The Under-$500 Watch I Can’t Stop Wearing
I told myself I wouldn’t get into watches, an expensive hobby for a man who already has too many expensive hobbies and interests. I immediately broke that promise. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.
Watches are fascinating anachronisms, powered by a mechanism, not by an AI supercomputer cooled in the desert by a metric ton of water. They’re charmingly unnecessary in a world where every device from cars to smartphones displays the time. But I don't need to tell you, an Esquire reader, that. Now that everything from kitchen tools to rings tries to give you immediate smart feedback before becoming obsolete in a generation or two, it's people like us who wear watches as a testament to a time when things were made with a purpose and designed to be repaired.
My most recent obsession has been this Citizen Promaster. Citizen has, arguably, a smaller profile than fellow budget-conscious Japanese watchmaker Sieko. But that’s a feature, not a bug, in my book. Citizen quietly makes handsome, high-performing watches at a wallet-friendly price that fly under the radar. This one is my favorite. Let me run down why.
It has a rotating serrated bezel inspired by the fugu, or the Japanese pufferfish. The intention might be for diving, but I use it for the Pomodoro method to actually get my drafts written on time. Don’t let people tell you watches aren’t useful for modern life.
The contemporary version is a reissue of a 1989 original, which was well-built enough to be adopted by the Italian Navy. Already badass. Things navies have given us in the style world: peacoats, waxed fabric, rollneck sweaters, striped shirts, and the concept of a siren song. Already on a good path. For this Promaster reissue, the Italian details are subtle: At the top of every day, the Italian abbreviation for the day of the week briefly flashes onto the day window before flipping to the English version.
There are other sneaky features, like the caseback engraving of that very same Japanese pufferfish that inspired the bezel. Color me (and my 2-year-old daughter, who now thinks all watches have fish on them) charmed.
I’m also charmed by the crown’s atypical location, at a jaunty 8 o’clock instead of the typical 3 o’clock. This both stops the crown from digging into your wrist while wearing. ZRC, a storied but under appreciated Swiss brand, makes a watch with the crown at 6 o’clock. Admittedly, I find that even cooler, but it's also priced at $ 4,000. The Fugu's 8 o'clock crown will suffice.
While I don’t have a Rolex in my current watch collection, I do have much pricier options than the Promaster. Some are dive watches, like a Shinola Lake Michigan Monster or Zodiac Super Sea Wolf GMT. Outside of the dive category, I had a beauty of a Tag Heuer Carrera on loan for a few months and have been eyeing Bremont’s new Terra Nova Bronze line as my next upgrade.
But there’s a time and a place for all those watches. Recently, I was at an IHOP with my family, doing a bathroom diaper change, and realized the watch on my wrist carried enough retail value to order the entire menu. You should wear your nice things wherever you want to, of course, but if you're prone worrying about that sort of thing, there's the Promaster. It’s a nice watch, but not so nice that it feels out of place in day-to-day life. It’s the ideal travel companion, projecting enough class to try for a flight upgrade but not so much that you have to actually learn how to use a hotel safe. And, most importantly, it’s fun to wear.
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