tribefan 6,768 Posted January 25, 2020 It's a cold, rainy Saturday afternoon in January, so it's a good time to do a little write up on this, excuse the indulgence. I few things culminated in this purchase. As I was cooking dinner the other night, a fairly frequent event for me, it occurred to me that a chrono would be useful. I'm always digging out timers from the drawer, then they go off and I'm chasing them down to turn off the incessant alarm, sometimes after sitting down to enjoy the fruits, or usually meats, of labor. I saw NCRich's thread on an absolutely gorgeous ice blue Daytona and thought man that would be really nice but no way can a wear a replica $70K watch that is as rare as hen's teeth. Besides, waiting a month for the Gate deliveries can get old and the less that goes through the border the better. Throw in a little cvp3 bargain shopping thread influence, and it was off to fritter away a piece of life searching the interwebs for a reasonable cheapo that I would get some use from. I set my limit at $75 using the Gate as the reference point and plowed through at least a half dozen bargain shopping sites looking for a blue chrono that would not be an embarrassment to wear. This pretty much guaranteed a quartz, which is fine by me. One of the reasons I don't have any rep chrono's is a choice to stay away from clone 7750's. Every. single. watchmaker. thread. has said that is by far the worst and most problematic movement from the factory. I already have a drawer full of various sized watch batteries and poorly made plastic / tinfoil Amazon watch tools so swapping one out once in whenever is not an issue. At the end of the day I went with Jomashop. They seem to be the least scheisterish of the discount sites, they had a nice CNY, uh LUNAR day, sale and with their red tag coupons you can get some pretty good deals. I wanted nothing to do with Invicta, and after multiple sorts and searches, Akribos littered my saved selections. To be precise; Akribos XXIV. A quick Google of the meaning of the word brings up "exactly" "accurately" "precisely" and then of course, the oozing with class Roman Numeral 24. Viola, they had to have selected the premium package on fiverr to land such a pertinent and creative brand name for a watch. No skimping and cutting corners here. I think I'm on to something now, what could possibly go wrong? A little further research, past the dozen "different" watch review sites that remarkably have the exact same verbiage, rating systems and scoring describing the various bargain off-brands and you find that this is the "Flagship" brand of TMI Watch LLC in Brooklyn NY run by the same guy who is CEO of Stuhrling, with revenue of $2M a year. Experience, stature in the industry. Or it's a nice side gig, or maybe a good front man can juggle multiple priorities. Or maybe they just happen to have the same name, Chaim Fischer. Although one site refers to him a Sischer, but I digress. After filtering away numerous candidates, I went with blue dial, 4 sub dials, because eggs NEED to be measured in fractions of a second, and a SS bracelet. I thought about a rotating bezel but stuck with a cleaner look since the dial was already complicated enough. With the discount and free shipping, I was at $48 and a few pennies (3 bucks more than I paid for a wildly inaccurate oversized Omega Spectre rep with the wrong back and no strap), well under the target. To pay for it, I'll forgo three trips to McDonald's with my 19 year old and instead expertly prepare some precisely timed medium well burgers slathered in thousand island dressing secret sauce. A few days, not weeks, not a month, later, the box arrives: Double boxed, nice! Papers and the Precious! Idiot proof! It's like they know me! So first impressions, honestly, it's pretty nice. I pick it up out of the box expecting the feel of a Happy Meal toy, but it has some surprising weight to it. A quick spin on the digital scale confirms it's not as hefty as my prized SS diver reps, but it's not bad either: Omega Seamaster 300 TD rep: 178 grams Tudor BB gate rep: 165 grams U1 Black sub: 144 grams Akribos XXIV: 137 grams Who doesn't like shiny new things? Bracelet is sized from the factory for a person far more enormous than myself, but after removing four links I wind up putting two back in. 3 is far too tight, two is just a tad loose, but still eminently wearable. Pins pop in and out easily and the individual links are clearly marked with arrows. They've thought of everything. Setting is butter smooth, chronos all work and since I read the instructions, I can use the time I woulda spent figuring it all out to send my postage paid warranty registration card to Chaim's crew so they can take care of me in the unlikely event of system failure. The money shots: Gotta say, all snark aside, I really like this piece. Nice feel, love the numbers, easy to read, easy to use, looks great and just can't beat the price. On the downside, the bracelet is a little rattle-y so probably not something that is going to get a lot of all day wear. But that is not what I got it for either. Now off to pay for this thing........ 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
BravoDelta 22,658 Posted January 25, 2020 That's some sound reasoning for picking up this great looking "kitchen timer"! Nice watch Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SCShrek 494 Posted January 25, 2020 Ooh, good looking chrono for the price. The numerals remind me of the IWC font. I’ve used JomaShop a good bit. They seem to consistently have the best prices on all range of watches from timex quartz to luxury. The 7750 is a decent movement although you would be hard pressed to find a watch smith that will touch it. You want to stay away from the modified 7750 where they added extra gears to move the default functions of the subdials. Most of the Daytona’s with the 7750 are done this way and thick beasts. And hens don’t have teeth????? Damn, you ruined it for me. Thanks... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
NCRich 13,814 Posted January 25, 2020 Hilarious writeup. And I've rarely met a blue watch I don't like. I believed they maxed out the subdial quantity here. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Jibuti 958 Posted January 25, 2020 nice piece....I saw russian version of brand somewhere....Sobirka VIXX.... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
