G-Shock #32: Ethnic G-Shock

So what does it mean, Ethno•G. I was actually curious how to interpret this model. Ethnic groups are groups of people that have the same cultural background. Well, that sounds easy, until I discovered that in autochthon Europe alone there are 9 basic ethnic cultures and over 75 ethnic sub-cultures.

Well, what if you are mixed with cultures. My mother was born in middle Java (near Sumatra) and my father is Dutch, which means in Ethnic sub-culture he’s Netherlandic or Flamish. I can assure you that there are big cultural differences between parts of the Netherlands and Flanders. There are parts of the Netherlands I can’t even understand, because the dialect differs too much from basic Dutch. Actually if I go for a ride on my bike and I am 10 kilometers from my house, it might happen I have to pay a lot of attention to understand what people say. A funny thing is that I worked in “Dutch Flanders” at a monastery hospital. The funny thing is I could hardly understand what the nurses and patients said, but when I spoke to them I had to s-p-e-a-k r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w, else they could not understand what I said. “Dutch Flanders” is in my opinion a crappy translation from Dutch, because in Dutch we say something like “Flanders of Zealand”, which is more accurate. Sometimes we jokingly call them “Spare Belgians”. Am I wandering a little away from the topic of this article a bit too much? Sorry!

There has been two series of Ethno•G in the past. The first series were all DW-003E models, while the second series were all DW-004E models. They all have double cloth/Velcro watchbands. The lower band is non-elastic nylon, covered with Velcro. The upper strap is also a kind of nylon, decorated with a pattern inspired by its dedicated culture. On the upper strap there is a leather patch with the name of the series, “ETHNO•G” sewn. While the first series from august 1997 contain out of 6 models, the second series from August 1998 contained of 8 models. Although my G-Peopleland website says this is the DW-004E-1CT, this is actually the DW-004E-3CT. I will of course update it to my website as soon as possible (remark just for reference purposes).

photo's of the original packaging, taken from an auction on Yahoo Japan.

The name Ethno•G refers to old cultures. The first series, where Ethno G is interpreted as a fusion of Ethnic and Techno (Technology), paid homage to the Aboriginals, the Maia’s and Balinese culture. The second series takes the fusion of Ethnic and Techno to the street fashion trend of 1998 “Digital and Organic”. This time the series were inspired with the cultures of Africa, the South American Inca’s, China and Goa (India). The culture can be found in the first letter in the suffix. Let’s go deeper into the meaning of the first letter in the suffix.

A stands for Afro Mania. It is where it all begun, the birthplace of the Human Race. The pattern on the upper strap is inspired by a traditional dress, called an Oink (could be a translation fault, maybe it’s phonetic. All I can find is related to complete other stuff). In the EL backlight two “Hunga Munga” knives are shown. These knives are traditional African iron throw knives, which find their origin South of Lake Chad. They are thrown in circular motion while the blades leave a deep wound in their prey. Maybe the African equivalent of the non-returning boomerang.

B stands for the Inca culture, known for their advanced civilization and their knowledge about medicine, dyeing of fabrics and building of big elaborate stone structures. The under part of the watchband is inspired by Inca patterns. The EL backlight shows an Inca interpretation of a puma. In the Andes, this was the symbol of power and it was worshiped as a strong god. This symbol was found in the big stone structures they made.

C stands for Chinese Culture. Although the description says the upper band has an Arabesque pattern, it looks more like a plant (bamboo?) pattern to me. The EL backlight is the dragon. In Chinese mythology the dragon is the most powerful and divine creature, which controls all the water. The dragon in the EL backlight is probably Yinglong, the God of the rain. Many Chinese pray to Yinglong in order to receive rain.

D stands for Goa, a culture from India, Nepal and Tibet, which is known for their colorful fashion and music. In the late nineties Goa was very well known for their music, which was a combination of the hippy and Techno culture. The lower strap of the watchband is tie dyed in the hippy style. The upper strap has a pattern with elephants in it. The EL backlight shows Ganesha, the god with the elephant head. Ganesha takes away boundaries and is the god for the travelers. People pray to Ganesha when they are at a n important change in their lives, like when they move to another home, start with a new job or school, etc.

Well, I think these four cultures are pretty interesting inspirations for the design. To me, the Goa style in orange (DW-004E-4DT) does look very good. If I might find it in the future for a fair price, I would probably buy it in an instant. The elephant image in the EL backlight is a great matching bonus on this model.

The basic case of these series is the DW-004, but the module inside the case is different. Most DW-004 models you’ll find have the 1659 module, but this one has 1597 module. This module is usually found on the DW-003 models. Typical for this module is that the display is, except for a very small eye in the upper left, is not divided in sub-displays. On the 1597 the digits form their own sub-displays, with on top information digits (date, mode, current time in other mode).

