Coca-Cola 2012 Olympics Snap Watch

For my Friday watch, I decided on a commemorative promotional watch with a little bit of patriotism (as I'm British).

This watch was produced for the 2012 Olympic Games in London for Coca-Cola. The watch features a design made for the Olympics which has concentric rings (rather than the normal linked rings Olympics logo) in the normal ring colours. There is also a circular Union Jack flag in the logo to represent Britain, and as this is a Coke watch, there is also a Coca-Cola bottle in the design too. Coca-Cola are the world's largest soft drinks brand, and are the longest continuous Olympic sponsor. They first sponsored the Olympics back in 1928, and are currently under contract to sponsor through to 2020.

Time is shown in a round window on the left side of the watch with an LCD display. The LCD panel only has a 4 digit display with the hours on the top line and minutes below. The LCD module is capable of dare and seconds too, but there are no buttons on the outside of the watch to change the display.

The watch module is encased in a one piece silicone rubber case wich has a snap style strap (where you stretch it out straight, and when you slap it against your wrist, it wraps around). The strap also has the Coca-Cola name logo moulded in the silicone, and is printed with Coca-Cola in a red, white, and blue roundel, as well as the British Queen's crown logo. To get to the battery or set the time, the module can be squeezed out of the front of the watch.

BMW Williams F1 Watch

Today's watch is another of my many watches which commemorates an event, and this one is associated with Formula 1 Motor Racing.

This watch was made for BMW (with a copyright to BMW AG), and commemorates the start of their partnership with the Williams F1 team in 2000. BMW had been major players up to the 1980s, but pulled out in 1989 at the end of the turbocharger era. In 2000, they came back to partner the Williams team who are probably most known for their Williams Renault era in the early 90s when they won the World Championship. The partnership were on the podium in their first race, but the partnership wasn't as successful as hoped and finished in 2005.

The watch is an LCD model with a red display which is slightly angled (up to the right). The LCD is a two line design which normally shows day and date at the top and the time (in 6 digits) below. It is a typical sports watch in terms of modes, with the watch having chronograph, timer, alarm, and dual time options. When the modes are changed, the top line shows text describing the mode before the mode itself is shown.

The case on the watch is an unusual design, but I can't decide whether it is meant to look like a helmet or the nose of an F1 car (or a combination of the two). The strap is thick and rubbery with a wavy pattern along the front. There is the usual information on the back, showing it is all stainless steel, and has a 5 atm water resistance (suggesting it is a European model). There is also an F1 logo and the name BMW.WilliamsF1 Team (with that spacing), along with the phrase "it's a fast world".

Mariah Carey watch from Besançon

Today's watch is a promotional special edition watch for a famous American singer - Mariah Carey. She's been in the news recently as tomorrow is the start of her residency in the Colosseum in Las Vegas, so I thought it was about time to blog this watch.

Mariah Carey is a singer, songwriter, record producer, and actress who broke into the public consciousness in 1990 with the release of her debut album. This watch is from 1995 and so coincides with the release of her album Daydream and a single One Sweet Day (with Boys II Men) which holds the record for the longest run at number one on the Billboard Top 100 in America (16 weeks).

The watch is a stylized 3 hand dial design in a round case. The hands are in different styles, with the hour hand being a zigzag shape, the minute hand is curved, and the second hand is straight but gold. The face is white and features a raised off-white monogram MC across the dial. The hour markers are made up from the letters in the name Mariah Carey, and as there are only 11, there is a black dot for the 12 o'clock marker.

The back reveals that this watch was made in Besançon, which is known as the watch capital of France. The location has been mentioned a few times on the blog already, as that is where the Azeka watches were made, and was the birthplace of the Lip brand. No manufacturer is mentioned on the watch, so I can't tell whether this is by one of those manufacturers, or another based in the same city.

The back also reveals the normal information around materials (base metal with a stainless steel back), and 3atm water resistance. The design is completed with a brown leather strap, but as this isn't marked, I can't guarantee it is not a replacement.

