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semperfi55

Seiko Age of Discovery 6M13-0010 - Showcase

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semperfi55

Let's see if someone can rep this eh? :p

I've always been fascinated with perpetual calendars, especially the mechanical ones. I am impressed by the Pateks that take leap years into account and can be accurate up to 100 years. If I had money I would buy that in a heartbeat, but knowing me it'll be unwound for a week and everything would be moot. Maybe that is why I can't have nice things.

in the meantime, why not get a quartz perpetual calendar? Fun, slim, cheap.  

 

Seiko Age of Discovery 6M13-0010

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I bought mine second hand on eBay for cheap due to the condition. Scratched up crystal on camera but barely noticeable when wearing it. I have also warmed to the green leather strap which I was initially apprehensive about.

The Seiko Age of Discovery Series was released in 1992 to commemorate the 500th Anniversary of Columbus 'Discovery' of the Americas. There were many models designed, and my 6M13-0010 is not that rare a watch. I believe some of the 7T36 Series or the silver versions are much rarer and more desirable ones. But this elegant piece is not too shabby either!

This article has some photos of the other collections out there:

https://yeomansweblog.wordpress.com/2008/04/14/recapture-the-spirit-of-adventure-with-seiko-age-of-discovery/

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Judging from the serial number, this was manufactured March 1995. Doing alright for a 23 year old watch.

 

Functions

Now let's have a look at the functions available. You really need the manual for this watch! You adjust the sextant-looking subdial by rotating the crown. We have:

1) TIME (To tell how late you're gonna be )

2) ONE DAY ALARM (If you want a panic attack for a special day)

3) DAILY ALARM (Panic attacks everyday)

4) MATCH (Increases your Tinder chances or aligns all hands @ 12 and realignment of date)

5) CALENDAR (When you need to know present day, date, month, year and your iPhone is dead/Samsung blown up)

6) SEARCH (To look for R-Factory link and find out the day of the week for a given date, month, year because hey we have nothing better to do in our lives)

 

CALENDAR Mode

Settings 2-4 is pretty hum-drum. Let's just jump to CALENDAR mode.

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When it comes to the calendar, pay attention the tails of the hands. The date window is stating the obvious,  hand with the red crescent in pointing to day, hand with blue crescent to month, and the zig-zag hand with red tip is pointing to the last two digits of the present year:18. 

But hold on there, how would I know what century I'm in, being a time-traveller/delusional patient and all that? Easy. Pull the crown. Or check your bloody iPhone.

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The second hand now points out the first 2 digits of the year. The eagle-eyed ones (or those who stayed on) will notice this watch has calendar functions from year 1400-2499. Now you'll never get lost in time!

 

SEARCH Mode

It is the year 1492.  Let's say our esteemed time traveler wants to go to London on 12 October 1492. Big day, some Italian is going to 'find' the West Indies instead of the East Indies.

Being a savvy adventurer, he want to avoid the congestion charge (Mon-Fri).  Best to figure out which day of the week it is.

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Date window doing it's thing. Hand with blue crescent on the month.  Zig-zag hand with red tip on 92: the last 2 digits of the year. Second hand pointing to 1400.

Pull the crown...

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Damn, it's a Friday. Congestion charge it is.

There you go: the day Christopher Columbus sighted the Bahamas was a Friday. Bet google couldn't get the answer any faster.

 

Time-travelling

Any history or pub quiz fans here would also point out a problem with a 1400-2499 calendar. Well, two named problems.

Julian and Gregorian.

Prior to our current (Gregorian) calendar, people were using the Julian calendar, proposed by Julius Caesar himself. At some point, people realised that the calendar was drifting in relation to equinoxes and solstices, so they decided to change it up a bit. The calendar switch resulted in 10 days being removed. So the day after 4 October 1582 was 15 October 1582. Here are some fun facts.

The Gregorian calendar is internationally the most widely used civil calendar. It is named after Pope Gregory XIII, who introduced it in October 1582.

It was a refinement to the Julian calendar involving an approximately 0.002% correction in the length of the calendar year. The motivation for the reform was to stop the drift of the calendar with respect to the equinoxes and solstices—particularly the northern vernal equinox, which helps set the date for Easter. Transition to the Gregorian calendar would restore the holiday to the time of the year in which it was celebrated when introduced by the early Church. The reform was adopted initially by the Catholic countries of Europe. Protestants and Eastern Orthodox countries continued to use the traditional Julian calendar and adopted the Gregorian reform, one by one, after a time, at least for civil purposes and for the sake of convenience in international trade. The last European country to adopt the reform was Greece, in 1923. Many (but not all) countries that have traditionally used the Julian calendar, or the Islamic or other religious calendars, have come to adopt the Gregorian calendar for civil purposes.

