April 5, 2021
#422
Gentle reader,
I first wrote about my small collections of chronograph watches in March of 2012. You may read that article here:
The Robb Collections: The Watches
There is a LONG explanation about tachymeters in Wikipedia here: Tachymeter (watch) - Wikipedia
The gist of it, they simplify with this line: "A tachymeter is simply a means of converting elapsed time (in seconds per unit) to rate (in units per hour)."
Anyone familiar with the measurement of time and speed in automotive (and boat) Drag Racing knows there are two measurements: How Long it takes the car(s) or boats to travel from a dead stop at the starting line to it passing the finish line is the ELAPSED time in seconds. The second measurement is the speed the car is traveling as it passes the finish line. Two photoelectric beams shine across the drag strip, one X number of feet before and a second one the same number of feet after the finish line. How many seconds it takes to trip both beams of light is calculated to determine the speed. A YouTube video linked below is a graphic demonstration.
New Nitro Altered World Record: 4.92 at 304.53 mph by Richard Hartman - YouTube
But THIS article is not about drag racing, it is about TACHYMETERS. And no, they are not used to gauge how BADLY someone is dressed.
The SECONDS hand of a true tachymeter watch MUST be the elapsed seconds hand for the chronograph (stopwatch). Thus, it must be stationary unless one is TIMING something. As you can see the second hand with it's red arrow tip below is.
However, that watch does NOT have a tachymeter. The bezel (metal ring that surrounds the watch face) rotates and as you can see, 60 is not at twelve o'clock, as it should be. Rotating bezels are often on DIVE watches and much more clearly visible so divers can keep track of how long they have been down and not run out of air.
This lovely two-tone Citizen watch has BOTH the scale and the fixed seconds hand. I am now wondering why I got rid of it.
I have never counted just how many watches I have owned in total, but it is around forty. I limit myself to just seven at a time now.
But, almost ALL of them have been CHRONOGRAPH watches. Which are a wristwatch (usually) which ALSO has a stopwatch built into the one watch movement.
AS you can see, it has it all: Fixed second hand, tachymeter scale and subdials. I am retired, and sometimes I DO wonder what day it is, so the bottom "day" subdial does come in handy.
Before ROLEX put pressure on eBay to prevent sellers from hocking their wares of counterfeit Rolex watches, I was able to buy these.
I call them "Fauxlex" watches. It is a word I coined. Faux is French for fake.
It is pronounced "foe". Put together it is pronounced "Foe-lex" which
rhymes with Rolex.
All the others are Daytona chronograph watches. The trouble is, while they do have automatic or self-winding movements like the original, THEIR movements are CALENDAR movements. The subdials show the day, date, and month. The black face/strap watch has the correct markings for that type movement, the rest look exactly like the real thing. Pressing the pushers does nothing unless one pulls out the crown and presses them repeatedly to "zero" them at the 12 o'clock position. ALL of them are long gone from the collection.
What Rolex objects to aside from their watches blatantly being copied is not just the design of their watches, at least in the case of the Daytona models, it is the USE of their NAME as well as their designs.
The Daytona design patent ran out years ago and many watch companies started making their own watches with the same look. Here are some I have owned:
ADEE KAYE's version.
Apogaum's version which uses the self-winding Chinese calendar movement.
A little history on the Rolex Daytona watches. Every January, at the Daytona International Speedway in Daytona, Florida, USA, is held the "Rolex 24 at Daytona" endurance sports car race. It is twenty-four hours long and starts out the new season of IMSA's premiere races. It USED to be part of what is now called the "WEC" or World Endurance Championship. The second race was the 12 Hours of Sebring, also in Florida in March. Then the racers went to Europe for the rest of the season's races. The PREMIERE event is the 24 Hour of Le Mans in France, in June. Races are held in several countries throughout the season.
ANYWAY, the winners (two or more drivers shared driving duty) received solid gold Rolex Daytona watches, second place, two-tone gold and stainless and third place all-stainless steel Daytona watches.
BUT, this article is SUPPOSED to be about TACHYMETERS so, here it is.The driver, or preferably a passenger, presses the top button AS they are passing a marked/fixed point, such as a mile or kilometer maker, while the car is at top speed. The watch wearer again presses the top button as the vehicle passes the second marked/fixed point, such as a mile or kilometer marker.
Then, they look to where the second hand STOPPED and read the scale to figure out how fast they were going.
How useful are tachymeters and for that matter, chronograph watches? To me, not very. ALL cars sold HAVE speedometers to tell the driver how fast they are going. And, I don't speed nor race real cars (only simulated ones) and the ONLY thing I've ever TIMED with one of my watches was how long it took to get our FOOD after we ordered it in a restaurant!
But, I love their looks and IF I wanted to time something, I have the technology to do so. Between you and me, a DIGITAL watch would be much more accurate and goes down to 1/1000th of a second. But digital, BAH! Oh, and I deliberately do not have a smart phone. Useful they are, but I see SO many people who seem to CONSTANTLY be looking down at their phones and NOT at their surroundings. I do not want to be like that.
I also drive a WAGON, not an SUV or crossover or minivan or pickup truck. I LIKE being different.
Oh no! The socket plug is upside down! Well the car was new to us then and I corrected that. To give you an example of it's size, here it is next to VW's (then) smallest SUV, the Tiguan.
To show it's prowess, I added these Prancing Moose emblems. Every new Volvo goes through the high-speed moose avoidance test. I'm not making this up. And these emblems are a dig at Ferrari owners.
Thank you for taking the time to read my humble blog. Please take a moment to click or tap the FOLLOW button which is located by the ADEE KAYE watches version of the Rolex Daytona chronograph photo. That way, you will receive notifications of new articles as they come out. Also, feel free to leave a comment below or on Facebook.
Scott
April 5, 2021
#422
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