Hello from the Central Valley, N. California

[omegabenz]

Hey All,

I know this is not my first post, but I thought that I may make more of an introduction.

My attention to detail began at an early age, and I admired my dad's automatic watches both Seiko and Rolex. I would keep them wound, wearing them around the house, and reading all the manuals over and over again, probably without his knowledge nor consent, but my mom never told on me, I guess she knew I was being careful. But it wasn't until high school, I had the financial means to acquire a nice watch, and then I was frustrated by "surfer" type watches that I continued to break. I needed something of quality, with a strong bracelet. And since I admired restoring cars so much, I wanted an automatic movement.

I shopped around for quite some time back in Y2K in the $500-1000 range, with a bump limit of $2k, coming across many nice Seikos, and some Tags, and even a quartz Omega that I mentioned in post 5 of the Official Quartz watches appreciation thread because it was right at my upper-end price point and the look and feel of the Omega was great, but it wasn't automatic - so I was torn.

Originally Posted by omegabenz

When I was selecting my first nice watch, at 17, I seriously considered an Omega SMP quartz, but with my appreciation to motorsports, I decided with the auto. I was tired of the surfer type quartz watches failing me every 6 months. I almost got a titanium seiko as well. What draws you guys towards the quartz watches? I have seen a Rolex quartz, but heard they had issues, but not sure what they were.

Although, what I really wanted was the TT Blue dial sub that I had been looking at since I was about 8 or 9, but I wasn't ready for that just yet. I kind of wanted to start out with a nice watch that would handle keeping up with me, without buying the ultimate/holy grail watch right out of the gate, although it was nearly half the price then!

I could have probably swung for an AirKing or DJ - I think with the meteorite or sodalite dial - but that wouldn't have left me much money for my other hobbies like cars, girls or sports. I thought if I bought a Rolex, I wanted to buy the one I wanted in the first place, and this still holds true for me today.

I looked more seriously at Seiko and Omega, and there was a close contender from Seiko, which was a titanium version, but I ended up going for the Omega Seamaster Pro 300M auto, at the highest end of my price range, with the blue wavy dial because I thought that the titanium would have been destroyed by my rough (ab)use. At first, I did not like the wavy dial, but I kept coming back to it because it reminded me of swimming in the ocean as a kid in San Diego. So I went for it. Here is a picture of it all cleaned up after 11 years of faithful service:


Now to my most recent aquistion: my first Rolex that I discussed breifly in the How old are you? and when did you get your first Rolex? thread, post 176, shown below:

Originally Posted by omegabenz

28, 28...graduation gift (MS chemistry) from the Mrs. Goes well with my Omega that I bought when I was 17, which I had completely overhauled last summer. My son, 6, has his eye on both.

When I finished my MS Chemistry this Fall, my wife asked, do you still want an Omega Speedmaster? That definitely piqued my interest, but I was pretty content with my Omega Seamaster since it just went in for a full overhaul including optional replacement of the complete bezel and the sapphire, which after $900 looked amazing, almost better than new. Needless-to-say, I did not let any v.p.h. waste and immediately started looking at watches. Although, I would eventually like a speedmaster, TT blue sub, Exp ii, GMTii, daytona, etc., as well as many others, we looked at many watches both alone and together, and we thought that the Rolex Milgauss GV would be most fitting for the occasion because the Milgauss has been dubbed as the Scientist's watch, and I magnetized my Omega once before while running NMR experiments.


And our son liked the lightning bolt second hand! I have to say that when we were looking at watches before christmas, he was very well behaved, and handled the watches with great care! I'm going to have to keep an eye on my collection. For now, he has an Angry Birds watch and a couple other ones. He insisted on the picture. I think he saw me doing it ;-)

I hope you enjoyed the write up.

Austin