Banal Buckle Blog
If you’re reading this hoping to be regaled with some awesome CW pub trivia, then I’m afraid you’re about to be very disappointed! In fact, do yourself a favour and move on because if you finish reading this post, it’s a couple of minutes fo your life that you’ll never get back!
So, down to business. Or not. I realise I’m just talking to myself now. I recently bought a C60 which came with what CW used to call their ‘Sport’ tang buckle on the strap - it’s the chunky looking one with the flat pin. Despite the watch head being stainless, the buckle had a slightly darker-than-usual sheen, so I had a hunch it might be the ‘wrong’ buckle from a titanium watch such as the C11 Elite or C11 Extreme.
A simple magnet test wouldn’t help, because the standard Sport buckles are alloy, so to help satisfy my curiosity, I hit eBay and purchased a set of drug dealer’s, I mean jeweller’s scales for five quid. Is it a set of scales, or a singular scale? It sounds a bit odd saying “I bought a scale”, it makes me think of fish. Anyway, regarding the singular set of cocaine scale/s I bought for £4.99, that included the postage cost! And the envelope it arrived in. And the time it took someone to pick and pack my order. And VAT. And manufacturing costs. And the two AAA batteries. And the box. And shipping costs to send it half way around the world from China to the seller in the UK. How the fook is anyone making money at that?! Anyway, I digress. Again…
Start the drum roll please…
…a standard 20mm Sport buckle weighs in at: 4.72g - or about £350 in cocoin…
…whereas my suspected Titanium one weighed in at: 3.05g. So I was right, it is Titanium and it is the wrong one for the watch!
While I was there, I decided to weigh other CW buckles (wasting yet more valuable time that I should have been spending far more productively, such as photographing watches to sell. Or counting insects.)
The buckle weights are (starting with the Titanium on the scale and then moving to the top left):
20mm Sport Titanium: 3.04g
20mm C600 black steel: 2.33g
20mm dress polished: 3.22g (I’m guessing it’s chrome plates?)
18mm Sport alloy with ‘bolts’: 5.13g
20mm Bader deployant: 17.47g
20mm C4 twin pin steel: 2.04g
20mm standard Sport alloy: 4.71g
20mm Sport black: 5.15g
20mm Butterfly deployant: 12.43g
There you go, I promised this would be an horrifically dull post and I delivered. With interest! Or no interest, as is the case.