Happy Holidays!

[THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED.  I WAS MISLEAD ABOUT THE NATURE OF THIS WATCH.  IT IS NOT AN AUTOMATIC.  IT IS NOT A WIND-UP.  IT IS A QUARTZ WATCH WITH DECORATIVE MECHANISMS.  But, it is still beautiful . . . ]

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!  I'll preview one of the new watches that I got for Christmas.  It's a new Elgin Automatic Watch with a partially skeletonized front and exhibition caseback.  It's sold at Sears and is very affordable compared to many watches on the market today.
 

 The Christmas Card in the background is a very nice one from Hallmark sent by my Aunt and Uncle.  It certainly sets a nice Christmas tone.  Have a wonderful Holiday!

Introducing the Modify Watches Mini!

A Modify watch

An upstart watch company called Modify Watches contacted me and offered to send me a free watch.  Since free is good, a couple of e-mails led to the arrival of this very cool watch and two interchangeable bands last week. 

The watch pictured is the Modify Mini.  The watch face is an inexpensive, self-contained, unit with a Japanese movement that can easily be removed from the band and placed into another band.  The bands are made of a very comfortable velvety rubber and come any many hip colors.  If you stretch the band, you can pop the watch face out and put it into another watch.  Changing the look of a Modify Watch is much, much, easier than conventional watch bands. 

The collection comes in two sizes - Mini and Classic.  If you check out the Modify Watches website, you might wonder how big the watches are.  The Mini is about the size of a regular wrist watch and the Classic is a big watch that would make any hip-hop artist proud.  The classic would probably look great with a Flavor Flav style alarm clock around your neck!  Indeed, the company describes all of these watches as "Dope!"  Here is my Mini pictured with a considerably more uptight Timex Weekender for comparison purposes.  The second Modify watch band is underneath the two watches.

A Timex Weekender and a Modify Watch side-by-side for comparison

Modify Watches offers a fresh approach to the wrist watch.  It would be very easy to develop a collection of expressive interchangeable faces and colorful bands.  At this writing, there are 12 Mini Watch faces and 13 band colors.  The watch faces start at only $25 and the watch bands start at only $15.  These fun watches won't break a tight budget and won't be mugger bait if you are out at night.

[As of 2024, it looks like the Modify Watches brand has been bought out by Custom Ink and it has certainly been deemphasized on their website.]

A New Relic Watch

If you are looking for nice quartz watches that are good values for the price, check out Fossil's Relic brand watches.  They sell at department stores like JC Penney and Kohls. I like this Relic brand watch because it has a simple and readable face and the flat stainless steel finish.  This model is called the Relic Detroit.

A Relic Detroit Watch

Overall, Relic offers a very good value for the money.  There are a wide variety of Relic-brand watches available here on Amazon.

A Nice Instrument Panel Watch for the Masses

I know I said I'd make a million dollars and buy a Bell & Ross watch, but in the meantime I found this Structure watch from Sears.  Pretty cool and priced for the rest of us.

A Structure Instrument Panel Watch from Sears

Of course, if you've got style and class, you could spring for a real Bell & Ross watch: