Ten Years After: Casio CA53W-1Z

Here is a Casio watch from my collection -- Casio CA53w-1z. This one is one of the earlier pieces in my collection and is basically an electronic calculator watch. Casio was famous for such watches in the 1980s -- the heyday of calculator watches. You can read up a bit on calculator watches in this Wikipedia entry although it makes no mention of this particular model.

I personally bought the watch on May 5, 2003, as you can see from the picture above where the date of sale is marked clearly on a battery replacement coupon (or something) which I actually haven't had to use yet but more about it a little later on in this entry. Bought on May 5, 2003 makes it two months (minus 15 days) after the start of the Second Iraq War -- just to put a time reference on it. And I even have an original receipt for it which states that it cost me the whole of RUB 680 which is about US$20+. 

I wore the watch for a couple of years (but not too often) and then it has spent another 8 years in my writing desk. I have had no occasion for the use of the calculator either. I doubt using it would have been very convenient. But on the whole I liked and still like the look of this calculator watch. This particular model is a true, if cheap, classic. Apparently it was in production since the early 1980 until very recently. And even now there are plenty NOS specimens on the Internet which you can easily find if you google its name. Interestingly the price has stayed about the same as in 2003 which suggests that plenty of them were made in their time (still being made?). 

A remarkable thing about this watch is that it is still running on the same battery I bought it with -- and that is more than 10 years already! And I assume it must have spent some time in the store before I even bought it. And, for all this time, the watch has been running with a daily alarm which I forgot how to switch off and too lazy to look up in the instructions, and was running with an hourly chime until a year or so ago when I finally turned it off. It has to be said though that this model has no backlight -- but it's a good thing as far as battery life is concerned though not so much if you want to use the watch at night.

I haven't touched this watch for the past 9 years or so and it's now running about 16 minutes fast which makes it a 1.7 minute gain per year (assuming it was set correctly at the start or didn't go a full 24 hour circle). Not a bad result anyway, I think.

However as I was getting it out of my desk, a sizable chunk of the original plastic Casio bracelet broke and came off. So it cannot be worn on wrist any more and that's that. Replacement bracelets can be found though -- but who wants to bother?

In addition to being mine, this watch is also famous for having been worn by Marty McFly in Back to Future. 

As I said, I haven't been using the watch for the past 9 years (and only sparingly before that) but it still looks a bit grimy. Well, first off, my pictures are true to life and I aim to show the exact condition of watches from my collection. Secondly, some of it is due to lighting and zooming in -- it looks cleaner and tidier to the naked eye. Thirdly, Casio plastic is known for a propensity to collect dust, dirt and grime as it is kind of sticky.

More photo.

Its technical specs straight from the horse's mouth -- Casio's own website.

• 8-Digit Calculator
  Constants for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division
• Water Resistant
• Dual Time
• Daily Alarm
• 1/100 second stopwatch
  Measuring capacity: 23:59'59.99"
  Measuring modes: Elapsed time, split time, 1st-2nd place times
• Hourly Time Signal
• Auto Calendar (pre-programmed until the year 2079)
• Accuracy: +/-15 seconds per month
• Battery CR2016
• Approx. battery life: 5 years
• Module 437/3208

Size of case/total weight
42.0 x 33.0 x 7.0mm / 29g

Some satisfied customers here.

16 YEARS LATER: