This was my 90th G-Shock, which arrived on December 16th, 2002. It was from an eBay UK auction. The seller had bought this Mudman in Hong Kong, before he moved back to the UK.
Somehow it was a good period for Mudman in that time. Also my Men In Navy Khaki and my first regular Mudman (European ILLUMINATOR version) were bought within 3 weeks time for unbelievable prices.
I do not know he prices exactly, but I believe I paid for this watch about £35.-. It was around Christmas time and a lot of G-Shocks were put on auction. I had no idea what I was bidding on, but this G looked pretty cool.
Funny side note, I paid about the same price for the MINK Mudman two weeks earlier too. That seller (from Cornwall, UK) also bought his watch in Hong Kong, before he moved to the UK.
I occasionally wore this Mudman. The straps are extreme flexible and fit very comfortable around your wrist. It is the same kind of rubber that is used on the early DW-5X00C models I think.
Since there was no G-Shock forum and almost no English documentation I had no clue what kind of Mudman this was.
In December 2003 I bought a new camera, a Canon Powershot G5. My friend Bleephead came by for a good beer and we talked a bit about music over a good beer. Meanwhile he shot some photo's with my new camera, while I happened to wear this Mudman.
While browsing the menus in my new camera, he found the Sepia set-up and took a photo of me, drinking from a glass of beer. My Mudman was clearly visible in that shot. I thought is was fun to share that photo on the, then pretty new" G-Shock Forum, before I went to bed.
I had no clue that this was a very sought after Mudman model. Maybe it is after some classics (DW-5000C, DW-5500C, etc) the most sought after model that is not a Frogman. Not only I got a lot of reactions on the forum, also several e-mails rolled out of my mailbox, all asking what price I ask for this watch. For the good order, I love my G-Shocks very much. No G-Shock I show on any forum, weblog or my website is for sale.
Luckily we have G-Shock Perfect Search (GPS) and good on-line translators nowadays. The Real Black Mudman (DW-8400BK-1JMF) was released in February, 2001.
As you would expect from the name, the watch bezel and straps is all black, exept for the small texts "MUDRESIST" and "SLAPIGHT". I have no idea what the term "Slaplight" means. It was probably an Engrish term that was going to be replace "FOX FIRE". Somehow I think only the term "ILLUMINATOR", used on most overseas models, pretty much tells what it does, illuminate.
When looked closer to the strap and bezel, you'll notice this watch is really black. A basic black G-Shock can better be described as dark grey. This watch looks like it absorbs every photon in the neighborhood.
To give the watch even a tough and sturdy design, this watch has a negative display. Not just a negative display, but one with red digits. This makes the display not always very clear, though when looking straight on it, you can read the time very well.
What makes the Mudman Mudresist. Like most of the first Master of G models, the Mudman is pretty big. On the Mudman this has a reason. The case itself has the same size of the DW-6900. I even tried to swap cases, but small notches on the Mudman case, to keep the bezel in it's place, makes the cases unswappable.
The reason why the Mudman is big in size, is that the bezel is also a cover of the case. While with the DW-6900 (same module) the buttons stick out holes in the bezel, with the Mudman these buttons are covered by the bezel.
Casio used a revolutionary procedure to make these bezels. It is mold of two types of resin. The first one is the regular type, that is used for other bezels too. The second resin is a kind of flexible rubber and is only present around the buttons. You'll find this kind of bezels also on the Raysman and Gaussman.
On the back of the watch is a drilling mole engraved. The mole is the Mudman mascot. While the normal Mudman have a stainless steel back, this model has a titanuim back.
I have no clue what the prices of this Mudman are on the market today, but for a mint one you need to have some patience and bring along a bag of money. The prices asked for this watch can be compared for prices of rare Frogman and the rare DW-5X00C and WW-5X00C models.
Well, I hope you enjoyed my photo's. It wasn't easy actually. There was enough sunlight, but again I was surprised by a 7 Beaufort stormy wind on top of the dunes. 50 Gs is a good excuse for a nice walk outside. Anyway, I enjoyed this bock beer on a terrace after taking pics, while Bram enjoyed a hot chocolate.
" Well, that's the whole story. You can blow out the candle now"
Often the most eye catching G-Shocks are Japan only releases, but occasionally there are models released for Europe only.
