We are back!
I am sure your understanding or perception of time has altered in the past year. With the coronavirus playing a massive role in how we spend our time, and more importantly, where we experience space. With thousands of lockdowns worldwide, starting around February / March 2020, we have all felt what its like to spend time, in places (spaces) we may never look at the same way again.
A personal example is from a family member who recently had a baby, not being able to travel back home after having a baby in South Africa. For most of us, it involved working from home, and managing work and home chores at the same time, most times taking months for us to us to truly find an acceptable rhythm. We have also had massive strains on resources and energy, trying to make things work. These are things we all know, and later became dubbed the “new normal”.
For me personally it involved a very busy period with our business, working on things to keep people safe, manufacturing some PPE materials in South Africa, and at the very same time, learning about how the unfolding lockdowns affected global logistics worldwide, and how that would later impact us directly, with an inability to control those logistics factors that affected our delivery to local and even a few international clients directly. See some of my very dodgy videos explaining making masks for the first time.
There is no learning without time. A variations of Socrates “there is no learning without remembering”.
As most of you would have experienced. During the harder sections of lockdown, it became harder and harder to focus and concentrate on things linked to actual productive work. The emotional energy for me personally, was often zapped by trying to work on getting numerous items of product, through legislative & safety related bureaucratic process. Working on something, without positive feedback, can become emotional energy pulled into a force with all the characteristics of a creative blackhole.
Again I am sure I was not the only one to experience this as many people tried new things, during this new time.
Further down the line. Lockdowns began to ease. My mind swung around from sanitizer and making it alive to the shops and back, to things more esoteric. My focus changed to new things. Asking the question, until now, what around me has inspired curiosity? What has become more interesting to me, while we were forced to focus inwardly, with less external stimulus like going to a restuarant for food, or even the prospect of going to another province or country to leisure travel. Classical music. Pen manufacturing from scratch. Watch making. Talking food – check out https://www.facebook.com/crowbarrsa/ and https://www.facebook.com/pastureSA/?ref=py_c
I have always loved watches. My entire reason for writing this blog post with you, is to share how my own perception of the importance of time, changed, when the other vector , the XYZ tri-axial co-ordinate become fixed for months on end. I have had to incredible value for money pieces, one from Seiko and one from Victorinox for the past 5 years. One was purchased after a milestone in my career, getting an important business case / paper approved at work. The other, bought when I left that very place to start my own business.
Next timepiece.
My first two purchases however, were maybe a mistake. When buying anything, you get to go through the motions of what is important to you, with entire life experience and research, but also a gut feeling at that moment in time. Working in a formal finance business, meant my first watch was classic, automatic, with leather strap, and didn`t attract any attention from clients as a Seiko. Most people wont know, Seiko provide ranges at times, more expensive than some famous Swiss brands, but also, run the entire gamut of affordability, from entry level (R 2000) all the way to a Seiko Luxury Brand ( think of Lexus brand under Toyota) , Grand Seiko. We don`t have the highest range in South Africa, and that`s because our market for luxury watches, although well established, is nowhere close to the level of sales flow we would need to be taken seriously in the global market. So I bought a watch that suited that time of my life. I then realised while going on holiday for my honeymoon a few months later, that it was a very pretty but, delicate watch. I would not be able to swim with it. Even as a 100 metre water resistant automatic Seiko, the features are literally that of a glossy beautiful Yamaha piano and not a G Shock, and in 2017 I had no intent to treat it that way.
Following on to 2018, after leaving the business I worked for to start my own, day and date feature were both missing from my current watch. I decided to find a watch that had both, but still had 100 metre water resistance and found love in the form of a Victorinox Alliance , which happened to be quartz and chronograph. If you are new to the world of time, automatic watches need to be wound / moved, or they stop. The Quartz watch for work and travel, presents a very simple solution to accuracy and with my mind, the date and day, helped with ensuring when I had to sign new agreements for my little start up, I knew what day was what. For anyone reading this, who has lost sleep and woken up late the following day after doing business admin, can appreciate the simple fact that starting something new is hard. Especially in South Africa, where our Government seems to have thought up every single way to stifle new business from not only starting, but also, stopping growth. ( that will become a rant or another post).
