Bandai Tokima Steam Head Special Edition

Today marks the first anniversary of my blog!! And to mark the occasion I'm wearing one of my Tokima robot watches (as I tend to do for each celebration). Also, as a blog birthday treat, I'll be posting an overview page covering the whole story of the Tokima robots.
UPDATE: It's now up and can be found here: link

The Tokima robot watches were made by Japanese toymaker Bandai, and were first seen in the early 1980s as plastic kids watches. In 1998, Bandai resurrected the line with a set of larger metal watches which must have been aimed at adults who had the watches as kids 15 years earlier (as it's too big and heavy for most children). Two designs were released and included a new design called the Steam Head.

The Steam Head watch was a transforming robot watch as the others, but with a more steampunk feeling, and was released in a few different colours and strap variations. In late 98 or early 99, they released a special limited edition of the watch, and that is what I'm wearing today :-).

The special edition was released as a numbered limited edition of 3000, and to make it extra special, this particular watch is number 0001/3000!!! The shape of the watch is the same as the standard model, but came in shiny silver with a swirling pattern on the robots head (and a special white box).

The watch uses a dot matrix LCD display, which normally shows the time but will also show random, mainly Japanese, messages. It has time, date, and stopwatch modes in the module, and is powered by a CR2032 battery.

The watch head is also the robot, and once released from it's holder (by the spring loaded fittings at the top and bottom) it can be transformed. Transformation happens by rotating the part covering the display and moving it onto the top to make the head, and then pulling out the legs to release the arms.