It's too bad that 2 of the links to watch sellers or watchmakers which looked more interesting led to websites where you have to register before you can browse. PITA, later, bye, Touch of Modern, which sells various high-end brands, and Minus-8, a somewhat affordable brand.
Minus-8 says they're from San Francisco. Can it be that some interesting-looking mechanical watches are actually Amurrkin?! I surfed around some watch forums and watch-review sites, and by God, yes! Minus-8 makes automatic watches! With Seiko NH35A automatic movements. And the watches are actually assembled in China. (Seiko is a Japanese company, but some of their movements are actually made in places like Malaysia.)
And speaking of sites which review watches: other than the legendary Watch Snob®, I'm not sure whether I've seen anyone yet who is more interested in uncompromising critical evaluation of timepieces than in having a place on the Web where a lot of watchmakers will advertise. I may have come across a couple such. I'm just not sure yet. I did a Google search for best watch reviewers, and literally all that got me was some remarks on several different sites about how they were the best watch reviewers. So, I'll keep looking. This is all still very new to me.
Like Seiko, Casio was a brand name I'd heard forever without realizing that they make some stuff which some people get really enthusiastic about. I've got a couple of pocket calculators on the table here next to my computer, and one of them ... *checking* ... hey lookit that, actually both of them are made by Casio. I bought them both back in the early 1990's, I rarely use either of them or give them much thought, I bought the SL-100B, which folds in half and has large keys, much more for the physical design --
-- than for any other reason, although the physical design is very important, I think. Using the SL-100B is a pleasant experience for me -- and the other one has many more functions, not all of which I know what they are. They both run on indoor lighting, never had to get a battery for either of them or recharge them or do any other sort of maintenance on them. They both still work just fine, is that remarkable for pocket calculators made in the early 1990's? I don't know.
The reason I mentioned Casio is because they make a watch called the G-Shock, which is renowned for its unbreakability. I went through a number of sites dedicated to the G-Shock looking for info about the movement, about whether there were any G Shocks with mechanical movements. I found only references to quartz movements in G-Shocks. On one G-Shock fan page a G-Shock fan patiently tried to explain how all watch movements should be quartz, basically because they're much, much more unbreakable. Whaddygonnado, quartz is quartz and mechanical is mechanical and never the twain shall meet. There are those Casio G-Shock fans over there, and there are us Seiko 5 fans over here, and perhaps most of the people in one group will never understand what the other group is so excited about.
This is my Seiko 5, by the way:
There are many others like it, but this one is mine.
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