The Dive Watch - An Opinionated Opinion

Those among you who have been around since the first iteration of this blog may recall that I am A Watch Guy.

Now, being a watch guy isn't usually enough for the watch guy. We have to specialize in order to stay something resembling "focused." For me, that specialization comes in the form of the aesthetic Trinity of my childhood.

For me, and for many of those of us fortunate to have been born in the demographic no-person's-land that marks the Late Boomer/Early Gen. X period there were certain pop culture touchstones that have stayed with me and, to a certain degree, informed much of my...er...vibe. I had three.

When I was a kid the three single most important things were NASA, Jacques Cousteau, and motor racing. And, as I reached man's estate, I realized these three things had one unifying element. Watches.

In the case of the "Jacques Cousteau" part of my mind, the watches are (duh) dive watches. And! Since I get not infrequent opportunities to don mask and flippers and ponder the deep for some of its tastier denizens, these watches are somewhat important to me. (No, I don't do the sort of fancy-pants divery that requires dive computers.)

The most well-known of these watches is the Rolex Submariner. I have two problems with this, neither of which is the fault of the watch itself. 1- Rolex gets a little cute with its production to the effect that it inflates the value of these watches, new and used. This results in having to a) pay a premium -- something against which my very soul violently rebels -- or b) cozy up to an authorized dealer and get on a waiting list  -- something against which my very soul slightly less violently rebels -- and wait to see if/when you are among the chosen. 2- If you go to certain places/events, the Rolex Submariner is part of the uniform, along with a Mont Blanc rollerball and a Porsche 911. This is not my jam. Which is a shame, because it's a great watch.

But naturally, there are others, some of which get frequent wrist time with me.

One of them is the (TAG) Heuer 1000, which has has a similar-ish presence to the Rolex Submariner, but at more attainable prices (except for the solid gold Wolf of Wall St model) and likely to remain that way as it has a quartz movement something which gets the benighted purists clutching their pearls, and babbling about watches that have/haven't a soul and other similar things about which I couldn't ever be coerced into caring. I have one of those, but it has a level of patina that exceeds by admittedly limited tolerance therefor, and so it awaits my sending it off for a refurbishment. (Surprisingly, not unreasonable in cost.)

But today I wanted to discuss another. The Certina DS Action Precidrive. Oh, dear Internet, how it ticks all my boxes. A quick look and you can tell it's got insane build quality. The cost of the watch has gone into materials and construction, not marketing. It's not even remotely flashy, and it will not impress anyone who isn't a watch guy.  It's robust and it has a High Accuracy Quartz that is accurate +/- 10 sec. a year. Something that other giga-dollar watches cannot claim.

On a subjective basis, this has one quality I seem to prize above all others...this thing punches way, way, WAY above its weight.

You can get one with an automatic/mechanical movement if you'd prefer to spend more money for something less accurate. You can also get a titanium version if you'd like to shave some weight, of which I'm very fond in principle, except the metal is too dark in color, and the dial too light. I like the plain vanilla steel 'n' black version.

Right now, it's no majestic feat to find one of these for under US $400. If you lurk on eBay and are flexible or patient or both, finding one for under US $300 is very possible.

All this for a watch that is staggeringly robust, with tremendous build quality (Certina is a brand from the Swatch Group, which also builds Omega and Tissot.) and 300 meters of water resistance and, as I mentioned before a level of timekeeping accuracy that embarrasses other watches costing orders of magnitude more.

Now you know.