Introducing the Momentum Torpedo Dive Watch

Twitter is a great place to learn about interesting watch brands and new watches.  Momentum is a brand that I just learned about.  If you are looking for a dive watch at an affordable price, the new Momentum Torpedo looks like the perfect choice.  It has a case made of solid 316L stainless steel with a manly brushed steel finish.

Since looks alone won't cut it in an unforgiving ocean, the Momentum Torpedo will have impressive specs.  It has a screw down crown and a screw-on back that combine to give give the watch 200 meters (660 feet) of water resistance.  Best of all, the Momentum Torpedo won't torpedo you financially.  The manufacturers suggested retail price is $99 with a NATO strap, $114 with a rubber dive strap, or $144.00 with a bracelet!

The Torpedo is going to hit some other targets as well.  The dimensions of the new Torpedo sound perfect.  The Momentum Torpedo will be a large watch, but not insanely large.  It will have a 47.99 millimeter diameter case (including the crown) and 44.15 mm diameter case every where else.  From lug to lug, the watch will be 50.50 mm.  The band will be a nice 22 millimeters wide.

It will be powered by a Japanese quartz movement and have an anticipated battery life of 3 to 5 years from a 371 silver oxide cell.  It will have a heat-tempered, anti-glare, mineral crystal and there will be an available sapphire upgrade.

Momentum will even have an all-lume dial variant to light up the night!

The Momentum Torpedo is now available at dealers now and on Amazon.com.

A Momentum Torpedo Watch

You can check out other Momentum Watches for Men on Amazon.

Affordable Dive Watches

Spring is sprung!  Summer is coming and it's time to think about trekking to the beach.  For those of us who like watches, spring is a good time to think about waterproof watches.  The Bureau of Fictional Internet Statistics reports that 85% of all stolen watches are taken from shoes left on the beach by swimmers.*  You can help cut that statistic by wearing a waterproof watch!  Fortunately, there are plenty of affordable diver-style watches that will fit the bill.  I've run down some of the brands that I know about here:

A Guide to Dive Watches Under $100

Since I wrote this article, I've learned  of another great watch brand that has a nice dive watch with a screw down crown and 200 meters of water resistance starting at $99.  If you'd like to learn about it, come back on Sunday!

Salvatore Ferragamo and Ferragamo Watches

Ambitious and Creative Salvatore Ferragamo: 

The Men’s Watches Edition

Ferragamo is a brand that is synonymous with high-end Italian craftsmanship and style, but, of course, it wasn’t always that way. Young Salvatore Ferragamo wanted to create something he could call his own. He started out at the ambitious age of thirteen when he opened a shoemaking shop in 1911 in Bonito, Italy. Moving to the U.S. a year later, he joined one of his brothers in a footwear factory in Boston, MA. The machinery therein enthralled the fourteen year old boy, but even at this young age he worried about the maximum quality that a factory could produce.

Salvatore in the creative process via Gevril Group

In the next ten years Ferragamo moved to California and even starting making shoes for the stars of Hollywood at his own Hollywood Boot Shop. Even with all of his success in the U.S. Ferragamo missed Italy and the quality craftsmanship that came so naturally to him there, so he moved back to Italy in 1927 and began to build up the brand that exists today. He set up a factory in Florence and trained local artisans to help him. Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue are among the first outside retailers to carry Ferragamo shoes. In August of 1962 Salvatore died of cancer at the age of 62, but his legacy lives on through his family and the contributions he has made to the world of fashion (voguepediaVogue).

 Photos via Gevril Group

Expanding to watches in 2003, the brand is still growing. The most recent example of the Ferragamo brand living on lies in the new Lungarno Chronograph watch collection. These are inspired by a hotel chain started by Salvatore in Florence Italy that expanded to five different locations in Florence and one in Rome. The watches are active and sporty while also holding up the classy, Italian style.

Buying one of these watches means making a couple of choices: three different face color pallets to choose from and your choice of three wrist straps. The faces come in blue, black or white and the wrist straps in blue, black or a combination of brushed and polished steel. The watch bezel has chamfered, polished edges and a brushed stainless steel surface for contrast.

Salvatore Ferragamo went after his dreams at a young age. He knew what he wanted to do and went for it. Because of his ambition and willingness to take risks, the Ferragamo brand still upholds beauty, innovation, and quality Italian craftsmanship he built it on.

About the author: Isabella Rivera also knows what she wants out of life – to make it as an actress in Hollywood. She is an aspiring timepiece collector who appreciates anything with a bold style. She writes for GevrilGroup.com, spreading the love of Ferragamo, Versace, and Gevril around the blogosphere.

The Essential Watches For Your Watch Wardrobe

If you are just starting out in the world of work, building up an adequate watch collection can be a daunting task.  Fortunately, there are a just a few basic watch types that you need in your collection.  To find out what kinds of watch every man needs, check out my article:

The Most Essential Watches for Men

My Newest Timex Expedition Watch: Core Resin with Silver Bezel and White Dial

The  Timex Expedition series of watches is always appealing to me.  They are affordable, rugged, and well-designed.  Sometimes I think they are like potato chips.  You can't stop at just one!  I recently found this one on clearance at Walmart:

Timex Expedition Watch

It's just like my black Timex Expedition Core Resin but in much less militant garb.  The white face is readable and provides military time and the date.  It also has Indiglo backlighting for night time use.  The only drawback is that the cool looking bezel doesn't rotate.

Timex Expedition Watch in front of a Can Am Spyder

[Update in 2024:  My Timex Expedition Resin watch is running well after a long-needed battery change.  The Indiglo feature shines brightly when I press the watch crown.  The resin band did deteriorate and crumble after many years.  Fortunately, replacing it was a cinch.  Unfortunately, it now wears the strap from an Armand Basi watch that I crushed in an unfortunate battery replacement mistake.]

Reviewing My Men's Relic Sawyer Chronograph Watch

This is a review of the Relic Sawyer that I published on Yahoo Contributors Network a few days ago.  This watch is one that I consider a classic part of my collection.  I'm reprinting the entire review here:

Places like Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Hampton Roads are world renowned naval ports. They are also places where the Relic Men's Sawyer Chronograph watch (Model ZR66037) would look right at home. This quartz chronograph sports a battleship gray band, bezel, and 40 millimeter diameter face around a gleaming, 12 millimeter thick, stainless steel case. The look is beyond nautical. It's a naval warfare look for sure.

The Relic Sawyer

While style is important, this watch is also quite functional. The hour and minute hands have inlaid luminous material and the second hand is black. Each hour is marked by a luminous baton and small dot. Each minute is marked with a short white hash mark. The date is readable and positioned at a canted angle between the four and five o'clock batons. The 20 millimeter wide silicon strap is supremely comfortable and generously-sized to fit most wrists.

Relic Sawyer at the Battleship North Carolina

Three subdials handle chronograph functions. At the six o'clock position, seconds are counted by a small white hand in a subdial with only the bottom half of the subdial. Minute counting is handled at the 9 o'clock position in a circular subdial with numerals for 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes and hash marks at five minute intervals. Finally, twenty-four hour time is provided by the subdial on the right at three o'clock. The Chronometer will time events for up to an hour. But, the 24-hour subdial provides only the time and is not part of the chronometer feature set. The crown for this watch is flanked by buttons to start, stop, and reset the chronograph subdials.

This Relic watch does have a few weak points. First, there is some looseness to the rotating bezel. If you tap the bezel, it will click like an old-time telegraph station. For the steampunk set, the ability to tap out Morse code could be feature. But, the rest of us might find it a slightly annoying lapse in quality for a watch at the top end of the Relic product line. Full retail for Model ZR66037 is around $95. The second flaw enhances the look of the watch at the expense of functionality. The flat black numbers on the bezel are simply hard to read at a glance. Overall, these a fairly minor criticisms of a novel approach to the diver-style chronometer.

The Relic Sawyer is a fine looking watch and a great addition to any casual collectors watch box. If it had a cool nautical name, it would probably cost five times as much.

Good Deal on Bulova Watches This Week at Sears

Pssst, this week (4/3/2014) there is a good deal on basic stainless steel Bulova watches at Sears.  They start at $109.99 for select models.  I bought one at a similar price a couple of years ago.  It's a great watch for office work and job interviews.  It just looks nice and works well.

A Basic Bulova Stainless Steel Watch from Sears