In 2018 while buying fabric for my start up clothing biz, walking around a mall in Fordsburg, I popped into the jeweller ( Orient Jewellers – https://www.orientjewellers.co.za/watches_victorinox.php\) that I bought my wedding rings from. He had a few watches on display. At that point I thought of getting a Victorinox Inox, having gone through some of the ISO testing they did, and seeing just how impressive those Tough Watches actually are. The only problem for me was, I couldn`t find any model that could show me the day and date at the same time. In the Victorinox Alliancehttps://www.victorinox.com/global/en/Products/Watches/Men%27s-Watches/Alliance-Chronograph-44-mm/p/241745 ,watch 44 mm, I found both those things, and also a case that could fit under a formal shirt. I would sometimes attend meetings when the host would look like a he was about to go on a navy seal mission with a huge watch, which I don`t find appropriate. I also considered pitching for funding with a with a watch that was not too loud.
The watch is incredible. And only 3 years later required me to change the strap with our friends at Elegance Jewellers. Similar black leather strap, and made by Hirsch, would last another 3 years at least. During this time again, I only changed the battery once. It kept perfect time. But every single holiday, I would switch to some cheaper watch, like my Swatch day date black with white dials , to keep time while swimming, or going on a hike. That watch is 50 metres water resistant only, but I used it for every single snorkelling or swimming activity on holiday for 3 years. Bought Engagement ring and watch bought from By Design Jewellers – Killarney mall – see Jarred – https://www.bydesignjewellers.co.za/ https://www.bydesignjewellers.co.za/.
Enter Covid 19. For months like you, our movements were completely stopped. With our business, I was able to travel still, as an essential services provider (masks and scrubs for doctors), but never for fun. It would be in December of this year, after scanning adverts everywhere, looking for a new watch, that I would come across a Seiko Prospex Samurai Black, 200 metre/ mechanical automatic. After spending years watching Hodinkee. Also having met with owners of Topwatch and Watchtime in South Africa and through this blog, every single major distributor of watches, bar Rolex (waiting), I got to know Seiko as friends. I saw this watch on an advert, wanting to swop some of my old NAD amps ( 31 years old and 17 years old) for a newer Sound Bar to match a newer TV. ( this entire story will also become a blog)
While scanning for a sound bar I came across the Seiko, and decided to message the seller and get more details. At first, they thought it was a lady size, but, eventually the following morning , driving like a madman, I got to the seller, and decided on the spot to swop both my prized watches for this one. It has been a week, and I am loving my new watch. The condition of the watch is as close to brand new as I have seen. Having done some photography work for TopWatch, I learnt from their buyers how to assess the condition of a watch, but it all still comes down to how it looks and feels on your wrist.
Checkout Topwatch and pay them a visit if you are near – https://www.topwatch.com/ZA/.
Summary
A lesson here for anyone reading this would be. The need for your watch that you have, may just be a moment in time. When we spend much of our lives working, and building new things for our employers, families, church groups, country – it is also key to spend some time on yourself. And spend some of yourself, on time. The changes in my way of working mean I have a little more time to check the date ( am looking next for a day date Samurai to save up for). I also would like to say to younger readers, that you will eventually get what you want. It may have taken me a long time to get a Seiko Samurai, relative to my age. Some people get a Rolex for their 16 birthday. Oftentimes you can give up something now, and trade or even compromise for something greater in the future.
Two things to close, and also to say I will write up a blog for each watch described perhaps, even as an intro to Seiko Premier, Presage, Divers (Samurai, King Samurai, Turtle, Padi), and Grand Seiko https://www.grand-seiko.com/global-en/about/history. Next up, Victorinox and where their watches come from, and why you should buy one.
One, the watch you have now is the one you own and should be proud of. Regardless of what it costs, it is the reason you keep time to achieve what you need to achieve to keep growing and moving.
Secondly, the next watch is never some fulfilment. It should be a personal dialogue with yourself, and never something you rely on to show to others as a form of status. If you have a Rolex in a business meeting, it means you have a Rolex. If you have a fake Rolex, well, that is another story, because you are only truly in dialogue with yourself. The watch is like your signature. It is yours. While someone else wears it, how you got to buy it, what you use the watch for, and who you later give that watch to when that time comes, is all a part of your Life. I would like to say the watch does not make the man. What he does with his time, that is what makes the man. After Covid – who we see, where we go, how we spend our time will have much more significance once we are free. Consider the watch on your wrist a measure of how you go forward into 2021, one hour at a time.
Key Friends/ Suppliers as at 2020/12:
For Seiko & other service/questions – https://tregergroup.co.za/seiko/
For Victorinox & other service/questions – https://picotandmoss.co.za/service-centre/
For Swatch Watch – https://shop.swatch.com/en_za/all-collections
Mind your time. Mind your mind.
Happy Holidays. Stay safe and chat again soon!
SA BUYERS GUIDE 
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