G-Shock #19: Golden Week Special 3: Going Crazy Colored in Black and Gold

It’s May 5^th today. It’s the last public holiday of the Golden Week in Japan. On may 5^th Children’s Day is celebrated. It’s the national holiday to celebrate the happiness of all children and to express gratitude to the mother. In the  5^th day of the 5^th moon on the Japanese Lunar Calendar was Boys’ Day, while Girls’ Day was on the 3^rd day of the 3^rd moon. Since Japan adopted the Gregorian Calendar the dates changed to May 5^th and March 3^rd. Actually, in Japanese they don’t use the names of the month. Instead they use the number of the month followed by the suffix –gatsu (月), which latterly means “moon”.  In writing commonly the Arabic number is used, so May is 5月.  The sign for day is日, so the May 5th is written 5月5日. In 1948 the Japanese government decreed that May 5^th became the national holiday for all children.

Children’s Day, which is also called "Feast of Banners", is known for the Koinobori. Koinobori are carp shaped windsocks that are hung on a pole or line. A big black carp represents the father of the family, a smaller red carp represents the mother. Smaller blue carps represent the oldest son. Other smaller caps represent the other sons with their own color of their relative age. 

In the Netherlands May 5^th is also a national holiday. We celebrate Freedom Day, the day we celebrate the end of the Nazi occupation in 1945. It is a free holiday for schools (since a few years part of the May Holidays), but strangely it’s only once in 5 years a free holiday for most other people. As Freedom Day is celebrated with festivals every year, I suspect and hope that May 5^th in the near future will be a free public holiday for everyone.

The G-Shock of today is the black/gold DW-6900CB, which was part of the Crazy Colors series of March 2010. Other models from this series are the blue/silver model (the one my son Bram wears), a silver/fuchsia model and a red orange model. All these models have in common that the “face plate” (the part above the display with the cut-outs for the time display and the eyes) are shiny metallic and work as a mirror. It’s very beautiful in real, but it’s really hard to catch that effect on photo.

As this is a Golden Week special posted on “Children’s Day”, I thought to make the photo series along this article joyful for children. As we (our complete family) are fond of the Lego Minifigures series, I used several from  our collection, added with Lego of Bram.

Since Casio released the first Crazy Colors series in 2008, they have been releasing new series on regular basis. I actually lost count, since the series do not only cover DW-6900 models, but also DW-5600 , AW-582 and a GLS-5500 model (featured here recently on April 24^th). I think the latest series (the DW-6900MM’s and the GLS-5500MM) were the fifth series, but I’m not sure. 

While the models of the earlier Crazy Colors models were very bright colored, these series are a bit modest. This black/gold model could even go for a formal watch. The gold mirror makes this watch look totally different from the black/poison green “Zombie Slayer”. 

 

I think this model was pretty popular. Casio will soon be releasing a new series, simply called Black x Gold series. These series contain some more bigger models with the similar glossy black resin and gold dial or display color scheme.

This model has a nice negative display. The tone of the digits is gold. Due to the intense sunlight, the digits might look a bit dim on some photo’s, but in real they are pretty well readable. And as this model is perfect for clubbing, this model also has a very nice and sharp green backlight. 

 

In the end, this is another DW-6900 model with the 1289 module. I have probably written many times about this model and module and that’s probably why I already know the module number from my head.

The 1289 module has simple but effective functions. It has an Alarm function, where you cannot only set time for a daily alarm, but also can set a day and/or date. This gives you the possibility not only to use it as an alarm for one date, but also for a  day number in a month if you keep the month blank or all days of one month if you keep the day blank.  Furthermore there is a 24 hour Stopwatch and a 24 hour Countdown Timer with an Auto-Repeat function on board. These functions and it’s triple eyed look are probably the success of this model, that has been produced for over 15 years in

Although this model was part of the Crazy Colors series, Casio more or less release them as the basic models of a season. This means this model is made in large numbers and sold worldwide in many shops. There are several of these still floating around on eBay. In Europe you will probably pay around €100.- (US$ 145), which was about the retail price here. If you look around in the US and East Asia you might pick one up for around €80.- (US$120.-). From all Crazy Color model out, this must be the one that is the least outstanding in color and brightness, so if you are not a big fan of bright, flashy and confronting colors, maybe this is the one for you. It’s definitively a beautiful model.

"We hope you enjoyed the show!"