G-Shock #21: Though Positive Yellow DW-6630B

Casio has something with the color yellow. In 1992 Casio introduced the first G-Shocks with colors, the yellow DW-5600C-9B and the blue marbled “winter Premium” DW-5600D-1. In 1994 Casio released the first “round basic model’, the DW-6600. I think it was around this time Casio became unstoppable in releasing nice colored G-Shock models.

Yellow is of course a great color. I can only think positive associations with this color. I live on a agricultural island. When riding on my bicycle in summer, I see the bright sun shine over the golden barley fields. My view of good times in summer. When I am on holidays in France, I very much enjoy driving along the huge sunflower fields. I think that yellow is particularly a color that makes you feel good. I once read an interview in an old G-Shock magazine, where one of the designers of G-Shock was interviewed. Although the text was in Japanese (and I don’t have a clue where that interview was published), it was pretty clear that the designer called this color “Positive Yellow”. In 1997 Casio released the Auréle collaboration model. The phrase “Positive Yellow” was even printed on the box.

This DW-6630B-9 was released in November 1994. It was released together with a purple and a blue version, but this yellow version was far popular than the other two. Casio released G-Shock in Europe in October 1994, so this was one of the first colorful G-Shocks available here, specially in Germany. It was sold in great numbers. You still can find many of them in used condition on eBay. In the past you could have them between €10 and €20 and I think that if you want to have one now, if you pay more than €30, it is over priced.

Sjors would not be Sjors, if he had not a few of these. About 10 years ago it was not an exception that 5 -10 of these were on eBay auctions simultaneously. I just did a quick search and I found one in pretty reasonable condition on the first result page with “G-Shock” as search phrase and another one in moderate condition.

The coolest part of this watch is also the most vulnerable. It’s the face protector. This piece of metal wire is coated black, but over time the black coating chips off. If you want to baby your watch, you might not like this, but as a beater, it only adds to the though look of the watch. It seems this watch was at first not intend to be distributed outside Japan. in the ring around the display you can clearly see the text “Fox Fire”. Fox Fire is the Japanese name for “Illuminator”. It means the watch has an EL backlight. It might not be very important to write such a text on the display, but the DW-6630B is a version of the DW-6600 and the DW-6600 was the first G-Shock with an Electro Luminescent backlight.

The backlight of the DW-6600 is well known. It is probably the brightest EL backlight on a G-Shock. You almost can use it as a flash light. It even got a Flash Alarm on board. If this feature is activated, the EL lights up when an Alarm sounds. As on many DW-660o, a big G is shown in the EL backlight, but unlike the usual red, this G is yellow.

So, what do we find on board. The DW-6630B comes with the 1199 module, the same module as found on the DW-6600. It’s pretty basic. An Alarm function, a 60 minute Countdown Timer and a 24 hour Stopwatch. In all modes the time is shown, which is something some people like. It is indeed handy when you are using your Stopwatch to time several events or are monitoring a longer countdown, though, with only a 60 minute capacity, what’s long.

The LCD is shown in one big display. The display is divided in three area. The upper part shows the date in Time Keeping function and the mode and current time in other modes. The bottom part shows all the time functions. The middle part shows the progression of time in two layers. The upper part counts the 10 seconds, the lower part the seconds, There are only 5 arrows, but they change up and down. Some people think these animations are a waste of space, but I think it is nice to see the time progression on the display. You can compare it with the progression of a seconds hand on an analog wristwatch. I never heard anybody complain about the presence of that. For a long time Casio used both DW-6600’s and DW-6900’s for their special releases, but in the past years the DW-6600 has not been used anymore. It seems even that the complete line has discontinued.

The DW-6630B-9 is a fun watch to wear. Not real a watch to pet. The face protector challenge you to use this watch during extreme conditions. The yellow color won’t stop you. I once saw an interview with artist Paul McArthy, known for his confronting art, including installations and live painting. That DW-6630B would probably have been beat up a lot, but it looked in still good condition of television. Finding a mint one, will be almost a mission impossible, but a nice used one, can still be found real cheap. After almost 19 year, you might even wonder how many of those were sold in the mid 90s. If it's wise to buy one? The resin of these watches will become victim of resin rot probably more sooner than later.  Actually, one of mine already has. Still, it's a fun model. The purple model was also sold in Europe. Although not real rare, they are not that easy to find anymore. I never have seen a blue model in Europe, so I guess this was a Japan Domestic model. Not a big problem for me. I much rather have a yellow G-Shock, then a blue one.

#50 G-Shock for the German Police: DPolG

Here it is. The 50th and last article on my 50 Gs weblog for this year. It has been quite a Moloch to write an article every week. I don't know how, but it seems to cost me more and more time to make a new article. More text about backgrounds, more detailed photo's. I do not know what I am going to do with 50 Gs next year. I think I will release the pressure on my a bit and only write every now and then instead of every week. A 50 Gs article takes about 8 to 10 hours of work a week of my free time and I don't get paid for it. It's time to spend more time on my family and contribute a little more to the G-Shock forum. We will see what happens in 2011. First I hope you enjoy reading this article about a very nice old limited edition G-Shock, that's hidden in this box. I hope you will continue reading 50 Gs in 2011. Everyone have a great Holiday Season! Cheers!

