Sterling Silver Mechanical Timex Camper, limited to 50 pieces, by Timex Japan and BEAMS
TIMEX × BEAMS / 別注 CAMPER Silver 925 3針ウォッチ
Hi, this is Alan. Thank you for reading, and for your interest in my watch reviews. My contact information is at the bottom.
This is a pretty special Camper watch, by Timex Japan in collaboration with the Japanese department store BEAMS. It is made with solid sterling silver, and is limited to just 50 pieces.
It is also a mechanical watch, hand-wound. As far as I know, this the first mechanical watch that is part of the "Original Camper" series that was launched in Autumn 2015
end/
The presentation box is particularly nice, and there will be more about that later in this review.
Silver is highly lustrous, and demonstrates the highest reflectivity of any metal. These physical properties are central to how we perceive the appearance of silver objects, and is one of the reasons why silver has had en enduring role in most human cultures for thousands of years.
It is interesting that silver also exhibits both the highest thermal conductivity and the highest electrical conductivity of any metal. What an exceptional metal.
This won't be a dissertation on silver, but briefly, "sterling silver" is any silver where the silver content is at least 92.5% (in a minority of jurisdictions, 95.0%). Pure silver cannot be used for jewelry, cutlery, and many other uses because it is too soft, and using it in these applications would result in dysfunction. So, other metals are added to make an alloy that is mostly silver, but contains 7.5 percent various elements, such as zinc, copper, or nickel, or in combination.
The "925" notation comes about because rather than deal with the percent and decimal point, they just assign "pure silver" a value of 1000, or 100.0%, and 92.5% is just written as 925. Even "pure silver," like these bars above, appear to only be 999. That last 0.1% appears to be hard to achieve.
I wondered if a silver watch might be "mostly like a steel watch," but I was pretty much totally wrong about that. Silver is like nothing I have seen on a watch.
The watch follows the template or "base model" of the Original Camper, a 2015 revival by Timex Japan, of a long-running watch in the Timex catalog, the "Camper Watch," which sold from 1983 to about 1996. There have been dozens of iterations and variations on the Original Camper base model since 2015. This is one of few without solid lugs, so as to fit a bracelet; most have pull through straps. It is the only one with a mechanical movement.
Some details:
Case: 36 mm
Lugs: 18 mm
Water: 30 m
Crystal: mineral glass
Movement: hand-wound mechanical, by Seagull, China
Case: sterling silver
Bracelet: sterling silver
(The clasp of the bracelet, the caseback, and the crown are steel, for precision, and for longevity of function.)
Here is the outer box. All surfaces of the box are covered by an image of a concrete surface.
Here's a look at part of the bracelet, lugs, and case. Compared with steel, silver seems more "bright," "silky," and almost liquid-y sometimes, resembling liquid mercury (which is also sometimes called called "quicksilver".)
The Timex Japan warranty card, showing it was purchased on November 18th, 2021, at the BEAMS Harajuku location, the original BEAMS shop that has been the flagship since 1976. The 11-48... number right upper is a BEAMS stock number (which differs from the Timex model number, which is TW2V30300)
When you remove the cover of the outer box, the one with the concrete design, you find a grey, hinged inner box. Slight surface texture to this inner box.
The dial and hands are identical to a well-known "premium" version of the Camper dial, which some have named the DeLuxe version. It features a truly gorgeous coloring to the luminous triangle marks on the dial, and in all three hands. WATER-RESISTANT replaces the Wave logo. This DeLuxe dial and hands has been used on several Camper versions, including one where the dial was reversed as a mirror-image.
I'm sure it was a natural choice to use this premium dial for the silver model, and I think a good one.
Side view of the solid steel link bracelet. I had three links removed, and it fits perfectly. i was not able to remove the pins easily on my own, and I didn't want to damage anything. A watchmaker sized it for me in just a few minutes.
I almost never talk about the specific price of watches, but in this case, the price is exceptional and is therefore worthy of mention. The retail price before taxes is ¥185,000 (after taxes ¥203,500.) That pre-tax price converts to about $1635, making it the highest retail price ever for a Timex watch, at the time of this writing in December 2021. This is 35% higher than the price of a Timex x Judith Leiber watch covered with crystals that sold for $1,200 (which was only released probably less than two months before this one.) Why might this be relevant? I'll discuss this later (unless I run out of room on the page!)
A worker fills a mold with molten silver from a cauldron during the casting of large silver ingots in the foundry at the JSC Krastsvetmet non-ferrous metals plant in Krasnoyarsk, Russia. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov,
Opening up the inner box, you see the watch is covered up by suede or suede-like equivalent. The material is cut square in the center, with four flaps extending from each edge of the square, and the flaps fold over.
You can see the innermost part of the box is made from wood, shown well in the below picture,. The box is really fine. It is clear that Timex Japan and BEAMS wanted a pretty special box with which to present this exceptional Timex, as the spared no efforts toward this end.
