I like this one, but I’m almost wishing the non-magnifying date magnifying area wasn’t there. What do you think?
A nicely chunky 45mm piece, it comes in stainless steel and all black PVD, or gold PVD with black PVD bezel.
It has double sapphire crystals and is water resistant to 100 meters.
Movement is the redoubtable Valjoux 7750 with 25 jewels, 28,800 vph and a power reserve of 38 hours.
Not bad for $795, eh?
The Tissot Carson Chrono is a 42.5mm piece in stainless steel.
It has a sapphire crystal, a display back and water resistance to 30 meters.
Movement is the automatic ETA caliber C01.211. This is a Tissot special, and is based on a Lemania movement.
It has 15 jewels, 21,600 vph and a power reserve of 46 hours.
Mad Men style?
I have no idea, I don’t actually watch Mad Men. I just imagine this Tissot Classic might suit it quite well?
A 42mm piece, this is made from stainless steel with an 18kt rose gold bezel. It has a sapphire crystal, a display back and water resistantce to 30 meters.
Movement is the automatic ETA caliber 2895-2 with 27 jewels, 28,800 vph and a power reserve of 44 hours.
Classic? Perhaps, but still extremely nice regardless, don’t you think?
This ‘classic’ 40mm piece comes in two versions: two versions, two-tone or rose gold PVD-coated stainless steel.
It has an AR-coated sapphire crystal and a sapphire display back.
Water resistance to 30 meters.
Movement is a COSC-certified (and award winning) ETA caliber 2824-2 with 25 jewels, 28,800 vph and a power reserve of 40 hours.
Tissot have been busy re-releasing modern updates for a number of their ‘classic’ designs.
Here’s the 2012 Visodate.
Modern tastes push this one up to 40mm, in either stainless steel or gold cases.
The movement is an automatic ETA 2836-2 with day/date.
You also get a sapphire crystal and 30 meters water resistance.
Should set you back around $500 if you fancy one.
Many moons ago – back in the days when even attempting to browse parts of the Tissot website from outside Switzerland was verboten (yes, really), I bought myself an original ‘T-Touch’ model.
Despite numerous stories of other people experiencing dodgy compasses, wonky buttons and movement failures, this little geek beauty served me perfectly as a more or less daily wear for many many years.
In fact, it was at least a full eight years before the battery gave up the ghost and I packed the watch away until I got around to getting a new battery installed.
Fast-forward to today and I’ve found that that isn’t the simple exercise I thought it would be - far from it in fact.
Having traipsed around in the Brisbane heat for most of my lunch-hour it now seems that not only does the watch have to go back to Tissot (fair enough, it’s a techie piece), but there’s a better than even chance Tissot will elect to not change the battery at all.
In fact, it turns out that for old T-Touch models such as mine that they’re more likely to elect to ‘offer’ me a new T-Touch at a discount, rather than attempt a battery change.
I know it’s a discontinued watch, but I’m not sure what to make of that – especially as I was told by multiple dealers that this would cost me somewhere around $500-$700 to transact (yes .. I’d get a new watch, but that’s one hell of an expensive battery change!).
Effectively that’s forced obsolescence for the sake of a (pretty standard) battery.
So, I guess I’m left with three choices:
1. Wear something else and write-off using my much loved T-Touch
2. Pay for a new T-Touch when I have a perfectly capable one (minus any juice to power it!)
3. Attempt to change the battery myself.
With regards option 3 I was given a range of horror stories from the dealers around ‘specialist equipment’, ‘calibration’, ‘nuclear meltdown’ etc., but a bit of Googling reveals that it doesn’t actually look that hard and I’m very tempted to try that approach.
What do you think?
Should I just accept that it’s now old technology and move on, or should we expect to be able to at least get a change of battery, regardless of watch age? (other failures, sure thing – no more parts etc – I get that).
On a related note, I had a battery change for a Tag Heuer from an even older vintage recently and that went just fine :-)
Sort of cross, kind of confused, quite disappointed … :-(
A simple but rather nice new ‘cheapie’ from Tissot – the Seastar Diver Automatic.
The 42mm case is made from stainless steel and has a helium escape valve in conjunction with its 300m water resistance.
Movement is the Swiss automatic ETA caliber 2824-2 with 25 jewels, 28,800 vph and a power reserve of 40 hours.
Price is around the $900 mark.
Our second Tissot posting of the day.
This one may not be quite as flash as the first, but it’s still rather nice all the same.
This is the 516 piece limited edition ‘Black Carbon Automatic’; model #PRS516.
The 45mm case is stainless steel and is water resistant to 100 meters (approx. 330 ft).
The watch is powered by the redoubtable automatic Valjoux 7750 caliber – visible through the clear caseback, it runs at 28,800vph for up to 46 hours between winds.
The dial features a carbon fiber finish and the black PVD bezel has a tachymeter scale.
It comes shod on a perforated black leather racing strap with push-button butterfly clasp.
Retail price is $2375.
There can be a bit of brand snobbery from certain quarters when it comes to Tissot, but I’ve said it before – they continue to push out some great looking models: this one is definitely no exception.
The 45mm case comes in 18kt rose or yellow gold. The crystal and display back are sapphire and it is water resistant to 30 meters.
Movement is the Swiss manual-wind ETA caliber 6497 with 17 jewels and a power reserve of 49 hours.
Dials can be had in black or silver.
The strap is brown or black crocodile leather with 18kt gold butterfly clasp.
Sweet!
Tissot have updated their PRC 200 AutoMagic AutoQuartz model.
For $495 I think it’s a bit of a bargain.
It’s not huge, at 38mm, but has an AR-coated sapphire, a display back and is water resistant to 200 meters.
Movement is the Swiss autoquartz ETA caliber 205.911 with 17 jewels.
In case you’re wondering ‘what is an AutoQuartz?’, it’s essentially a hybrid automatic and quartz: the normal movement of the wrist spins the rotor, as usual, but instead of winding up a mechanical spring it charges a small capacitor or battery, providing power to the watch as it discharges.
Depending on the model you’ll probably get between a couple of weeks and a couple of months between full charges.
Seiko’s ‘Kinetic’ is probably one of the more well-known of this style.
Here’s what Wikipedia has to say about the AutoQuartz variant specifically:
“Swiss company ETA SA, part of the Swatch group, made seven different automatic quartz movements, calling them Autoquartz. They were part of the premium Flatline series of movements and were sold to a variety of watch vendors, primarily European and American. High grade movements designed to last as long as their premium mechanical movements, they had between 15 to 53 jewels. Unlike most quartz watches, Autoquartz could be calibrated to increase their accuracy. Several vendors had their Autoquartz watches COSC certified. In 2006 to increase production of its highly demanded mechanical movements, Swatch discontinued supplying the Autoquartz line to customers (service and parts are still available). Then in 2009, possibly due to available production capacity or stocked parts, Tissot reintroduced the Autoquartz in its PRC200 dive watch. The Autoquartz movement used by Tissot is gold plated and carries the designation ETA 205.914.”