 Besides Timekeeping mode, you’ll find an Alarm mode, a Coundown Timer mode and a Stopwatch mode. The last 2 modes are 24 hour type. As the time is shown in the upper Display, the Stopwatch mode only shows the hundreds of a second in the first 60 minutes. From then the display goes to HH:MM:SS format, like in Timekeeping mode. The Alarm function can be set as a daily alarm (default). It’s also possible to set a date. If only the month is programmed, the alarm will sound at the programmed time that whole month and if only the day is programmed, for instance “1”, the alarm will sound on that day in the month, so every first of the month in my example.

Above the scenery where I took most photo's, a park around a big villa called "Toorenvliedt" and the photographers little helper.

The little eye at the upper left corner shows can show a sort of star. This icon is used to show that the Flash function is toggled on (default). It is not shown when toggled off. It can be toggled on and off while pressing the lower right button for a few seconds.

I got this watch in a pretty special way. I actually found it on a local Canadian sales website by accident in 2006. I really wanted this watch, so I contacted the seller. He was pretty amazed he got a reaction from The Netherlands. His forefathers actually came from my province Zealand. I already recognized his surname, which was very common in on my island (Walcheren). I had problems in the past with the Canadian postal service. Once a Fisherman was hold up for 62 days (still a record for me) somewhere between a seller and me. The seller of this watch had never traded outside Canada, so he didn’t have Paypal. It was possible to pay with a money transfer. Well, money transfers are probably common in North America, but the service costs here for a money transfer were higher than the cost of the watch. Luckily I had my friend Neil in Chicago. He’s my hero. He bought a money transfer and sent it to the address in Canada. The Canadian seller sent the watch to Neil and Neil posted it back to me and en passant sent me the total costs of the operation by e-mail, so I could pay him with Paypal. It’s already a few years ago, but I remember it was a very smooth and fast transaction. I think I had received the watch at my house in about 8 or 9 days, pretty fast as you bear in mind that there were three international steps via postal services.

No need to tell I was pretty happy with the package when it arrived. I pretty much love all on this watch. I like the DW-002, DW-003 and DW-004 models very much, I love double Velcro straps and the ethnic decoration is also very nice. I do not know the total price (it wasn’t even very high with all the postage costs and fees). The price for the watch In the sales post was around €30.- or so. Maybe the whole operation cost me €50.-. I think I had a very good deal after all. These Techno•G models are unfortunately not often seen. It’s my only model of these series in my collection, but if I had the chance, I would add some more models. I think that the combination of the looks and the background is a very good one.

#10 Adrastos

The DW-002 is not a pretty common G-Shock that you see often around. Still this model has been produced for almost five years. The first model was released in November 1994, the last models arrived at July 1999. In Japan there were 36 official versions released and a lot of them were at least sold in Europe too.
I was actually bidding on a DW-002 this week. My blog friend FUMI had bought a DW-002J-9 and I had seen it a lot on auction on eBay Germany. Within a few minutes I saw an auction for one, but unfortunately I was outbid. I was quite amazed people bid over €31.- for this model, while a few years ago a bid of €15.- would have been sufficient.

I lost the auction on this yellow/gray model. I hope to get hold on one in the future.

