place. The sides of the case and its lugs is brushed metal.

The hour and minute hands are a sword-style, in polished metal with lume. The seconds hand is a very thin and painted white, and along with the white day/date wheel, and this white goes very well with the blue dial.

The crown is located on the 4 o'clock of the dial. Pulling out once changes the day and date by turning it clockwise or counter-clockwise. Being a Seiko5, the crown is unsigned, and far too small. I also find that because it is so recessed into the case, even pulling it out to change the time while the watch is on the wrist is hard to do. It would be easier to take off the watch and set the date and time from there.

I put a dark brownish-purple croc leather strap on it with a deployant clasp, and this made the blue dial watch look so much more casual. I think it would also look great with a tan strap as well. In fact - this would look great with almost any kind of strap.

It's very easy to see why this model is so popular. Did I mention the nice soothing blue dial?

You can buy yours here.

Leather Strap & Deployant Buckle here.

Seiko 5 SNK793K1 - on crocodile strap with deployant buckle

Beautiful.

Gorgeous.

Seiko 5 SNK793K1 - on crocodile strap with deployant buckle.

  Yup, I went out and bought another Seiko 5. The SNK793K1 Blue Dial. I also got a deployant buckle for it, because why not. Well it turns out how wrong I was.

  I've discovered that a deployant buckle for a strap isn't exactly advantageous in any way AT ALL. Firstly, there's the cost of getting the thing in the first place. Then, the darn thing, when folded up, takes up at least 4-5 milimeters inside of your wrist, so an OK fitting strap becomes terribly tight fitting, or, if you use a looser slot, it ended up still too loose. Lastly, you'd still have to slot the end of the strap to the loop in the end. So you've just saved ZERO steps, while adding another (when clipping them together, gotta do one side before the other) so therefore in my honest opinon - deployant buckles are a complete waste of time and money. They do look cool though. So style points for that..

You can buy your Seiko SNK793 here.

Leather Strap & Deployant Buckle here.

Yet another strap...

... but this time a waterproof silicon rubber strap with red stitching to pair with my Orient Ray Raven. Saw this unique strap a watch store and I just had to have it! This strap is very thick and very soft. It's a bit hard to wear though, but looks stunning.
It costs about MYR 45. At current dwindling exchange rates, I think that is like, USD 0.01 or something like that...
However I am at the constant problem with no matching PVD buckles... :( Darn my being located in a small backwater town.

Cheap Watches on Clearance

I bought some watches from a shop near my office that is going on clearance. How cheap you ask? Well, dirt cheap.. like, for the price of a battery. So I bought 4.


These are "Stainless Steel" watches, with "Water Resistant" rating (and no more than that), with folded metal links (that threatened to go out of alignment when I tried to adjust it) and I suspect it is painted-on chrome, though I can't be sure.

Construction
As mentioned, construction on the bracelets are very poor, which is expected. But who cares if you swap them out to straps, right? The watches themselves have (apparently) Japanese Quartz movements, they - well - they work. Being quartz watches. And at first glance, they actually look quite decent. This works well for people who just want decent watches.

The amazing thing about it is that a very low clearance price, it makes it totally worthwhile to get them as gifts to be given away.

And here they are, in its generic-brand-name-cheap glory! (Sorry for the crappy smartphone photos.)

Wilon. This actually looks nice. This is a women's version.

MK, or Mike Ladies with "gems". Weird brand name, but looks good for a cheap fashion item.

Full pic of the Wilon

....and MK

These are matching pairs found. Mike brand.

Casio Baby-G Ana-Digi (BGA-200)

This Casio Baby-G Ana-Digi belongs to a friend. As I didn't check what model it is, a little searching on the internet and the closest I found should be the BGA-200 model. This is one very nice black model, very minimalist and stylish at the same time.

I like the white over black display. The date displays 2 alphabets instead of the usual three (as can be seen "WE" instead of "WED" which takes some getting used to I guess. Not sure what the upper right corner (lower right in this shot) shows, looks like an element to show the time passing. Not sure about the "04" as well, but I'm guessing the seconds counter.

It was strapped to a basket so I just took a shot like that.

Vintage? Sea-Gull ST5 handwinding

 

 

This one belongs to a friend of mine. He just got it and I went over to use office to check it out. He bought it as new old stock from a seller I recommended to him (the same seller I posted earlier).

His cyclops lens thing seems to have gone missing, and some marks on the crystal, and the strap probably not original.

Still, it's a real beautiful watch. About 36mm diameter case, looks bigger than it should, and robust Chinese movement. I didn't get it because it was way above my budget, but oh now I'm really envious.