In September 2004 Casio released the GW-1210CE-4AVER. It received the name "Firestorm". For me, as a "Command and Conquer" fan, I associated this name immediately with the Realtime Strategy Game "Firestorm" that is an add on from 1999 for C&C Tiberian Sun (is it already almost 10 years ago?). 
This "Firestorm" had nothing to do with green or blue Tiberium. Its name is obviously not taken from the game, but from the color. The main color is fire brigade red!
The most eye catching part of the watch is the bracelet. It is a bracelet you would expect on a Metal Twisted G (MTG). Each link has a metal part and a resin part. It gives a very nice pattern. The bracelet closes with a threefold buckle with a firm lock.
At the moment it was released, I thought I should get one. It also had a novum for that time. It was the first European 2 band G-Shock model. Before this, all Waveceptor models received only the atomic clock signal from Mainflingen (near Frankfurt). This model also picked up the signal from the UK transmitter in Rugby (which recently moved to Anthorn).
I was a bit unhappy surprised by it's price. It was hard to find this model under €200.-. It was primarily sold in Germany and was pretty fast sold out too.
The mix of metal and resin on this model is pretty unusual. On metal models you find often resin parts, but they are grey or metallic in color. On this model the ratio resin metal is about 50:50.
The case of the GW-1210 looks a bit like the Cockpit models. The dial of the watch consists of 4 solar cells, which provide the watch energy. Even low light levels are enough to power the watch and to charge the battery. If you don't wear the watch for some time, you can activate the Power Save (PS) function of this watch (which I can recommend). The minute hand moves every 20 seconds, which makes the analogue part sec a digital (discontinuous) display with 2º increments (180 steps over 360º). It is accurate enough to call it an ana-digi watch.
If the Power save function is active, the LCD shuts down as the watch is left in the dark for about 60 minutes. In 6 or 7 days the movement stops at the 12 o'clock position to save more energy. It is very cool to see the watch come alive when Power Save function had inactivated the movement.
The LCD displays are packed with functions. It is pretty cool, but it is pretty hard to read what every function means. I have very good eyes (specially for my age), but I have to do my very best to read some of the functions. Also reflections in the dial, that actually look cool though, don't help much in readability. I have blown the small displays a little up in the photo's above and below..
Beside time, the watch has 5 other modes. I t has World Ttime with times of 30 cities in the world. In Alarm (ALM) mode you can activate/deactivate 5 alarms and the hourly signal. In Timer Mode you can set a coundown timer. Unfortunately the maximum time is 60 minutes, but you can also activate an Auto Repeat function (with a maximum of 9 repeats). The Stopwatch mode has a maximum measured time of 99 minutes and 59.99 seconds. The last mode is the Handset Mode. If the watch has synced to the correct time, but the hands do not show the correct time, you can set the hands manually to the correct time. Actually this watch showed the wrong time when I got it. After syncing I set the hands to the correct time. Since that time it always had shown the correct time.
If you activate Auto-DST, the watch changes between normal time and DST automaticly. In world time the times are all shown in normal time. If DST is applied in the time zone you want to look at, you have to set it to DST manually. It is best to check if the place you are looking for has DST . I frequently use this worldclock. To read more about Daylight Saving Time check these pages. I found out parts of Australia also have DST, which is in theour winter.
One of the nicest parts of the watch is actually hidden when worn. The stainless steel back is beautiful edged and has a mat finish, which makes it look more like titanium.
The hands have illuminating parts, but frankly, it is not very bright. On the other hand, this watch has Auto Super Illumination.
So what does Super Illumination mean? Instead of an Electro Luminescence display, the dial is lit by two bright blue LED's at the 9 and 3 o'clock position. You can activate Auto-Light by press and holding down the light button for three seconds. In this mode, the light turns on automaticly then the watch is tilted 40º parallel to the ground. 
If you have the Auto-Light function activated at night, you probably found out you can almost use this watch as a flash light. If I have the function activated and am wearing it in bed, it won't take long to turn this function off. It's like there is a light house near your bed...
In spite the amount of light, the lover LCD display is poorly lighted. The displays are recessed from the the dial and the shadow of the rim falls over that display.
And to come back on C&C Firestorm, wouldn't this be a perfect watch for NOD leader Kane and his followers?
