G-Shock #2: Friday 13th, Time for another Jason!

Actually I almost forgot. Yesterday a girl told me she celebrated her 13th birthday on Friday 13th. I thought that was funny. As she will be 18 in few months I began thinking. "When will it be Friday 13 again?". "Tomorrow sir", she answered. It was immediately in my head. I should try to do a 50 Gs article in record time （笑）.

 

my little plastic bag that hold my G-Shock's I bought in Japan, December 2010

The original Jason was the DW-001. It was supposed to be a concept model that not was intend to be produced. We have to thank a famous Japanese rock star for this. When he saw this concept model lying on a desk at the Casio headquarters in Tokyo, he said told this watch was looking awesome and that Casio should take it in production. Well, it was released in November 1994.

The DW-001 was the first model in the Nexax  (ネグザクス) series. In English these models were called "Capsule" models, the look "Capsule Though". The bezel is not only protecting the front, it also protects the back. The case is in fact completely covered in resin protection (except for the display of course). The DW-001 was succeeded by the DW-002, DW-003 and DW-004 with a similar "Capsule" protective structure.

The watch was soon after the released named Jason, after the character Jason Voorhees from the teenage horror movie series Friday 13th. In these movies Jason is a brutal killer, wearing an ice-hockey mask. With a little fantasy you can see the resemblance between an ice-hockey mask and the look of the DW-001 and G-001. 

The look of the Jason can be explained by a  special feature on the DW-001, the Thermometer function. Under the holes in the part under the display there was a thermo sensor. Also the DW-001 had a Sunrise and Sunset function. Frankly I would love to see this function to return on future G-Shock models, even though there is a 5 minute accuracy. 

The DW-001 was probably not produced for a long time. It's not easy to find a DW-001 in good condition now, but this was also in the past. When I got my first and only DW-001 more than 10 years ago, I had never seen such a model before and frankly, I haven't seen a DW-001 for a long time after that. Also I got quite some requests from Japan if I want to sell my DW-001. If you know me more closely, you should know I do not sell G-Shocks from my collection.  

I think it was somewhere in 2008 when rumors appeared about a release of new Jason models. I read about this on several G-Shock weblogs (one of them is my blog friend FUMI, who now is pausing his weblog, because of his marriage).

 

 

In September 2010 Casio finally released the re-issue, the G-001. The G-001 does not have the thermometer function, so the holes under the display are closed on this model. Some G-Shock collectors regret the loss of the Thermometer function, but a thermometer function on a watch only functions accurate when a watch is not worn. The absence of the thermo sensor is the reason the holes under the display are closed. 

The G-001 can be considdered a basic model, so you find basic functions on this moel. It has a Worldtime function with 48 cities and 29 time zones, a 24 hour Stopwatch, a 24 hour Countdown Timer and an alarm function with three alarms (one is snooze alarm) and a hourly chime.

The model featured here in this article is the G-001B-1JF, released November 2010. It was the first G-Shock I bought during my visit in Japan, together with a G-7900MS-3JF. It was bought in a Yodobashi store in Shinjuku. The suggested retail price of this G-001B was ¥13500. As the big electronics chains are average about 10% under this price I probably paid ¥11000 to ¥11500 for this model. This model has a very nice thick (artificial?) leather strap, which is actually pretty comfortable. The comfort is also provided by the wrist keepers. A few days later we had a G-Shock meeting near Nakano. I noticed Oyaji, a watch blogger and architect, was wearing the same watch. Pretty cool!

photo by Bernard Vercouteren

As I really like the look of the 90's G-Shock models, you can imagine I am quite a fan of this model. Although released about a year ago, this model is still available if you look good on eBay or other sales platforms. It won't leave a big hole in your wallet as most prices I found for the G-001 models were under €100.-.