Lotte Zero 1997

Today's watch is an unusual shaped promotional model with a bit of a sci-fi feel.

The front of the watch only has the word Zero on it, but the back reveals it was made for (or maybe even by) Lotte. The Lotte Corporation are well known in Japan and Korea as a confectionary manufacturer, but not so much for their watches. The company was originally founded in 1948 as a maker of chewing gum, but has expanded over the years to be a lifestyle company (including cinemas, shopping, electronics, hotels, chemicals, and amusement parks).

The watch is an LCD model with an inverse LCD display in a metal case. The case is an oval shape (widest to the sides) with a raised round centre. The case also sticks out at the top and bottom for the strap connections and the lower of these has the Zero name pressed into it. The LCD is in the middle of the watch and is rotated by 45 degrees. The LCD module is a simple one, just covering the basic time, date, and seconds, but it does have an electroluminescent backlight. The back of the watch has the Zero name, 'Lotte Original' the date 1997 and the serial number. The serial number is only 4 digits long which suggests that there is no more that 9999 of these watches.

Zero is actually a product by Lotte and is a sugar free chocolate. It is quoted as being released in 1996, so the 1997 date on the watch is either for the first birthday, or maybe the true release date (with 1996 being the date it was announced). The Zero chocolate logo is a circle with a thick diagonal line in the centre (i.e. a zero), and looks the same as the centre of the watch (the raised round section for the circle and the LCD display being the diagonal line).

Okaya City Nagano watch

I've blogged all sorts of commemorative/ promotional watches on my blog so far, but I think this is the first which is for a city!

This watch is made for a place called Okaya City, which is a small city in the Nagano Prefecture (county) in Japan on the banks of Lake Suwa. The city was founded in 1936 is in the centre of the prefecture and has a population of just over 50,000. After WWII, the city established itself as a place for high precision manufacture, and is now home to Seiko Epson and Olympus.

The watch is a standard round case analogue watch with a 3 hand dial design. The face features a picture of a colourfully dressed person holding drumsticks with the Okaya City name on their drum. In the background, the picture has what looks like bells, trees, and maybe a city landmark.

The back has the city name engraved into it, as well as the usual watch information (water resistant, stainless steel and base metal).

The watch is made by Seiko (which is appropriate as they have a base there), and is based around the V701 quartz module (which inside is revealed to be a Shiojiri V70C). It was manufactured in a year ending in a 5, so could be 1985 for the 50th anniversary of the city in 1986, or 2005 for the 40th anniversary of the twinning with Mount Pleasant, Michigan, US, or something completely different. My guess for the watch style is that it's an 80s watch, but possibly 90s.

Jasmine Commemorative Watch

Today's watch is a commemorative model, but for something a little different.

This watch is from 2013 and was issued to mark the first production from a new gas field in the UK called Jasmine. The Jasmine field was discovered in 2006 and was given approval for development in 2010 by the UK government. Jasmine has about 100 million barrels of oil equivalent and was the largest field to start production in the UK since the Buzzard field in 2007. First production from the field was on the 20th November 2013.

The watch itself is a 3 hand dial design watch in a divers watch style. It has a chunky metal case with a rotating bezel, and the project logo is printed on the face. Inside is a quartz movement, but there are no markings on the watch indicating a manufacturer or model.

It was produced by Polyconcept, who are the world's largest supplier of promotional products. The company began in the 1970s and now operates in over 100 countries worldwide.

Lawson J League memorial watch

Today's watch is a commemorative watch, but I don't know why the date I was significant.

This watch is a Lawson J League watch which talks about the memorial year of 1998. Lawson is a Japanese convenience store which is the second largest in Japan behind 7-eleven. They started in Ohio, but opened stores in Japan in 1975. In the 2000s, the US arm was bought out and rebranded, leaving only the Japanese Lawson stores.

Lawson are now one of the sponsors of the Japanese football association J League. The J League was the professional football league which started in 1993, so the memorial year of 1998 might be the 5th anniversary.

