I’ve entitled this Post “Basic time” as this is what these quartz watches show off rather well – AND in the case of a couple of them – basic money as well! And I mean cheap!
The first and one of the cheapest is the Shengke Creative watch – at under £5.00! Bright and cheerful and very minimalist, bright yellow plastic flexible strap with pin buckle.
The dial is a matt black disk with a contrasting white window showing the hours. Minutes are indicated with a hand or pointer and that’s it. No second hand, so you won’t be timing anything with this, but that’s not the point – it simply shows you the rough time, at a glance, which is about as simple as it gets.
Arguably even more basic is the next one, again at around the same pricing. This is called minimalist, which I’d have to agree with.
Gone are any numerals, being replaced with a simple hour indication black Dot on a revolving disk plus the black pointer minute hand
However, if you want to easily see if the watch is actually working, then a second hand is very useful.
This next model is the TID from Sweden. No disks this time, but more conventional with hour, minute and a centre seconds hand PLUS it has the usual clock face with numerals and so on. But again it is easy to read, simple and tells you the time. Price wise though, not quite as minimalist at around £160.
At a lower price than the TID, you might have (or could, as it’s not a current model now) opted for one of my particular favourites –
the Rolf Cremer Bogen watch from Germany. This is quite minimalist AND rather stylish. It is also the one model here with maximum information on the dial coupled with incredible simplicity.
Conventional Hour, minute and centre seconds hands, PLUS a Date window @12, but this is a large double date, which is amazing in such a compact watch and at around £130 when I bought it some years ago – I love it.
My preferred two are the Rolf Cremer, as it fulfils the minimal look with the most information and for me the best style. Second choice is the Shengke Creative as it’s bright, very clear to read at a quick glance and I’ve had this for 3 years (got it from a friend) and as cheap as it was, it’s still working just fine today, without any issues at all.
Since checking out some of the minimalist, handed and disk watches, one thing does stand out.
Often they are NOT that easy to read “at a glance”, which for me rather defeats the object. Sometimes you can be too minimum or try to depict the passage of time is a shorthand manner, that just doesn’t work.
But the ones featured here seem to manage that trick pretty well and at really low prices, definitely not to be ignored.
Note – the Rolf Cremer Bogen I bought a few years ago and looking at their current range I don’t see it or another big date watch, which is a shame. It was certainly a winner for me. I also note – how could I not – the prices today are way up on just a few years ago.
Watch space 