{"id":36534,"date":"2025-07-26T12:08:48","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T19:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=36534"},"modified":"2025-07-26T12:09:51","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T19:09:51","slug":"state-of-the-collection-categories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=36534","title":{"rendered":"State of the Collection: Categories"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you can stand another #BigSeiko post, I’d like to talk about different categories of watches. Not all of them, because there are a bunch, but the different catagories in my own collection.<\/p>\n

I have more dive watches than any other type, six in all. Divers are tool watches, meant to go underwater, with depth ratings, screw-down crowns, and rotating bezels w\/minute marks for timing ascents. I don’t dive, and after jumping in the pool with a watch on and wrecking it I no longer wear mine anywhere near water, but I really like the look of a diver. My divers are a mix of Japanese and Chinese brands, but they all have automatic Japanese (Seiko) movements.<\/p>\n

p.s. The Seiko at bottom center is an imposter, a faux diver … no screw-down crown, no depth rating (not even a “water resistant” label, front or back) … but it looks the part.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5109\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Chronographs make up the next most populous category in my collection. These are watches with elapsed time functions, with start\/stop buttons for timing events and reset buttons to return timer hands to zero. Really fancy ones can track more than one event at a time; oddly it’s only my cheapest one, the Timex with the green strap, that can do that. As with the divers, I don’t use chronographs the way they’re meant to be used, but I love wearing them. The Timex has a quartz movement; the Pagani Design a hybrid mechanical\/quartz movement; the others are mechanical.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5113\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are four field watches in my collection, all of which happen to be Timexes with quartz movements. Field watches are generally military, or at least military-inspired, rugged and simple with easy-to-read displays, with dials showing both 12- and 24-hour time. I used to have a mechanical pilot watch, a hand-wound Benrus issued by the Air Force when I was selected for flight training. If I still had it I’d group it with these field watches.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5125\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My four dress watches. Dress watches are what you might wear to a job interview. They look good with business or formal attire. They’re generally thin, with simple, clean dials. The two on top are quartz; the two below are automatics. The Orient is the most elegant of my dressers; the square Casio Edifice with the fussy dial doesn’t quite fit the category … plus it’s too scratched up to wear to a job interview … but I don’t know how else to classify it.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5118\"<\/a><\/p>\n

My digitals are more analog than digital, but even if the digital portions are just tiny windows on otherwise analog displays, they’re digitals. Hey, I don’t make the rules. The Apple Watch, second from left, is primarily a tool watch (a watch worn to perform a specific function, in my case monitoring heart rate), but it’s also digital (with a buttload of extra functions).<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5155\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There are only two travel watches in the collection, and that’s probably two too many … as much as I love wearing them, I can’t justify the second hour hand, which I set to Greenwich Mean Time, the time zone in which I once logged takeoff and landing times (speaking of which, you often hear travel watches called GMT watches). The Torgoen on the right has a Swiss quartz movement and is marketed to aviators; the Seiko on the left is mechanical … a real work of art. Both watches have 12- and 24-hour indices on the dials (plus the extra 24-hour scale on the Seiko’s bezel, which rotates to allow tracking a third time zone).<\/p>\n

\"IMG_5104\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What’s in the future? I have my eye on a Timex with time, tide, and temperature functions, a definite tool watch. I’m also hoping to add a Seiko Alpinist, a outdoor\/mountaineering watch with a compass function … I don’t know if there’s an adventure watch category, but that’s where I’d put it.<\/p>\n

If you have a favorite watch, or catetory of watch, I’d love to read about it in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you can stand another #BigSeiko post, I’d like to talk about different categories of watches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4432,18],"tags":[4772,4053,4793,4792,4791],"class_list":["post-36534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-seiko","category-consumerism","tag-mywatchobsession","tag-bigseikolittledick-2","tag-donttellmywife","tag-hobbyfromhell","tag-horology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36534"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36548,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36534\/revisions\/36548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}