The watch is a basic 3 hand dial quartz watch. The dial is patterned with the Lawson name and the J League logo. The watch has a plastic strap, and the length of the strap is covered with the logos of all of the football teams in the J-League.

Official Helen Hurtig Hole-In-One Golf Watch

Today's watch is a special commemorative watch from Hawaii.

The watch is the Official Helen Hurtig Hole-In-One Golf Watch. I assume this is either to commemorate someone called Helen Hurtig scoring a hole-in-one in a golf game, or it was a range of golf watches called Hole-In-One by Helen Hurtig. I've tried to find out about who this person is, but the only reference seems to be to the watches.

The watch reference in Honolulu in Hawaii and there is a reference to Golf III which may have been a course or event. There is a copyright date of 1993, and the watch has a model number of HH2159. It seems that there were many different designs of this watch produced, and they all seem to be from the early 90s.

The watch is a 3 hand dial design, or more correctly 2 hands and a disc. The minutes hand is shaped like a golf club, with the seconds marker being a golf ball. At the 8 o'clock position there is a picture of a golf hole and flag, and there is a black marker on the glass above so the ball disappears into the hole every minute. The bezel has the dimpled texture of a golf ball, and the design is completed by a black leather strap (with the watch title text on the back of one half).

Adidas SF-100 Limited Edition

Through my collection, there are so many different styles of watch. I've managed to cover from the cheap fashion watches, through the vintage electronic watches, to limited edition models like today.

Today's watch is by the sports giant Adidas, and is one of their high-tech LCD models. This is a limited edition version of the SF100 (or SF-100) sports watch, and has an additional model number of 10-0173 on the back. The limited edition model was released in 2002 to commemorate the (football) World Cup in Japan and Korea. I haven't seen this on many Western sites, so it may have been mainly a Far East release, with only 2002 units produced (but maybe 2002 in each of a variety of different colours).

The watch has a round LCD panel with a dot matrix array, except for the bottom line which is in traditional LCD digits. The dot matrix is used for most of the display modes to give time, the mode description, and/or the mode itself. The modes this model has are Chronograph (with a lap recall mode CH-RC), timer, sports timer (with graphics to show time elapsed/remaining), and alarm (x6 including an option to set whether it is a daily alarm on on a specific day). There is also a dual time mode and an el-backlight. The Adidas button on the front isn't to active the light as I'd expected (as that is the top left), but changes the display from the usual large time display to showing the Adidas 3 stripe logo with the time on the normal digits below. Time is set by holding the light button until a message appears, with the mode button cycling through the options, and the top right and middle Adidas button taking the numbers back and forward.

The case is made of plastic, and has a colour matched rubbery plastic strap which follows the lines of the case.

Citizen Deep Impact watch

When I bought today's watch, I knew it was a limited edition but not what it was for. After a bit of research, I worked it out, and would definitely have never guessed.

The watch is by the Japanese watch giant Citizen, and is quite a formal looking chronograph watch. It has a rounded square case and face in silver and white/silver, and has a plain black leather strap. It has a 3 hand dial, 3 small dials, and a date marker window arranged on the face for the combination of time and timing. For the time, it is 2 hands on the main dial that are used, with the main dial seconds hand functioning for the chronograph while the bottom small dial provides the seconds (or 1/10th seconds when the chronograph is started). The other two small dials are also for the chronograph giving the minutes and hours.

Inside is a Japanese Citizen 0560 module,  which seems quite a high tech design, and the model number is 0560-S033365.
The watch was cased in China, and is 5 bar water resistant.