Also a 2nd DW-002BJ-4 (red leather strap version) ended much higher than I expected. I noticed that on all other DW-002 models several bids have been placed. It looks like there are some collectors in Germany that love this model at the moment.
So, what is this DW-002 model. Officially this series has no name, though they are all easy to recognize. All models are pretty dark colored, Black, dark brown, dark blue and olive drab. All displays are negative (reversed) and on the strap there is a dragon in the shape of the G of G-Shock. They were all released in July 1997 and there are quite a few models. The model numbers start with DW-002US, DW-003US, DW-069US and DW-056US. The versions with a leather strap get an extra B (USB), the versions with a double Velcro strap get an extra V (USV). This series contains a total of 12 models, which is quite a large number in a series that is released on the same month.
I often refer to these models as the “Dragon” series, but you can also call these also the “American Street Culture 1999”, as these models were designed to be adopted in street culture. These series were not only sold in Japan (Foxfire models), but also in Europe and the US (Illuminator models). In Germany this series was very popular. In summer we have a lot of tourists on our island and I noticed between 2000 and 2003 a lot of these on wrists (mostly the DW-056USV and DW-069USV models).
In Germany G-Shock models got, besides the model numbers, also names. Models in this series got names from Greek Mythology. This DW-002US-5 was called Adrastos.
Adrastos was king of the Isle Argos during “The War of the Seven against Thebes”. He gave refuge to Polynices, so of King Oedipus of Thebes, who en passant married with a daughter of Adrastos, and Tydeus of Calydon, who also marries a daughter of Adrastos. Polynices was in conflict with his brother Eteocles about ruling over their inheritance. They agreed with their father that they will rule alternate years over Thebes, but after one year of ruling Eteocles refused to hand over the power to Polynices and raises an army against him. Adrastos led an army of 7 men in The War of the Seven against Thebes”. In this war Polynices and Eteocles ended up in a man to man fight. They both died. Only Adrastos survived in his army against Thebes.Later another army fights against Thebes. Now with the sons of the fallen warriors of the first war against Thebes. This 2nd War against Thebes is better known as Epigoni.I wonder if someone had studied classical languages at Casio Europe at that time. Unfortunately I can’t retrieve all names of these models that were brought out in Germany.
The DW-002 is a so called “NEXAX” model. The NEXAX models are all DW-001, DW-002 and DW-003 versions. I believe these models were called “Capsule Tough” outside Japan, because it probably looked like the module was protected in a capsule.
Of all NEXAX models, the DW-002 is probably the most thick and big looking one, but don’t let the design fool you. The DW-6900 is 16 mm thick (with the raised part of the G button), The DW-002 doesn’t have a raised part and is 16 mm thick. In width the DW-6900 even wins by 1 mm. The huge look of the DW-002 can be explained by the high side of the watch. While the DW-6900 gradually rises to the 16 mm, the DW-002 goes almost immediately to 16 mm. Only a small 1 mm rim at the bottom sticks out a little.
The wrist protectors, placed for better comfort on the wrist, I assume, also add to the huge look. The straps are a kind of rubber like resin which together with the plastic buckle provide very comfortable wear. Some people had doubt about this type of buckle in the past, but there has not been a plastic buckle yet that failed on me. Instead of metal buckles, this buckle feels warm and does not lead skin into the buckle as the band is pulled tight.
I once had a broken plastic buckle on a DW-6900H. It had nothing to do with the wear of the watch. The watch was poorly packed in an envelope from Germany to The Netherlands. The envelope didn’t look pretty nice when it arrived and it seems the watch, including the buckle, had been crushed between the stamp machine or some automatic transport or sort system. The buckle arrives as a kind of 1000 pcs 3D puzzle.This Adrastos is equipped with a crystal protector. This protector does not originally belong on this model. Keith of Tiktox found several of these protectors. He sent me this one and asked me if I could identify this protector, as it didn’t fit a DW-6900 (let go a DW-5600E). I tried several watches, but ended up quickly at the DW-002. When looking down the DW-002 history, you’ll find indeed “surf models” with this protector applied on the case.
I’m not sure I’m happy that I put this protector on this model. It is not really easy to find this specific model, though other DW-002 models are pretty easy to find. The protector leaves a small imprint on the case, which means that they are visible when the protector is removed from the case. The DW-002 is from itself already looking very tough. A DW-56000E or a DW-6900 with a crystal protector (AKA “Bull Bar”) looks much tougher then without, with a DW-002 I think the looks does not change very much.
The color combination, dark brown/black is not a common combination for G-Shock. A pity, because I like brown colors. The buttons are well protected by the case and are unusually shaped, as they follow the shape of the case. Unless they are well protected, the buttons are easy accessible.The DW-002 does not come with a specific module. This model comes with the 1289 module, which we know from the standard DW-6900 model. Most come with the same module as the standard DW-003. Some other “surf models” come with a module like that is found on the DW-003S and DW-9000S surfing models. A lot of these yellow/grey DW-002S models seem to go around on eBay Germany.
Like all “Dragon models”, this models comes with a reversed display. If you now buy a new model with a reversed display, the display is very crisp and clear, as you could see last week in my G-7800B article. The difference in visibility does not differ much between a normal display. Back in the 90’s reversed displays were not as clear as they are now. The contrast between the dark background and the light digits is not always optimal. This makes these displays harder to read in darker surroundings and at angles. Luckily there is backlight. I like reversed backlight. This model has green digits on a black background.
DW-002 models are still pretty easy to find, even more than 10 years after the last model has been released. For the prices you also don’t have to worry. I think I paid less than €40.- for most of mine (except for the DW-002RS Rolling Stones). Since these “Dragon models” were probably the basic models for 1999, a lot of them were sold. They sometimes pop up on eBay and other places. I got two of these Adrastos models and I think I paid around €30.- for each, but I have to say that I bought the last one years ago. I very much like this model, but actually I like all DW-002’s. It’s the brute huge case that leaves a tough impression. I like that in this no nonsense model. If Casio likes to revives an old model, like they did with the G-5500/GW-5500, I would be very happy with an upgraded DW-002 with a G(W)-6900 module. It might fit in the trend of bigger and tougher looking watches.