Cabane de Zucca Happy Eyes

I have an eye inspired watch by Cabane de Zucca today.

The watch is called Happy Eyes, and the face is designed to look like a manga-style eye, with the side of the watch head even having a small piece jutting out to represent an eyelash. The front also has the Cabane de Zucca name, and unusually the full model number, engraved along the edge.

The box is also interesting, as the front has a face mask which can be ripped off and worn, and is fastened closed by the elastic for the mask.
The eyes of the mask are also the design of the watch, with 3 eye holes representing the 3 small dials on the face.

The watch itself is a 3-hand dial with a 5Y85 movement. It also has 3 small dials for day, date, and 24-hr. The dials themselves don't correspond to circles behind them, and are rotated about 1/2 an hour further round.

It was released in 2004, and has a model number of 5Y85-0AD0

Alba Fusion ViViDiGi W160

Today , my watch is another by Seiko under the Alba sub-company (but was also released in other parts of the world under the Lorus sub-company too).

The watch is under the Fusion range, and is called a Vividigi (which seems to also be the name of a range). It has a two line LCD display, with the bottom line being a standard segmented LCD for the time. The top line is a dot matrix display of 25 by 10 pixels and normally shows the day and date, the month, or the seconds. If you press the REV button, it actually shows the ViViDiGi name scrolling over the display.

The reason for the dot matrix display is the memo function (and the watch also has the words "input 3 memo" above the display). The other modes that the W160 module gives the watch are world time, and multi-alarm. It also has a bright red back-light that shines through the LCD making it look like an inverse display

I think the watch was made in 2009 (as the serial number suggests 1999 or 2009, but it doesn't appear in the 1999 Alba catalogues). It's full model number is W160-4A10.

Banpresto Eiji Tsuburaya 100th Birthday Limited Edition Watch

I've mentioned Eiji Tsuburaya in blog posts before - he was the head of the visual effects department of Toho who worked on the famous Japanese Kaiju (giant monster) films. He also ran Tsuburaya Productions who were part of the team behind Ultraman (who's watches have featured a few times).
This watch was released by Banpresto (now part of Namco Bandai), to celebrate the 100th birthday of Eili Tsuburaya, who was born in 1901. The watch itself is a 3-hand dial quartz watch, with a face that features the face of Ultraman and states it is a 100th birthday commemoration. Although the birthday was in 2001, the watch was actually released in 2002.
The watch box shows old pictures of Godzilla and Ultraman, and also has a drawn profile of Tsuburaya himself.

Pop Swatch Yoyo PPK 101 Pocket Mix

No watch on my wrist today - so it has to be a pocket watch instead. Or maybe a Yoyo according to Swatch for that particular release. I don't have many pocket watches, but I thought I should blog them too :-).

The Pop Swatch range started in 1986 and were of an oversized design based on an aviator's watch. The range had wrist watches, desk watch, and pocket watches like this one.

This watch was one of a range called Yoyo's released as part of the 1994 spring / summer collection. It is the PPK 101 meaning it is a Pop Pocket (PP) in a transparent case (K) with 3 hands (1), and is number one of that type/colour (01).

The name of the watch is Pocket Mix, which comes from the design with a different dial style for each hour segment.

The back of the watch has the number 6131 showing it was made in Japan (even though the back says Swiss made). The other number is 439 which says it was made in 1994, and maybe week 39 (or 9th March).

Citizen Independent 1481010 Eco-Drive Round (Green)

In the 1481010 range, there were 3 different watch types that were part of the Eco-Drive range too. This is one of the two designs that featured the 7821 module (and the other 1481010 Eco-Drive was digital).
The Eco-Drive range were the main solar powered watches by Citizen, and issued across most of their particular brands.

The Citizen 1481010 range were the Citizen watches released in the late 90s to appeal to young fashionable people.

This watch is a 3-hand dial watch with a round face, and a date marker at the 3-o'clock position.

This design came out in 1999, but this colour variant came out in 2000. Unusually this model didn't appear in the section of the year 2000 catalogue with the others which had come out in 1999, but at the back with several other (new?) 7821 movement Eco-Drive 1481010s.
The full model number is 7821-S78607, the catalogue number is IT21-4476R, and it was originally sold for 9,800yen.

Citizen Trans Continents "Helmet" D299

Today, it's back to the Trans Continents range again. The range is one of the Citizen lines, and usually has some element of travel in the design.

This particular model is one of the LCD watches in the range, and features a two line inverse LCD display. Under normal operation, the time shows on the top line, with day and date along the bottom. The watch has a D299 module with dual time, dual alarm, stopwatch, and countdown timer.

The watch design is a little like a helmet, with the sunken display showing through the "visor". The watch strap is slightly see-through, and needs to be cut to size (so watch out if you have large wrists and buy one used).

The full model number is D299-L18943, and I think it came out in 1999 (but possibly 2009).

Seiko Alba Neatnik V701 Aluminum H.A.O.C

The Seiko Alba range reached it's 20th anniversary in 1999.
This year, also saw the release of the first models of the Neatnik range. The early models all had small dials in an aluminium case, with the text Aluminum H.A.O.C on the front. The H.A.O.C stands for hard anodic oxidation coatings, and refers to a method of preparing the Aluminum case involving a low temperature acid treatment.
The watch has a 3-hand dial using a V701 module. This module is also used in quite a few different styles of Alba watch with small dials.
The back of the watch also has the letters KMN-MNJ-SGT, but I don't know what they mean.
The full model number is V701-2G40 and this watch was was made in 1998, but not released until 1999. The catalogue number is AMXT003, and cost 12,000yen when released in 1999.