Show me your watches
 

It's my brother's birthday in two weeks time, and I've caught wind that he wants a BIG round watch.

My budget is roughly £800, so any ideas what I could get

If he want's a BIG watch look out for a U Boat watch. £800 should get you an entry level one, a bit more will get you one of the really big ones.

Good call.

I love my watches but I'd never heard of U-Boat. They are some seriously nice watches. I'm going have to get one of them.

U-Boat

£800 on a birthday present for your brother?! :eek:

I hope he appreciates it. ;)

I'm your lost brother .............

I am also your brother... :D

TICTACTIME.co.uk – 80 brands of watches – 8000 watches

TICTACTIME.co.uk – 80 brands of watches – 8000 watches

TICTACTIME.co.uk – 80 brands of watches – 8000 watches

Poljot - NO
 

Do NOT buy a Poljot watch, whilst they are very attractive watches the materials used in their construction are not top quality, mine corroded beyond repair internally slightly less than 2 years after I got it

I have to stand in defence of www.poljot.com they do make some cheap poor quality watches that are water resistant rather than water proof at the £30-£40 mark, maybe you suffered water ingress with your watch for it to corrode from the inside....

I have bought/sold/kept many Poljot's usually in the mech wind/auto aviator series and they have never let me or any of my customers down, in fact out of maybe 40-50 pieces I have never had to repair/callibrate or return any units.

Anyway off my soap box....

LARGE ROUND WATCH £800....Hmmmm


Most of my watches are deemed as large and round between 40-44.5mm case diameter.

Dont be worried about buying pre-owned watches from a reputable dealer, you could pick up an Omega SeaMaster full size auto, or Breitling SuperOcean for that money.

Or you could take advantage of the strong pound against the dollar and go for one of my bullet proof favorites...Chase-Durer FCXII.

Chase-Durer Pilot Watches

If he want a ridiculously large watch search for russian divers submariner canister watch......MASSSOOOOVE.

Later Yoza poljotski.

U-Boat watches are very nice... some are v expensive though.
I had a Classico but sold it last year to fund some scooby mods:lol1:

I have a very nice Breitling Colt which wasnt too pricey and very nice and discreet. Not HUGE but its a proper mans watch. :)

There are a lot of Poljot/Sekonda (yes, Poljot is Sekonda!) myths; and comrade Yoza has repaeted a few.

The one Im taking issue with here, is that they use old Rolex tooling and machines. This isnt true, they bought a job lot of American surplus watchmaking machines and set to ripping off a Valjoux movement.

Theyre alright, although I personally feel that a Seiko for the same money is a far superior watch. When you consider that theyre commonly sold (so Im told) on shopping channels of various types, then I find my enthusiasm waning...

Omega Seamaster Quartz, £819 Dazzlingdiamonds.co.uk

Poljot was founded in the 1930s as the "First Moscow Watch Factory" (FMWF) and has since been the official supplier to the Soviet, then Russian, armed forces and aerospace programmes. FMWF's name was changed to "Poljot" (Flight) in 1961, when the first man in space, Juri Gagarin, was to wear the famous Poljot "Sturmanskije" (Navigator) watch.

In the early 1980s, Poljot purchased the production machines from the renown, high-quality Swiss watch movements maker ETA Valjoux for the equally famous, but discontinued Valjoux calibre 7734 drive. Poljot refined the movement and renamed it calibre 3133.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992, Poljot had to look elsewhere for revenue and discovered the niche market of western watch enthusiasts who worshipped mechanical watches but weren't prepared to pay 1,500 £ or more for a Breitling or Omega, let alone to create a large collection of watches at these prices.
As you may well know ETA Valjoux is a movement used in many Swiss high end branded watches, and Poljot didnt simply rip it off, they modified it and refined it to get to the calibre 3133.
And they didnt stick a ridiculess price tag on their watches, they are affordable watches with high end movements.
I think everybody reading these watch threads will agree, that they would much preffer an automatic Omega/Breitling/Panerai or Rolex but not everyone can afford to lash out 2-6 grand on a watch, but if they want to see what owning a quality automatic watch is all about, I believe Poljot is a good place to start.
I also agree that there are quality Seiko automatics to be found and some of the Sportura models are very desirable.

Later Yoza

I was 'quoting' an old thread, where youd mentioned Rolex machinery, if you remember it? With regards to Valjoux, when they purchased the tooling form ETA, hadnt they been making a 7734 variation/copy for a good while?

With regards to the Valjoux/3133, thats the only one that Id really consider. Its a shame that the company have such a problem with availability: they seem to struggle to keep their site up too...

here's one of mine
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6.../breitling.jpg

here's me other one

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v6...inky/Omega.jpg

GC8,

When you say Poljot is in fact Seconda..it isnt. But during the Soviet era, Poljot watches were marketed in the United Kingdom under the brand "Sekonda." Today's Sekonda company, a British distributor of ubiquitous fashion watches, has no connection to any Poljot products whatsoever.

And when I said Poljot movements "where" made by the same tooling and on the same machinery as Rolex movements, I stand by that.(But maybe I should have said similar rather than the same).
Although things have changed now as Rolex have moved on and Poljot have stood still, in fact rumour has it that they are in dire straights and close to selling bits of the St Petersburg factory and its machinery to the highest bidder.
I still think they are good value for money and will still buy/deal/sell high range auto or Mech-wind Poljot aviator watches.

Im also big into Ball watches at the moment, I have a Ball Hydrocarbon Engineer Classic and a Engineer Chrono not Triest but the larger older model without the He release valve. I have only just discovered tritium gas fill tube technology and it has grabbed me by the throat.

Later Yoza

PS.. I have no links or affiliation with Poljot, I just like a certain range of their watches and feel they are quality well made affordable watches, so I say what I feel, and hope others who knew nothing about them can get the same feeling from them as I do.

BigSinky,

That Omega looks familiar.:)

'Big' and 'round' suggests Oris XXL range to me. Got the missuse a 44mm one like....

http://home.planet.nl/~hout0323/imag...s/OrisFD10.JPG

Tag have a new 'Big' range in the shops just now, but they are £1700+ IIRC.

These are 44mm, so for me they are 'big':

Pilots Watches

Automatics, Swiss made, very limited production (200 pieces in the case of the BlackHawk), not found on the High Street, and the benefits of buying from a very small up-and-coming company. I've got two and I love 'em...

I was referring to Sekonda 'then' as opposed to now. The trouble with finding out about Poljot is that all of the sources are subjective. Ive looked at Wikipedia again (after perhaps a year) and it now only suggests that they skanked a Valjoux (as the Chinese do), before it was absolutely certain...

Simon

that's mine
Breitling
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y16...atchMedium.jpg

My watch...

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/06...tachymetre.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y11...00808_1120.jpg

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y11...808_112001.jpg

My small collection
AC:)

Got one of these for a great price off ebay - the boy paid £2200 for it 6 months ago and never wore it.
http://edit.store.yahoo.com/lib/mova...01C.BA0786.jpg