Okay, so, I’ve been getting into watches lately, you know, like a real hobby. And I travel a lot for work, so I thought, why not get a GMT watch? Makes sense, right? So I started looking into these “true GMT” watches, because apparently, there’s a difference.
First, I tried to figure out what makes a GMT watch “true.” Turns out, it’s all about how the hands work. With a true GMT, you can move the 12-hour hand by itself, without messing up the other hands. “Office GMTs,” on the other hand, let you change the 24-hour hand independently. I’m not sure if that is important. I watched many videos on YouTube.
I spent hours, seriously, just browsing online, checking out different brands and models. Rolex, of course, came up a lot. That “Pepsi” one, with the red and blue bezel, is iconic. But man, those are expensive! I mean, I like watches, but I’m not made of money.
Then I saw something about “popular dial colorways.” They’re always talking about Pepsi, Coke, Batman, and Root Beer. I guess these are the colors of the bezels. There are also some plain black ones, and even some with diamonds and stuff. That’s a bit much for me, I think. I found a brand called Chopard. Looks nice, but I didn’t know it before.
So I thought, maybe there are some good ones that don’t cost a fortune. There are some for under a grand, apparently. I even saw a forum post about it, but the suggestions weren’t that great, to be honest.
I found some other brands like Farer and Baltic. They look pretty cool, and they’re not as expensive as Rolex or Chopard. But I’m still not sure which one to get.
After a whole weekend of this, I made a list of like, ten different watches that looked promising. I compared their sizes, how much water they can handle, what kind of glass they have on the front—all that stuff. Most of them are bigger than 40mm, which is fine for my wrist. Also, I checked some information about their sizes, like 42mm in diameter, 13.85mm in height, 54mm lug-to-lug, and 21mm lug width.
I also dug into the movements. For example, I found out that the 4R34 movement is not a true GMT. It just swaps the day display for a 24-hour hand. That means you have to set the local time first to get the second time zone right. That is a bummer for me.
In the end, I still haven’t bought one. It’s a lot to think about, you know? You want something that looks good, works well, and doesn’t break the bank. Maybe I should just stick with my phone for telling time when I travel. But that’s not as fun, is it?
Anyway, that’s where I’m at with this whole GMT watch thing. It’s been a journey, let me tell you. If any of you have suggestions or stories about your own watch adventures, I’m all ears!
