Hello. I’ve been interested in watches for as long as I can remember. My dad had a manual wind Universal Geneve that he’d let me “help” him wind when I was very young.

Only about 5 years ago I purchased my first watch. It’s a hand wound simple old Vostok. I recently had it serviced and it keeps good enough time.

A few months ago, I stumbled onto this forum. I lurked while looking for my next watch. I read high praises about Citizen’s Eco Drive so I…

New Member Here

Based only on online opinions and reviews, here is a list in order of “quality” I have put together of watch brands selling on AliExpress. I have no personal experience of all these brands, apart from Tandorio, Corgeut, and Addiesdive – which I think produce good watches.

Needless to say, this list is not definitive. I offer it only for discussion.

Feel free to suggest ones I’ve left out.

San Martin – Arguably…

List of AliExpress watch brands in order of “quality”.

I see a lot of smaller brands on social media.
Some are “micro-” some are more established, even if still smallish.

I’ve noticed that they all have one thing in common, namely, the tendency to project a certain air of “seriousness” and all that talk about “commitment,” “drive” and “passion.”

Me, not a big fan of that same old corporate talk.

People will say: “it’s just normal business practice.”
Ya, I get it, but I always get the feeling that they all kinda want to project more…

Brand “Seriousness” vs Humor in Image, Tone, Name, Aura, etc

Guys I’m looking at treating myself to a new watch, I’m currently torn between 2 – the zodiac supersea wolf compression and the Ball engineer green berets rainbow. Has anyone got any experience or opinions? Both have pros and cons at the moment I’m leaning towards the ball on the basis of it being limited to 1 of 1000 and the brilliant gas indices…..but the zodiac is cheaper and they seem to hold value better for some reason?

[ATTACH…

Zodiac or ball?

This is the second or third Gruen precision 510 I’ve owned and the plate is really starting to go on the case, particularly up around 10-11:00. Also the lugs are looking a bit gouged and thin. Granted this watch is older than my father, still runs pretty well, and only gets in the rotation sometimes in casual summer settings, would you keep it in this state or try to have the case touched up or just try to get another example?[ATTACH…

How much patina is too much?