Thin watches and setting time/date

[oldyellr]

This is my first post here, so a bit of history. My first decent watch was a gift upon graduating high school in 1959. It was a Bruner Masterbilt, made in Toronto, Swiss movement, 17 jewels, worth about $50 at the time (which would be over $400 in today's dollars). It was a great watch, nice and thin, I wore through the gold to the base metal winding it. I lost it playing golf in the mid-seventies when I imagine one of the pins let go. Since then I've had a series of cheap digital watches, finally a Timex HEALTH TOUCH® contact HEART RATE MONITOR watch when when I rode a stationary bicycle recovering from hip surgery. That cost me $50 four years ago.

In the 1950s Swiss watches were the best and the thinner and the more jewels (pivot bearings, not decoration), the better, and more expensive. But like German cameras, which were the standard, today high quality watches are made all over the world. Also, thin watches are no longer the epitome. Now all the desirable watches are thick, heavy and clunky, so long as they're expensive. Rolex being a prime example.

So a while back I went searching for an inexpensive thin watch on aliexpress.com and found this for $11.00 and bought it. That's my reason for posting in the Frugal Corner.

I received it a couple of days ago. It's a very nice watch, and a real bargain. Sadly, they lied about the thickness. It's 9mm, not 6mm as advertised.

Also, I did not receive any owner's manual with it as advertised and had to wing it to set the time and date. I didn't even know there was an extra detent on the crown for setting the date. I've since downloaded instructions for various analog time/date watches and they're mostly similar, but also different. A couple warn against setting at the wrong time or sequence for fear of damaging the date wheel. I've verified I got the am and pm right, but won't know until the end of February whether it actually knows the calendar. So if anyone knows more about how these watches know what year it is, please direct me.

[Baco Noir]

Welcome to the forum. With a date only function, it’s highly unlikely that the date will do anything other than go from 1-31 without you making manual changes for months with less than 31 days. The ones that do adjust automatically are referred to as annual calendars or perpetual calendars and they also include day and month indicators on the dial.

[oldyellr]

Thanks for the reply. It's only logical that if there is no way to set the year or month that it would not know which month it is and how many days the month has. At least it did roll over to the 1st approaching midnight at the end of February. I contacted the seller and they will send me a manual after the Chinese New Year break when the manufacturer is back at work.