Storm Obligator

Today's watch is quite a big model from the brand which started my collection, and is a different style from the others I've covered so far.

That of course means it is by Storm of London, and this model is called the Obligator. I've posted quite a few watches from the British fashion brand Storm now, ranging from their beginning in 1989 through to their more modern designs.

The Obligator is a large watch, but is still pretty light and comfortable to wear. Its base is a large slab of titanium (approx 4cm by 5cm) with a curved back and angled front, and this is where the brown padded and shaped leather strap is connected. On the left side are two small round inserts, one of which is a little floating compass, and the other is a little thermometer dial. The watch module is a square block with rounded corners which is mounted on the right side of the base and connected with screws from the back.

It has an ana-digi design with a 3 hand dial and two rectangular LCD panels. The top panel normally shows the time and has a 6 digit display (with the seconds a tiny bit smaller than the others). The bottom panel also has 6 digits and shows the date and day. The different modes are shown on a combination of the two LCD panels and are day counter (to determine the number of days from/to a particular date), alarm, and stopwatch. The modes are switched with the top left button, with the bottom two buttons used in the different modes.

The back of the watch has the model name and shows this is a titanium case with 50m water resistance and contains a Japanese movement. There are also two numbers, one I think is the serial number, and the other is TC.N4.

The date for this watch is a little confused as the module date starts in 1997 which suggests late-90s, however I've found magazine adverts for this model online which are quoted as being from 2005. As the module only suggests the earliest possible date, I'd guess that this is an early to mid 2000s watch (Update: the Storm site confirms this is a 2004 release). I think it was one of Storm's more expensive models when it came out, and I've seen suggestions of an original retail price of around $350.