Rainbow IP G-Shocks

I've written many posts on this blog about watches, and up until now I've always insisted that watches have not served any practical purpose for several decades now, because other devices take care of all of the things we used to need watches for. Watches have become art, according to Oscar Wilde's definition:

"All art is quite useless."

But then, back in March, I started to learn about G-Shocks, the very popular line of quartz watches made by the Japanese corporation Casio. G-Shocks can do so many things that I've started to wonder whether they can realistically be regarded as mere beautiful and useless works of art. 

Ironically, what first aroused my interest in G-shocks was seeing photos and video of a limited edition watch, the GM-110RB-2A, also known as the "Rainbow,"

which is definitely intended to be understood as a thing of exceptional beauty, among other things. 

But besides being beautiful, it is also a GM-110 G-Shock, which means that it has a wide range of functions including world time, several alarms, several timers, several stopwatches and a push-button background light. 

"Rainbow" refers to the way that the IP, the ion plating, on the cover and bezel of the watch blends from one color into another. There are two other limited edition G-Shocks which, like the GM-110RB-1A, were released in 2020, feature rainbow IP very prominently, and which I consider to be especially beautiful: the GWF-A1000BRT-1A, also known as the "Borneo Rainbow Toad,"

and the MTG-B1000VL-4A,

 

also known as the "Volcanic Lightning."

The GWF-A1000BRT-1A was made in recognition of the Borneo rainbow toad, a species which had been believed to have gone extinct a century ago, until it was recently found to be still alive. The colors and patterns imitate the colors and bumps found on the toad. The "Volcanic Lighning" is meant to convey some of the intensity of thinderstorms caused by volcanos. The distinctive translucent red strap imitates the appearance of molten lava. 

The "Rainbow" actually belongs to one of the simpler and lower-priced versions of the G-Shock. The "Borneo Rainbow Toad" and the "Volcanic Lightning" are high-end models, and in addition to all of the functions mentioned above which the "Rainbow" can perform, each also feature solar charging, atomic time, Bluetooth, and a long list of other functions which I won't pretend I understand yet. The "Rainbow" was released with an MSRP of $280, and the "Borneo Rainbow Toad" and the "Volcanic Lightning" each had an MSRP of $1,100, which put them among the very highest-priced G-Shocks. 

Today, those MSRP's are primarily of historical interest, as all three watches are on sale at much higher prices. The "Rainbow" doesn't seem to be available from well-known, reputable dealers at all anymore. I wonder whether this might be because the well-known dealers have waiting lists of close friends and good customers who have already agreed on a purchase price if and when the dealer acquires a "Rainbow." That would explain why we in the general public never see it on sale from those dealers. 

So: what got me interested in G-Shocks was beauty. I love the way these limited editions look, with the rainbow IP and the other bold colors. 

But once I got interested in G-Shocks, I began to learn about all of the practical things they can do: in addition to everything listed above, various models can also measure how many steps you take, your heart rate and blood pressure, the atmospheric temperature and barometric pressure and altitude, your depth underwater, the tides, and many, many other things. 

And the more I study G-Shocks, the more I appreciate that not only special limited editions like these ones are beautiful. It's clear that Casio concentrates very hard on aesthetics right alongside function. 

So my previous notions about the uselessness of watches are being challenged, at least in the case of a few very highly-functional watches like these, and their somewhat less-colorful siblings, the non-limited-edition G-Shocks. 

The $2,000 dollars which you might have to pay today for a "Borneo Rainbow Toad" or a "Volcanic Lightning" is less than the cost of ANY new watch from many of the luxury brands. $2,000 seems like a lot compared to the $50 and less you'd pay for some other G-Shocks. But it's less than the cost of any new Rolex or Omega. Something to think about. Some G-Shock fans regard a 4-figure MSRP as just shocking and wrong, let alone paying above MSRP for a limited edition. 

Another thing which is discussed is whether special edition G-Shocks like these should be worn in everyday life and exposed to being scratched and smudged and the other things which everyday life does. I feel very strongly about this: I think it is very sad when beautiful things like this are locked away and never enjoyed, for fear of scratches and dust and so forth. Others seem to feel just as strongly that it's a shame when a collector's item is scratched because its owner didn't treat it like a museum piece. 

I'm open to discussion. My mind changes sometimes. Look at me right now, writing about quartz watches. That represents a huge change in my mind. Three months ago I didn't really know about G-Shocks and didn't care.

G-Shock

I was annoyed yesterday when I noticed that my G-Shock was running almost a minute fast -- until I remembered that it hadn't been set since early May 2020. 1 minute fast over 10 1/2 months comes out to less than 6 seconds fast per month. Not too shabby. The official specification is within plus to minus 15 seconds a month.

My G-Shock DW9052-1ccg looks like this:

I think the -1ccg suffix refers to it being all-butch black. But I'm not completely sure about that. There are a huge number of G-Shock models, and I'm still new at this. In any case, a DW9052 is a G-Shock which has that same basic configuration, and DW9052's come in a lot of different colors, as well as black with many different colors of accents, besides all-butch black. 

Casio, as far as I know, does not refer to this color scheme as "all-butch black." I made that phrase up to make fun of myself and a lot of other people. 

Besides keeping track of hours, minutes and seconds (in your choice of 12-hour AM/PM or the all-butch 24-hour format which I naturally prefer), day of the week, month and day and year (on a separate screen because there's only so much room and you probably know what year it is), my DW9052 features

-- an alarm, and a chime which sounds every hour on the hour, which I finally figured out how to to turn off yesterday. There are watch aficionados who prize alarms and hourly, or even minutely chimes very highly, and pay huge amounts for mechanical watches which sound them. The charm is so far lost on me. But, mind open must be amen.

-- Countdown timer; input range: 1 minute to 24 hours; measuring unit: 1 second; auto-repeat function,
1/100 second stopwatch; measuring capacity: 23:59'59.99"; measuring unit: 1/100 second (for the first 60 minutes). No, I do not understand what all of that is. I do know that it's a pretty fancy timer and stopwatch.

-- Everything on the dial lights up into nice bright lume when you push the big button marked "G."

Casio has sold over 100 million G-Shocks since 1983. They say that its designer, when a small boy, was given a watch by his father, which he cherished until one day he dropped it, it shattered into many pieces, and he vowed to devote his life to designing a watch which was indestructible. This story strikes me as being very -- Japanese. Perhaps it is also perfectly true, how would I know. 

I still don't know for sure what sort of battery my G-Shock will eventually need. I could screw off the back and look and see, but I'm not going to do that. Not today.

The thing which makes G-Shocks G-Shocks is toughness. They have been hit with hockey sticks like hockey pucks, thrown off of the tops of tall building onto concrete sidewalks, intentionally run over by huge trucks, and come out undamaged. There may be tougher watches than G-Shocks, but I sort of doubt it. In any case, their toughness is legendary.

From the basic all-butch black plastic-and-rubber battery-powered models with their digital readouts, G-Shocks have expanded into a variety of colors and functions, many with analog displays instead of or in addition to digital, some powered by light or radio waves instead of or in addition to batteries. Some are now smartwatches. Some are covered by metal instead of plastic and rubber -- sacrificing some durability, I would imagine. They run from around $40 to four figures, maybe higher in some rare cases.

I  honestly never wanted any of them besides my all-butch black DW9052-1ccg until the day before yesterday. I was set. I was perfectly content in the G-Shock department. 

And then I saw the GM-110RB-2A (Also known as The Rainbow) in a video:

-- O sweet Richard Mille! 

But apparently 500 people felt similarly before I did and it was a limited edition of 500 and it sold out very quickly, months before I knew it existed. I'm trying to make myself want it less by telling myself the truth: that those gold-colored parts on the sides are metal, not shock-resisting rubber, as I had assumed when first seeing it in the video. That's helping a little bit. Transluscent gold rubber would've been even better. And more durable, as one braved the deepest techno raves of California. Tell me I'm wrong. 

Look how beautiful. MSRP $280. All gone. And now I'll be searching the newest G-Shock releases and reading the G-Shock news. Waiting for them to do it again.