I know, I know. Another watch? Bear with me for a moment. For those who don’t care much: here are the pictures:
I took Tammy’s high school Cardinal watch to Watch Warehouse on Halloween to get a new battery, and when they popped the back off, the old battery had leaked, so it was a drop off repair. When I was there, I noted that the display cases were awfully empty, but it soon became clear that they were still in the process of putting out their stock. It was only 1/2 hour after opening, and most of the watches were still in the safe. It was fun to observe them fill the cases. I had gone to their website from time to time to see what they had, but in short order I realized that there were many more watches in-store than on their website.
I was interested to see what would go into their two ‼️ Seiko cases, and when the fellow produced a Seiko Astron, I was very excited. The Seiko Astron is sort of the pinnacle of a non-smartwatch, right up there with the Casio Oceanus. Using more traditional quartz movement techniques, Astron watches talk to GPS satellites to get the right time zone and time (including daylight savings and leap seconds), uses solar power, and it built with titanium and sapphire. Make no mistake, the Apple Watch still eats an Astron’s lunch when it comes to “smarts”, but the Astron in turn is much more functional than an automatic watch like a Rolex. Plus, even though tastes may vary, there is no denying the aesthetic beauty of the thing.
This Astron that they had was one that I didn’t expect to see. It was the SSJ013, which is not available in Canada. In conversation with the rep, it seems as though their store imports a fair few non-domestic market watches. The picture on the website was “interesting” but didn’t really raise my temperature, if you follow. But when I saw it in person, I was immediately struck by its design. I told Tammy about it when I got home, and I figured that she might come along to pick up her watch whenever it was ready.
I got the call that the Cardinal was ready on Thursday afternoon, and we went out to get it and maybe have a lunch out on Friday. I’d had the week off and she had Friday off, too. We picked up the watch, and Tammy made sure I asked the lady to let me see the Astron. On the wrist, it was even more amazing. The titanium case and bracelet was so light, it seemed fake. We thanked her and looked at a few more things before leaving. In the parking lot, Tammy said that we should buy it. It was considerably less expensive than I’d anticipated (remember, it’s not a Canadian-market watch, so there was no Canadian price info from Seiko) to the tune of $1,000 less, and they offered us 20% off on top of that.
I laughed it off, but she said that she hadn’t bought me a present yet with her inheritance from great-grandma. Ian had asked for and gotten a $600 lens for the camera. I said we could go have some lunch and think about it. I also wanted to go to a jeweller in Southcentre Mall that had one of the Canadian-market Astrons in stock, according to their website. Tammy had never been to that mall, so we had lunch at Ricky’s near Ikea and then proceeded to the Mall. Disappointingly, the jeweller did not in fact have one. It would have been one that looked like this:
When we left the mall, Tammy was adamant that we would go back to Watch Warehouse and get it. So we did.
Thank you, Tammy. It’s the most beautiful thing I own… Even moreso than my bike.