On the dial, the watch has the name Deep Impact, which makes it sound like it is a special edition for the space mission or the movie, and the date of 2005 on the back fits with the NASA mission. It's only the tiny writing saying Triple Crown and the engraving of a horse on the back that gave the real answer. There are several lines of Japanese text on the back too, but I don't know what that really says yet. 
The research on this revealed that the watch is a special edition for the Japanese champion racehorse Deep Impact. Deep Impact was a successful racehorse in the 2000s, winning 7 Japanese domestic races during 2005 and 2006. Its biggest known achievement was in 2005 when it became the first racehorse for 11 years to win the Japanese Triple Crown (Satsuki Sho, Tokyo Yushun, and Kikuka Sho), and that is what this watch was released for. Deep Impact was retired to Stud in 2006 and is one of Japan's leading sires, fathering at least 12 race-winning horses.

As the name on the face is directly printed, and the back is unique to the watch (having none of the normal serial numbers), it looks like this was a direct release by Citizen rather than a 3rd party modification. As there is no serial number, it is hard to conclude on how many were released, but I wouldn't expect there to be a large market for high quality horseracing commemorative watches which are a domestic Japanese release only!

Metropolitan Museum of Art red watch

Today's watch is a commemorative item for one of the largest art galleries in the world.

The watch was made for the Metropolitan  Museum of Art in New York City. The museum holds over 2 million pieces of art spanning many periods from ancient Egypt to the modern era.

The watch comes from 1994 which doesn't appear to be a particular milestone (as the museum was founded in 1870 and opened in 1872). I guess that this means the watch was a souvenir item for visitors.

The face is in dark red and has a logo of the letter M surrounded by all of the drawing marks which determine the features of the letter. The back also has this logo and the copyright, as well as stating it uses a Japanese quartz movement. The overall design is similar to the Swatch watches, especially the shape of the case and the strap style.

It is a 3 hand dial design with black hands which for in with the 2 colour design.

Shinnyo Centennial Commemorate Watch

Today's watch must be one of the most normal looking watches in my collection, but I've kept it because it is a watch commemorating the most unusual event I've got a commemorative watch for.

The watch face states the name Shinnyo, and the back of the watch says that this was issued for "The centennial of the Shinnyo founder's birth, March 28, 2006". This refers to the birth of Shinjō Itō (Fumiaki Itō) in 1906. He was the founder of the Shinnyo-en Buddhist sangha (community) which incorporates teachings from 3 traditional schools of Buddhism. Shinnyo-en as founded in 1936 (recognised in 1948) and currently has over 1 million practitioners, and has training centres across Asia, Europe, and America. So this means that this watch is my only Buddhist community commemorative item!

The watch itself is pretty normal, with a round face in a more squared case. It is a 3 hand dial model with a Japanese quartz movement. The movement is more plastic based that a lot I've seen and has no makers name displayed, but the model number suggests the module is a PC21. The PC21 is a Hattori module, which I recently learned is under the Seiko Corporation and may mean that the watch is made by Seiko, Lorus, or Pulsar. The full model number is PC21-D085.

Trad Brothers 45th Anniversary Watch

Today's watch is designed for an anniversary, so I thought it would be easy to research. Unfortunately, that isn't the case, so I need to make some educated guesses about it...

The watch is a special edition to commemorate the 45th Anniversary of  Trad Brothers. When I look for Trad Brothers, i mostly get information about a Swedish trad jazz band. These could have been around for 45 years, but it would be unusual to have a Japanese watch to commemorate that. The other option is that there seems to have been a clothing line in Japan called Trad Brothers from a company called Varezzo. There isn't much about this brand except a few items for sale online, and a special edition of a telephone card. This would seem to be the logical background for the watch, but the internet profile is too low for something that has been around for 45 years. The inside of the watch doesn't help as it has a standard Japanese Myota movement.

The watch itself is a relatively normal 3 hand dial, but with some interesting design features, including a wavy seconds hand. The numbers around the dial are done in two rings, one with the numbers pointing out, and the other pointing in. It means you never need to read a number upside down, but it is a little confusing at a glance. The other unusual part is the highly domed glass. This leads to an optical illusion where it looks like the face is tilting as you angle the watch (see the 3rd photo). Around the glass is a rough bezel but not rotating, and the design is topped off by a thick black leather strap.