The steel caseback is nice. It is secured by four screws, and made from steel, and signed TIMEX and BEAMS. It also indicates the silver composition of the case and bracelet, and mentions that it has a hand-wound movement. I am not sure if there are any hallmarks or "925" stamped into the silver case or bracelet.
Silver (Ag, for the Latin argentum) has 47 protons in its nucleus. It is about 30% more dense than stainless steel. As mentioned above, is has remarkable physical properties, exhibiting the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal.
Its property of being highly lustrous appears important as a modifier of it high reflectivity, in that the reflections are bright but also are not sparkly or glittery. This creates a a kind of "silky brilliance" to the appearance of silver objects.
Silver is one of the seven metals of antiquity. Silver was first discovered around 5000 BCE, and there is evidence of large-scale mining as far back as 3000 BCE.
The TIMEX X BEAMS signage on the other box is in silver, very nice touch.
The box really is exceptional, and is like nothing I've seen with any Timex. It honestly seems similar in quality and complexity as the presentation of a Rolex, but I love the grey far more than the Rolex green, and this feels fresh and modern. And though I have acknowledged many times that "you don't wear a box on your wrist," it bears repeating again that (for some people, I'm not going to say for all) a nice box can increase the enjoyment of the your watch.
It is really is a splendid-looking watch. The "light sink" of the matte black dial contrasts sharply with the brightness and lustrous reflectivity of the metal, but is then accented by white and blue-green dial marks and hands.
The watch, of which only 50 were made, is indicated as SOLD OUT on the BEAMS sales page.
There is a 14K solid gold Timex model called "Dorado" that was made in the late 1960s. It was an Electric model. I am not aware of any solid sterling silver production models before this Camper.
The wooden surface of the inside of the top of the outer box has been embossed TIMEX x BEAMS.
The watch case and the bracelet came wrapped in protective plastic film. The red arrow sticker points to the side of link where you need to push out the pin, for removing links. The center of the inside bracelet also has arrows pointing the direction of movement of the pin, when removing links. You can see that the disposable red arrow, and the arrows on the bracelet, are in opposite directions. So you just have to remember that to remove links, the pin should move in the direction of the arrows, and to replace the pin, from the opposite direction.
The whole box came wrapped in a white bag with BEAMS all over it, and they also give you a small BEAMS orange shopping bag.
i loved this premium Camper dial the minute I first saw it on a watch in early 2018. It is therefore really a pleasure, and it also feels like a privilege, to have this now with a mechanical movement, and in solid sterling silver.
Reflecting the blue light of a computer workstation.
Roman silver coin, around 44 BCE. It depicts Caesar Augustus, and "Caesar's Comet." (link).
While stainless steel is highly stable under most ordinary conditions, most people know that silver is reactive with gases found in the environment, and that this reaction results in the deposition of a grey/black material called tarnish on the surface of the silver. It is a form of corrosion, but unlike how the rust on iron can continue to "eat away" into deeper layers of the metal, silver's tarnish is a surface phenomenon, and does not "invade" into the metal. In fact, once the surface of the silver is fully tarnished, the layer of tarnish actually acts as a barrier to the gases reaching any deeper into the metal, and prevents further tarnish. You could say that tarnish is self limiting.
Sulfur, particularly in the form of hydrogen sulfide, is the major contributor to tarnish. Silver metal, in the presence of oxygen, reacts to form silver sulfide, which is the black substance of tarnish.
You can slow the reactions that lead to tarnish, when your item is not being used. Some methods seems more practical than others. One that seems well-suited to watches, jewelry and other small items is to place the silver item in bags made of a special fabric. This fabric has actual micro-particles of silver embedded in the cloth. So, when the gases that might cause tarnish encounter the silver particles in the fabric, they react with those particles before they can get to the silver item inside the bag. Effectively, the bag "traps" the gases, so they can't reach the silver inside.
Tarnish can be removed mechanically, by rubbing its surface with one of many commercially-available compounds. These are effective, but every time you do this procedure, you are removing the tarnish, but you are also removing some of the silver. A very small amount, but something. Removing tarnish from, say, a spoon is relatively straightforward. But a watch is more challenging. The bracelet has so many interstitial spaces between the links, hard to reach with your buffing cloth. And the "watch head" is kind of sensitive, you might want cleaning creams and chemicals getting into the seals of the back, crystal, crown and creating loss of integrity.
So, here is my question. Do I try to protect my silver Timex from tarnish, maybe by keeping it in one of those special bags when I'm not wearing it, or do I just "let it be," and just let nature take its course?
"La Récureuse". Painting by Andre Bouys (1656-1740), 1737. Decorative Arts Museum, Paris.
* * *
Sterling Silver Mechanical Timex Camper, limited to 50 pieces, by Timex Japan and BEAMS. This watch seems pretty awesome, to me. A Timex made from freaking solid silver! And not just any model, but a mechanical Camper. I feel really lucky to have one of them, and have very much enjoyed wearing it.
Thank you for reading.
I hope you will like it.
Alan
Contact:
