RTDNTOTO 🐻 Random Thoughts Deserving No Thread Of Their Own 20 (2025)

[WSU MUP Student]

I would love a vintage watch that is Rolex Submariner-esque but is not actually that level of rarity/expensive. Should I start looking at Seikos on ebay?

What's not to love about the Submariner? Well... the price!

I'd love a vintage Submariner as well but no way I'd ever pay the prices they command these days.

Thankfully, there are a ton of other options out there for much more reasonable prices. eBay is a good source if you know what you're looking for and I buy from there every once in a while but I always worry about receiving maybe the case that you're buying but some sort of franken-watch monstrosity when it comes to the movement and it's sort of "Buyer Beware" on eBay when it comes to less expensive watches. They do have a lot more buyer protections with higher-priced pieces but that's not the fun of eBay!

Seiko is great, and there is some exceptional value in their dive watches, especially if you're looking for older/used ones, but if you like the look of vintage Submariner (but not the price) I'd recommend looking for older Heuer/TAG Heuer or Zodiac watches with the "Monnin" case. The Zodiac in particular can be a great value especially if you're willing to go Quartz. Search for "Zodiac Professional" or "Zodiac Red Dot" or something along those lines. Monnin was a French manufacturer of watch cases for other brands in the '60s - '90s and made them for Heuer, Zodiac, Aquadive, CWC, Zenith, and a ton more. Zodiac and Heuer are probably the best values out there. There was another manufacturer in the same time frame called M.R.P. that also made cases of the same design. I think M.R.P. was somehow related to Monnin and you may see the two case manufacturers used interchangeably (IIRC Monnin may have licensed the design out to M.R.P. for a time) but they both have great quality. If you like a Submariner, I think a watch with a Monnin case looks a bit closer to that than most of what Seiko has offered over the years.

Here's my old Zodiac "Red Dot"

If you like that case design but decide you want to go with something newer, you should check out a company called "HGP". They bought the "Monnin" name and designs a few years back and make more affordable versions of Monnin dive watches with the exact case sizes of the original using new Seiko automatic and mechaquartz movements. I don't own one but they have pretty good reviews on WatchuSeek and I've definitely been tempted.

 

[WSU MUP Student]

This reminds me of a favorite story I have with my eldest - when she was in daycare, maybe she was not quite 3, they asked her what her Mom did while she was at daycare and she said "she waits in the car until I am done playing" - lol

Our youngest is in 4th grade and they've buddy-ed them up with kindergartners and once a week they have lunch and recess together, library time where the 4th graders are supposed to read with the kindergartners and do some other stuff, etc. One day our daughter had to interview her kindergartner and one of the questions was something like, "Something unique about my buddy is..." and our daughter wrote (in the giant all caps she uses for everything), "EMMA HAS CRABS!" My wife and I saw that and were like WTF? and asked our daughter about it and she was all excited to tell us about Emma and her two pet hermit crabs.

 

[DVD]

So do other lunches like my leftover Mexican food think the lobster is a pretentious snob or do they live in a world of equality?

 

[ursus]

So do other lunches like my leftover Mexican food think the lobster is a pretentious snob or do they live in a world of equality?

I am unsure. Maybe. Some lunches may aspire to be more like the lobster pie - rising above their soup-can roots and making the chicken stock they came from proud and a little envious. But then again, some food is just bitchy. Just facts.