Cadet Direct offers a range of military inspired and outdoor watches to suit your needs and your budget. The Timex Expedition range and our Casio G- Shock watches includes a range of completely dependable, reliable outdoor cadet watches that are resistant to the elements and are backed up with a manufacturer's warranty. Our Smith & Wesson and UZI watch collections are military inspired and include parade, pilot and paratrooper models. Finally, for those looking for a higher end military wrist watch why not take a look at our Traser models which are used globally by Special Forces teams and feature Tritium light sources.
Top Things To Look For In A Luxury Watch Part 1: Entry Level Luxury. Welcome to the first of three articles that offer an overview for watch newbies on what to look for when getting a new watch. Esteemed watch expert readers are going to be familiar with much of what I am talking about, and I encourage your personal additions to the list. For others, I hope to help guide your watch purchase decisions and discuss information that many of us take for granted. Too often am I presented with questions about what watch people should buy, or what makes a watch good. I simply cannot review the hundreds of watch brands and thousands of styles with each person - what I can give people is a general overview of what to look for and ask about, given your budget. Let me first say, these lists will not discuss complications (functions) that watches have. It doesn't matter to me whether you are looking for a chronograph (stopwatch), perpetual calendar (does not need to be adjusted very often), GMT (2. These three lists will mention aspects of the watch or its construction that are often function agnostic. Plus, these items are overall things to look for. There is no . This is going to be the $3. I will not cap it because different watches simply give you more for the money and these features are certainly things you'll want in upper range watches as well. The next price point will be $1. Wellco Enterprises has been manufacturing military boots for the US army since 1965. The army needed to find a new manufacturer for their military boots to replace.![]() ![]() This latter price point will include things at the $2. This is a broad range of watches with probably the largest selection of watches in it. For some of you, $3. If you are in the former category, you'll want to listen up as these are important things to look for. Check out the full line of all the newest tactical pens from UZI. UZI Tactical Pens are the best selling, most affordable, tactical pens on the market. Again, this is just one partial list, and there are, of course, other things that go into a good watch. Sapphire Crystal. A watch crystal is the transparent cover over the face of the watch. Crystals have been made using different materials over the years, but only a few major materials dominate the market today. Most of the watches you'll look at have one of two types of crystals; mineral glass or synthetic sapphire crystals. Mineral crystals are cheaper and offer one benefit over sapphire - they don't tend to shatter if struck hard. Meaning they will crack, but not shatter. Shattered sapphire crystals are relatively rare and typically occur with a very harsh impact. The better the watch, the thicker the sapphire crystal will be, and thus, less likely to break. Sapphire crystals are incredibly scratch- resistant though. You often see well- worn watches with beat- up cases, but a . Thus, sapphire crystals are more desirable compared to mineral crystals and should be preferred the majority of the time. Solid Metal Construction. To some people, it might be obvious to get a watch out of solid metal, but you'd be surprised at how some cheaper watches cut costs. Steel watches should be made from grade 3. L stainless steel almost all the time. Plus, the watch case and bracelet links should be solid pieces of metal, rather than folded metal or anything hollow. It is easy to tell if a bracelet is solid by inspecting the side of it and noticing if looks like one solid piece. In watches at this level, cases are best made from the fewest number of pieces and using the most metal possible. This means the least (or no) amount of materials such as plastic or otherwise. Swiss Movement Or Japanese Movement (if it is a Japanese watch)Switzerland is known for making high quality watch movements - you knew that. Japan also makes good movements, but not all movements are created equally. Most of the the time, Swiss movements come from ETA - or Ronda, especially if they are quartz movements (though this is not always the case). Japanese quartz movements typically come from makers such as Seiko, Citizen, and Casio. While these countries are not the only makers of movements, at these price points try to get movements from these regions as much as possible. Plus, if a watch is not Japanese, try to find one with a Swiss movement. You generally want to stay away from Chinese movements, though, this is not always a signal of low quality. Japanese watches probably utilize Japanese movements the best, though you'll find Japanese movements (often Miyota, which is part of Citizen) in timepieces from all over the world. Lastly, at this price point, don't worry too much about finding mechanical watches - you are just fine with a quartz movement - even though there are plenty of mechanical movements available. Solid Feeling Construction. You want your watch to feel well put together and