There are various definitions of “a mug’s game” such as “an activity that will not make you happy or successful” and “a foolish, useless, or ill advised venture.”
Watches are, for want of a better opener, a mug’s game. At least, it has reached that point for me.
It’s tough to remain interested in 2026. 2025 was a particular nadir, but as we cross into the latter half of the ‘20s on the precipice of complete chaos, we’ve genuinely scraped through the bottom of the barrel and hit dirt. Not good dirt either. I cannot think of one watch from 2025 that I got excited about, at least one that was a new release, and not a discovery on whatever sojourn I was on. I got mad into Frank Miura for a while, and ended the year obsessed with Citizen Promaster’s and trying to find bargain bin limited edition Timex… not exactly trend-setting here.
What makes a good watch? I think the baseline is that it looks good on you, and tells the time accurately. Unfortunately, this is something we get wrong. A lot of watches are too big for your wrists, and therefore you look foolish. We pay more for increased obsolescence by introducing mechanical parts, complications, and limited maintenance opportunities, which for a piece of jewellery that is supposed to provide you the time at the drop of a hat, seems counterintuitive. Then again, this is fashion; just accept it, we are mainly sad old (or young/old) men obsessing over old technology that has been commandeered by the money men. They say jump, we say how high and take my money that falls out of my pockets. My legs hurt now… I’m tired, and I want to sit this one out now.
The fact I have gotten into modding this year (finally), has been a small road to Damascus moment. It’s all very well being able to place compatible movements and parts together to make something off-menu, but when you consider the cost of the parts and the end-product, it does feel silly spending £200-300 on a Miyota 8215-powered jobber from a micro. Then again, a Miyota 2115 is only £12-15, so again, a new Duro seems a bit expensive as well. Taking one apart really made me love that watch a lot less.
When this is all applied to salvage and rescue of things, it also starts to make even less sense. I rescued (reduced?) a dead pin-pallet jobber with an 8215 and some new hands, and an ugly clear case and camo strap. It looks like a fucked-up BAPEX, and cost me 10% of the privilege (15% if you include my labour, which I don’t). I spent a lot of November and December buying dead professional quartz divers for pennies (Divex, Dive Dynamics, Shark, Apeks, etc….) and replacing the movements (often Seiko VX) at £4-10 a pop. Add new seals and gaskets, and voila, you have a superb watch for almost nothing. Fixing Pulsars, Lorus (Lori, would that be the plural?) and Albas gives you watches that Seiko would ask many hundreds of pounds of you as an equivalent, they are the same watches at the end of the day, and they all look stunning.
Fixing a couple of Promasters with 8xxx movements in December, I realised that even EcoDrive is salvageable with the right parts. It’s not even a tough job… and yet I can pick up a “dead” watch for £30 that’s fixable for a small investment and still cost less than the cheapest working model on eBay. Plus, I get the satisfaction of being the one to fix it.
I get this is nothing new, but it’s barely acknowledged. People think I’m some sort of clockwork shaman when I rescue these things, but I’m just finding the parts and smashing them back together. In a world obsessed with carbon footprint, recycling of watches should be much more supported, and not just Timex with their preloved shop, I’m talking better movement support from brands, and better documentation and access; full transparency as to movement calibres and repair options. I could not give a flying fuck if your new watch case is made of recycled ocean plastic, what’s the proposed lifespan of the movement, can it be fixed, and will it be supported in 10-20 years? I want to make an informed purchase, I need something besides a two-year warranty if I want to drop three to five figures. Then again, most watches have the same calibres now, so having that transparency is not conducive to the modus operandi of the brand when they are trying to build cache… I guess they do not want you to know it’s a Sellita SW-300 in your £3000 watch, although from a maintenance perspective, that is probably a good thing (unless of course you’re Ressence where you’ve drowned that ETA in oil and a complicated HUD).
The vintage market is pretty sad right now. All the 90s – 00s quartz flooding in is killing me. I’ve given up on mechanicals: between part supply throttling, and the lack of genuine repairers, I’m tired of trying to keep things alive. It’s not fun anymore. 80s digitals are a proper bugbear of mine, considering how “cool” they are, but how the modules are almost impossible to find. 90s quartz is similar: some are easily replaced with later models, but what about the slightly more unique ones?
My recent love is for the Promaster 6870 “eggs”, or “jobbletops” as I would like them to be known as, if I could be one of those “they who name things” crowd.
The 6870 movement, aka the Miyota 6W70, is a weird analog-digital thing with multiple modes and dancing hands. This model of Promaster (L12450), has that 90s jobbyness that you just don’t see anymore: think Amiga/DeluxePaint demoscene aesthetic, where we thought the future was liquid metal and curves. Citizen went all in on this aesthetic with their 1481010 sub brand, but then again, Oakley and Tag did (the Kirium, remember that?). Platinum and jet planes, with bright white and cold blue highlights.
Anyway, I digress… the 6870/6W70 – what a movement! Time, World Time for one additional zone, Calender, two alarms, chronograph, fly back chronograph timer, and manual reset option. Complicated, but quite intuitive to use, especially since the bottom right pusher controls modes and pulls out to allow changes. The 6850/6W50 version eschews the date wheel to have the seconds hand as a pointer date (I have a Citizen/Helly Hansen one of these that looks like it’s trying to be a Porsche Design badboy, but the mode dial is completely pointing at the wrong thing). The movement, for all its coolness and practicality has two major flaws:
- The alarm coil is easy to lose. It sits in a recess at the back and therefore is often lost during battery changes. The connection between the coil and case completes the circuit, and 99 times out of 100 you find one of these it does not have the alarm working becuase that spring is long gone.
- The model is discontinued. Said alarm coil is hard to find (easy to fashion a new one, but it has two diameters of coil, and I’d rather just buy the real thing). Other parts are equally hard to find; if this thing dies, it’s dead. It’s not exactly lining up with other chronograph movements, even Miyota, and then again, it’s got a bloody mode dial and four pushers, like the digital watch it’s not trying to be.
I seem to have spent over 30 years of collecting to find the perfect watch for me, and it completely goes everything I have recommended previously: discontinued quartz movement, often not working, not easy to salvage… and I have three of the bastards (yellow, blue, and black). I am trying to source the red one, but no one wants to post to the UK who is selling it. If you have one, I’ll take it… (not the place – Ed.).
I bought an EcoDrive military pilots chronograph for £29 today, fully working, and very “sketchy”. It should be worth more, but then again, what do I know, it too is not what I would recommend.
So, as I said at the beginning, the best way to summarise watch collecting in 2026: it’s a mug’s game. Seeking the balance of happiness, versus foolishness, is a never ending cycle of despair. I need a new hobby.
Vinyl anyone?
The Escapement Room 