World Time LCD Watch

Today's watch is a dilemma - it is a promotional watch for a brand of cigarettes, but I don't want to promote smoking, but it's part of my collection, so should have a blog entry...

The watch is made for Mild Seven, which is a brand of Japanese Cigarette, but the brand name has recently been phased out. They were most known for their Formula One sponsorship before tobacco sponsorship was banned (to limit advertising exposure because of the adverse health effects of smoking).

The watch is a large display LCD watch with a wide rubber strap (with a moulded swirly pattern). The buttons are underneath the rubber, giving it a waterproof feel, but no water resistance data is given.

The display has two lines of digits covering time (4 digits, top), and date & day (4 digits + 3 letters, bottom). Below that, there is an LCD world map showing all of the main time zones, and the selected zone flashes when in World Time mode (chosen by the time zone and not the mode button). The map is unusual as instead of the more normal split down the date line, it is split down the Atlantic, making Japan the centre of the map (-this may be normal in Japan, but is rarely seen in Europe). The other modes are dual alarms, dual time, and stopwatch. No other information is given on the watch, and the back plate is completely blank.

Note: Smoking is also bad for watch collections as a smoky atmosphere can cause permanent staining of certain types of rubber or plastic used in the watches (as I have discovered in some of my second hand purchases).