Category: Other watches
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Casino Space Invaders
If you think you’ve seen this watch on this website before, you’re half-right. It’s the silver version of the Curtis Space Invaders watch. Casino, like Curtis, isn’t a particularly well-known watch brand and searching Google only returns a couple of melody watches (interestingly, two different styles with the same melodies; La Cucaracha and Rancho Grande)…
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Citizen 8984 Ana-Digi-Temp
Just like the Citizen 8988 here, the 8984 is the same but different ana-digi-temp watch. All the functions are there, 12/24 hour time, °C and °F, alarm and hourly chime, dual time and local temperature, 1/1000 chronograph but it’s different. The colours are different (which isn’t unexpected) but the digital layout is also quite unique…
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Citizen 8988 Ana-Digi-Temp
Citizen’s ana-digi-temp watches have been iconic since they first appeared in the 1980s — so much so, they are still being produced today. One of Citizen’s sub-brands, Independent, makes some quite wild variations although they’re mostly cosmetic as the modules and functionality remain faithful to the originals. There are three main variations – the 8980,…
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Nelsonic Frogger
Creating wristwatch -sized versions of successful arcade games was becoming second nature to Nelsonic by the time they unveiled the Frogger (licensed by Sega) watch in 1983. They had already had great success with Pacman the previous year, and Q*Bert was released at around the same time too. Nelsonic had a knack for producing very…
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Arctos dual time with special 24-hour jumper
Arctos is a German brand of watches with a long history – dating back to the 1920s — you can read more about their history here. This particular watch has a NEC module in it, which appeared in other watches of the period including one manufactured by Elgin. Functions include time, day/date, hourly chime and…
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Takara Kaltor robot watch
Takara is a Japanese toy company who have been making toys since the mid-1950s. In the 1970s, though, their popular range of Diaclone and Microman toys became what would be known around the world as Transformers after US toy company Hasbro bought into the range and the two companies worked together to create the first…
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Nelsonic Q*Bert
Nelsonic made some of the coolest game watches of the 1980s — somehow they managed to get licences (at least I assume they did) for some of the great arcade classics — Pac-man, Donkey Kong, Frogger (although that may have been Sega — some of these watch layouts look pretty much identical) and this one…
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Nelsonic Pacman
Pacman was everywhere in the 1980s. First introduced by Namco as an arcade game, it wasn’t long before everyone knew about the pizza-shaped character and his ghostly adversaries. There was a Pacman clone for just about every imaginable video game console, a tv series, top 10 pop song, handheld versions, board games and, of course,…
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Platron Jungle Kong (Nelsonic) game watch
Ever heard of the famous watch manufacturer Platron? No? How about Andros? No, me neither. But this very rare game watch, in the style of Nelsonic watches like Q*Bert, Pacman, Frogger and more, was released under both those brands — and both in Argentina. If you’ve ever seen a Jungle Kong game watch, and there…
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Citizen Digi-Ana 41-9516 (8910)
While Citizen’s vintage digital watches don’t seem to be as popular as those made by Seiko and Casio, they turned out some great timepieces particularly their combination Digital-Analog models. The ana-digi-temp watches produced by Citizen were very popular with a wide range of design and layout combinations and these still fetch good prices. Citizen produced…
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Takara Kronoform robot watch
Whenever the latest vintage quartz watch arrives it’s almost automatic to reach for the isopropyl, a cotton bud and fibreglass scratch brush in anticipation of the inevitable leaking battery and associated corrosion of the circuitboard that is nearly always present. So it’s a rare treat when you find a watch that was stored with care,…
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Alba Y666-5000 (Soccer)
Seiko may never have released a game watch under their flagship brand, but under their Alba sub-brand, they made a reasonable number. As the most popular sport in the world, Soccer (or Football if you’re in the UK) has existed in electronic form since the 1970s (and maybe earlier) in LED and VFD handhelds and…
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Citizen 8946 – the analog/digital diver
Citizen was great at combining analog and digital functionality into their watches — their wide range of ana-digi-temp watches is a great example, but they even extended this to some dive watches models, like this 8946 from some time in the 1980s. With a moveable bezel, and large illuminated hands, it’s unmistakable as a dive…
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Sanyo V Space Wars
There’s no doubt the Space Attacker game was hugely popular in the 1980s — plenty of watch brands bought the Hong Kong-produced modules and put their own badges on them. The three-position turret game also extended to at least one calculator and potentially several handhelds too, and then came a subtle variation in the form…
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Curtis Juggling Watch (Ball)
People who played Nintendo’s earliest Game & Watch handhelds will remember this game well — chances are it came out about the same time. Nintendo called the game Ball and it appeared in their first ever Game & Watch (AC-01) released in 1980. By the time they stopped making the Game & Watch series there…
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Armitron 20,3101 Ana-Digi
Some of my favourite watches are the unbranded, quirky and sometimes pirated models that you don’t see as often as the ‘major’ brands because they were probably consigned to landfill once the battery went flat. One such watch, and definitely in my top 10, is the Armitron 20,3101 digital-analog alarm chronograph. If you know vintage…
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Citizen VX-2 Voicemaster
1987 was a year of turmoil — with the Iran-Contra affair, the Unabomber bombing in Salt Lake City, the Black Monday stock market crash and Terry Waite got kidnapped. On the plus side, it was also the year of the first Rugby World Cup in New Zealand, which we won, and better yet it was the…
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Timex Illusion
For just $34.95 you could have been the proud owner of the Timex Illusion in or around 1986. Timex isn’t as collectable as some other brands in the digital watch world but that doesn’t mean they didn’t come out with some cracker watches in the heyday of LCD watches including a range of triathlon/ironman watches,…
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Nelsonic Simon
Nelsonic was a well-known watch brand in the 1980s and, where game watches are concerned, the brand was synonymous with the Space Attacker. They had a number of other watches based on arcade games of the early 1980s, including Q-Bert, Pacman, Frogger and Donkey Kong. Some kind of licensing agreement with Nintendo meant they were…
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Conso Treasure Hunt
When you’ve been collecting rare and unique game watches for more years you care to remember, finding one you haven’t seen before is itself a rare event. Finding one that no one has heard of, that’s next level stuff. I hasten to add that yes, some people may well be aware of (and possibly own)…