The Gregorian reform modified the Julian calendar's scheme of leap years as follows:

Every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year, except for years that are exactly divisible by 100, but these centurial years are leap years if they are exactly divisible by 400. For example, the years 1700, 1800, and 1900 are not leap years, but the year 2000 is.

In addition to the change in the mean length of the calendar year from 365.25 days (365 days 6 hours) to 365.2425 days (365 days 5 hours 49 minutes 12 seconds), a reduction of 10 minutes 48 seconds per year, the Gregorian calendar reform also dealt with the accumulated difference between these lengths. The canonical Easter tables were devised at the end of the third century, when the vernal equinox fell either on 20 March or 21 March depending on the year's position in the leap year cycle. As the rule was that the full moon preceding Easter was not to precede the equinox, the date was fixed at 21 March for computational purposes and the earliest date for Easter was fixed at 22 March. The Gregorian calendar reproduced these conditions by removing ten days.

-Copied from Wikipedia because I can't write.

So the watch follows the Julian calendar up until 4 October 1582 and switches over to the Gregorian from 15 October 1582 onward. No one talks about 5-14 October 1582 anymore. They don't exist. They never existed. The watch will tell you it's 15 October.

 

Conclusion

So there you go. An elegant quartz watch that I won't be embarrassed to wear to a black tie event.  It has cool, unnecessary, nerdy functions. It blew my mind re calendar reforms. Some may not be a fan of this watch.But hey, whatever makes you tick ;)

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Glaude

Amazing post for a very very interesting watch, packed full of nice features without any exterior sign of its complex ability ! How much did that cost you ?

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semperfi55

Thanks! That is the benefit of quartz. I got it for around £150 on the bay. It’s on the cheaper end of eBay, some of them can go up to USD 500. It might be the rarer ones though.

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Glaude

Really great timepiece for the price, here's a video of the hands switching positions, beautifull movement to all of them :

 

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VMSG

Amazing watch!

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McGilli
On 26/04/2018 at 16:37, semperfi55 said:

Seiko Age of Discovery 6M13-0010

So - Since I'm not around all the time - I've apparently seen very few of your reviews. I've just started, and I'm going through them all in order since tbh they're my fave reviews on this site.

So. Months later I just saw this. Damn! That watch is really amazing.... And the entire thing about the calendars I didn't know - but - a few weeks ago me and my daughter had a conversation just almost about that -  but we didn't know that so I've got something cool to talk to her about when she's back.

Good stuff. Maybe just tag me at the end of all your reviews so I know it's posted :) or -do what I do - change the font colour of your most current review in your signature - will help me. Cuz, it's all about me really.

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semperfi55
On 18/07/2018 at 01:36, McGilli said:

Months later I just saw this

Same here :lol:

On 18/07/2018 at 01:36, McGilli said:

Maybe just tag me at the end of all your reviews so I know it's posted :) or -do what I do - change the font colour of your most current review in your signature - will help me. Cuz, it's all about me really.

Oh wait! I thought I hadn't read that, but I must've have :rolleyes:

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RussP

I need one with the dancing hands feature to add to my slowly expanding Seiko collection.

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Alan32

Outbid on Catawiki for one of these:tears: and am trying to negotiate with a guy who has a broken one and  says "seiko quoted £155 to fix it" but he wants £199.99 for it??????:pointlaugh:

However the post reminded me I have a GMT perpetual that hasn't fitted me for years so have dug it out and am trying to get it up and running again.:p

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Sigg

Also just found this post, very informative and of course now I also need a Perpetual Calendar. If I didn’t see who the OP was  i would immediately guess it was @semperfi55, well done. 

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Denmark

I have a Seiko watch like this - in a “mint” condition - you can buy that for 250 USD if interested. 

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brang1

great review, and amazing watch, afraid it would really do my head in,  got more hands than a rub and tug shop

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encore1988

that is stunning.

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adamf01201
On 26/04/2018 at 19:37, semperfi55 said:

 

 

On 26/04/2018 at 20:22, semperfi55 said:

Thanks! That is the benefit of quartz. I got it for around £150 on the bay. It’s on the cheaper end of eBay, some of them can go up to USD 500. It might be the rarer ones though.

hey any chance you’d be willing to sell this? I’ve been looking for one of these for a really long time. I’m very flexible on price. The green leather is beautiful btw. 

Edited by adamf01201

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