Watch Wednesday Thursday (8/5/10)

I almost had to call this Watch Wednesday Friday, which would really be lame. I should try to take some of these pictures ahead of time, instead of rushing around every other week, looking for the camera and the USB cable to connect it to the computer, etc.

This is the watch that was at the repair shop for a very long time. It's a Tudor like the one I featured a couple of weeks ago. Tudor used to be more like a little brother to Rolex. Tudor watches used Rolex cases and some other parts like dials and hands, and often looked a lot like corresponding Rolex models, but had different movements that were made elsewhere so they cost significantly less. This is a Ranger, which was the Tudor counterpart to the Rolex Explorer (the first watch worn to the top of Mount Everest). I don't know what kind of movement this watch has.

I bought it six or seven years ago from an online watch seller in Michigan. One day while I was wearing it, I got frustrated with a misbehaving paper towel dispenser in a rest room where I worked, and I banged on the dispenser really hard with my left hand, which caused something inside the watch case to come loose. That's why I had to have it repaired in the first place.

Tudor used the rose logo until some point in the late 1960s, when they switched to the shield we saw on the watch I featured two weeks ago, so that gives a rough idea of this watch's age. The dial has faded a little from black to a very nice sort of slate color, almost like a chalkboard. I like the large numerals and the chunky hour hand. I'm not so crazy about the square stuck on the end of the second hand, but it's how they made them at the time. I've seen later Rangers with different hands, and some with date windows, but I believe this is the original design.

A lot of Rolex and Tudor models take a 19 millimeter wide strap, and this one does too. The strap that is on here is kind of cheap, but at the time it was the only one I could find in that size. They're still not so easy to find, but at least now I know more places to get them, so I'll probably change it now that I have the watch back.