In December 2001 I saw this watch on auction on eBay Germany. I do not remember the exact end price of the Auction, I believe it was around DM110.-, but more important,  I was the lucky winner. Like always I wrote the seller soon after the end of the auction. I do not exactly remember if I got a fast reaction, but as soon as I got the details I had sent the money to Germany. For a long time it remained silent, but in January I still got no reaction, and worse, also no watch. I was pretty worried, since for that time, that was a lot of money for a G-Shock.

In these days there were two ways to sent money to a German seller. You could sent money via the bank. At that time a time consuming operation. It was not possible via internet banking, so I had to go to the bank with all the information needed and had to fill in a lot of paperwork at the counter. 

Another method was sending money in a "shielded" envelope and sent it out registered. We didn't have the Euro at that time (I have totally no idea why a lot of people still want to go back to all those national currencies...), so I had to get German Marks. First I had to get them from the bank. In Vlissingen the bank had a special ATM that distributed foreign currency bank notes. Later I had a much better solution. A friend of me has a antiques/furniture shop. A lot of his customers come from Germany. As he delivers furniture in Germany a lot, he also had a lot of German Marks in cash. 

How did I sent the money shielded? It was actually pretty simple. I put the money behind a free card (which you can get at schools, café's, libraries, etc) and put aluminum foil around it. This way, it is impossible to detect that there are bank notes in the letter. the costs of sending money registered to Belgium was cheaper than an international bank transfer. 

I am pretty happy the Euro was introduced in 2002. In the beginning there were still high costs for international bank transfers, but I could make them at home behind my computer, which is much more easy. Now the costs of transering Euro's to another Euro country is free of charge, if you use the international bank number (IBAN). This has saved me a lot of money (I had to pay sometimes over €60.- for international bank transfers per month, so you still complain about the 3% Paypal commission?) .

Since I had the name and address of the seller I searched and found his telephone number in an on-line telephone book. I think I was waiting for about a month when I dialed the telephone number. A woman took up the phone. According her name, it was the seller’s wife. I do not speak German very well, but I managed to make clear I had bought and paid for a watch of her husband. She noted my name and told me she would tell it to her husband.

Within a week a small package arrived. The watch was packed in a very nice tin with the DpolG logo on it. The watch itself looked awesome. I knew how a basic DW-6600 looks like, but this one looked nicer. On most models with a design in the backlight, this design remains hidden until the light is turned on, but the big logo on this model is quite hard to overlook.

This model was realized by a German Casio dealer in Sahms called Freetime Sportuhrenversand which is run by Ralph and Kerstin Thimian (the warranty card shows an address in Reinbek, 24km from Sahms). Freetime was not only responsible for the DPolG model, also the MTV and Buchstabe models were from this firm. The MTV model seems to be highly collectible. If one pops up for auction, the bidding can end at a considerable high price. The Buchstabe model was released in Japan as the A-Z Gangsters. I do not know if the A-Z Gangsters were released before or after the Buchstabe series, though these are actually the same models. Freetime Sportuhrenversand is now called Sportuhren.de.

For the DPolG I think someone of the Police had good connections with Freetime and asked if they could realize a limited G-Shock model.

DPolG is short for Deutsch Politzeigewerkschaft, the union for Police employees. The DPolG is part of the DBB, the Deutsche Beambtenbund, which is the German overall organization for civil servants Unions. The DPolG is located in Berlin and has about 80,000 members. With an emission of 750 G-Shock,s the DPolG model was an interesting watch. If only 1% of the members of the Union would buy the watch, they will sell out. If you release a watch for a specific group of people, it is pretty hard to get hold on one. G-Shocks were pretty much worn in Germany around 1998 to 2000 and are still popular under police officers and firemen. Since I got this watch in 2002 I have only seen this watch on auction once. I was even tempted to get a second, but let it go to make another G-Shock sammler happy.

Ralph Thimian once wrote Freetime had let Casio manufacture 750 pieces of this DPolG version in 1999. Only Number 0 stayed in Japan and is in the Casio Manufactory Museum. I also discovered that one of these DPolG models ended up in a collection in Japan. Unfortunately the “G-Shock Museum website” of this collector is already years off-line.

Buyers of this watch got a certificate with the number of their watch on it. The number of the watch can also be found on a sticker at the bottom of the tin.

The DPolG model is based on the Japanese DW-6600B-1A model. The overseas basic black DW-6600 model, with the red G-Shock text and white lettering on the bezel is officially never released in Japan. The DW-6600B-1A model is on the contrary a common model there, while hardly found here. The model number of the DPolG G-Shock is DW-6600B-1AP.

The DW-6600B-1AP has an unusual orange/white color scheme. I think it looks very nice. The DW-6600 was the first model with the EL backlight. That is probably why the DW-6600B has written ELECTO LUMINECENCE printed on the band. The Shock Resist logo, which is mostly found on the face or etched on the back is printed on the other strap. The strap is perforated with three rows of holes. Ventilation through these holes might bring the wearer comfort when wearing on hot summer days. I think the design looks pretty well. Maybe Casio should bring this straps back on more new models.

Normally I would prefer a DW-6900 model, but this logo is perfect for the big display of the 1199 module of the DW-6600. The EL backlight is not easy to read. The logo in the backlight is the biggest I have ever seen and probably the biggest Casio ever used.

I think this watch, number 392 of 750, is one of the high lights of my collection. I paid a lot of money for a G-Shock at that time, though compared with the prices today, €55.- is very cheap and I would be easily willing to pay double now.