Time, kept
by hand
The watches that marked my life, one page at a time.
Turn the page
The watches
The first watch I remember
A Casio on my father's wrist.
The first watch I remember was on my dad's wrist. It was a Casio, a slim steel digital like the A158W. Casio first made that watch in 1989, the year I was born. It wasn't gold and it wasn't Swiss, and it didn't need to be. It was simply part of him, as familiar as his voice.
You can still buy that same Casio today for about thirty-four dollars. I like that. Every watch I have loved since goes back to that one.
— 1 —
Speedmaster Professional
The watch NASA trusted.
Omega launched the Speedmaster in 1957 as a racing chronograph. In 1965 NASA put it through heat, shock, vacuum and humidity tests, and it was the only watch to pass. On 21 July 1969 Buzz Aldrin wore one on the Moon.
Apollo 11 landed twenty years before I was born. When Apollo 13 lost power, three men timed a fourteen-second burn on a hand-wound chronograph and made it home. That still moves me.
— 2 —
Wound by hand
A few turns of the crown each morning.
The Moonwatch has no rotor. It is wound by hand, and then it runs for about two days. I admire that ritual. It asks for a moment of attention, and in return it keeps faith with you.
- Reference
- 310.30.42.50.01.001
- Caliber
- 3861 · manual
- Beat rate
- 21,600 vph
- Power reserve
- 50 h
- Case
- 42 mm steel
- Lineage
- 321 → 3861
Baagh
For me, 1947 is not just a date. It is an emotion.
Baagh means tiger in Hindi. Each Baagh is built around a real one-rupee coin from 1947, the year India won its freedom from British rule. It was among the last coins struck before independence, and on its face a tiger is walking.
I chose Devanagari numerals. Reading the hours in that script makes the watch feel like it belongs to India, and to me.
— 5 —
The coin
A small piece of 1947 on my wrist.
I like to think about where that coin has been. It passed from hand to hand in a country about to become free. Nobody spending it could have known it would end up keeping time.
Each time I check the hour, I am looking at a small piece of 1947.
- Dial
- 1947 rupee
- Numerals
- Devanagari
- Caliber
- Miyota 8215
- Beat rate
- 21,600 vph
- Case
- 43 mm steel
- Crystal
- Sapphire
SBGA211 “Snowflake”
A dial made of snow, and a seconds hand that never ticks.
The dial is silver-plated into a texture taken from the snow on the Hotaka mountains in Shinshu, where the winter wind carves patterns into the surface.
Spring Drive is a mainspring movement governed by a quartz-regulated glide wheel, so the blued seconds hand does not step. It flows around the dial in one unbroken motion, the way time actually passes.
- Reference
- SBGA211
- Caliber
- 9R65
- Reserve
- 72 h
- Case
- 41 mm titanium
- Water
- 100 m
- Seconds
- Blued · glide
Arun Kaithe
I'm an engineer by trade. I collect watches to wear them, and this journal is where I keep their stories.
A personal journal of watches Nothing here is for sale
- Omega Speedmaster photographs · Daniel Zimmermann · CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons · Wikimedia Commons
- Omega calibre 321 · Shane Lin · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons
- Casio A158WA-1 · © Casio Computer Co., Ltd. · Grand Seiko SBGA211 · © Seiko Watch Corporation
- Baagh photographs · © Jaipur Watch Company · jaipur.watch · Shown with credit on a personal, non-commercial journal; removed on request.