solid. Check to see how well the strap or bracelet fits to the case. There should little to no wiggle room. Put the watch on your wrist and see how well the clasp or buckle operates, they should be smooth with a nice action. They should further not feel flimsy or poorly sized. If the watch has a rotating diver's bezel, again, twist it around and see how much movement it gives in a resting position. A good watch should not make too much or any noise when shifting around briskly on your wrist, and it goes without saying that it should feel like it is all assembled in a tight- fitting manner. It is also the case that a lot of the time, Swiss companies (even at these lower price points), make better metal bracelets than other countries, even Japan. It is true that a Swiss designed bracelet might actually be manufactured elsewhere, but they take great pride in refinement of these areas. Designed By Actual Watch Makers. Consider that two types of people are designing watches. Those that care about how well a watch functions as a timepiece, and others that just care about how they look. The best watches are designed using fundamental watch design principles that value function AND form. The alternative are . Worst case scenario is a watch that is so poorly designed, it does not even function properly. Examples of this are missing chronograph subdials, erroneous markers on dial, inoperable measuring scales just placed for show, and my all time biggest pet peeve - hands that are too short or the wrong size. The last thing you want is your nice looking watch to function like a movie prop. So do yourself a favor and really take a good long look at the dial and all its features, figuring out what each and every function does, along with making a decision of whether it is usable given your standards. This is one of the biggest problems in the watch market today, and you'll be proud that you took the time to find a watch that was actually designed to be a highly functional instrument. Locking Deployant Clasp If On A Metal Bracelet. Cheaper watches with metal bracelets still have what is called a single locking clasp. This is the type of bracelet that literally just snaps or clicks into place. The best metal bracelets have what are know as . The piece on the left . That is the first . A triple lock often features a push- button in the mix, or there are also . The bottom line is that you want a watch bracelet that will stay secure on your wrist no matter what you are doing or if you accidentally hit the bracelet on something. Weight. Watch weight is a polarizing concept. Some people (like myself) love heavy watches. Others want something very light. On more expensive watches, you start to see materials such as titanium which are lighter than steel, but in this price segment, weight is often times a sign of quality. Even though titanium is available at this price level, it most likely is not the higher (grade 5) quality titanium that is what you'll want. At this price level, you are only going to get that nice crisp quality look with steel. Like I said, weight often signifies solid construction using a high quality steel. So feel the weight of a case and bracelet to make sure it is substantial enough to justify your investment. Signed Crown And Buckle Or Clasp. A good watch maker is more often than not a proud watch maker, and is fully invested in each watch they design. This means there are typically four places that you'll watch to see the name of the watch makers. This is on the face of the watch, the caseback, on the crown, and on the deployant clasp or strap buckle. These are also known as . Higher priced watches have logos and graphics done in relief (raised, versus etched into the metal). Cheaper watches have bare crowns and deployants which make it too clear that these parts are taken from a parts bin and have no personal touch. Good Dial Lumination. Not all watches are expected to have dials that illuminate in the dark for low light viewing - these are typically the more classic or formal watches. However, almost all sport and causal watches have some type of luminant that is applied on the hands as well as somewhere on the dial. The quality of luminant greatly varies. Some is so impractical that it should not even be there. An example being that you need to shine a bright light directly to the face of the watch for a minute or so, and then the dial dimly glows for a few minutes. Alternatively, you have luminant that charges easily when exposed to room or sun light and glows for hours. The Japanese tend to make the best luminant, but you get Japanese luminant on watches from all over (watches will never indicate the source of the luminant, but look for Lumi. Nova, or better yet Super. Lumi. Nova when possible). An alternative to luminant are watches that use tritium gas tubes. These tubes are made by just one company in Switzerland and glow by themselves for about 2. Tritium gas tubes are not tough to find, as a few watch brands almost exclusively use them, and they can be had for reasonable prices. Still, most watches will have applied luminant. Look for large surface areas of luminant that is applied richly (looks raised up a bit). Consistent Pricing. One figure attached to new watches that doesn't tend to mean a lot is the retail price. Because you are a sucker for paying retail price most of the time. After those of you from the watch companies stop cursing me, let me explain a bit.
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