G-Shock #13: Crazy Gang Stars

After a short interruption with the The Hundreds collaboration model, I'll continue with the third Gundam/Techno article this month. It's my only Crazy Gangster, I wish I had more of these.

June 1995 was a good month for G-Shock enthusiast. No less than 9 different models of the Crazy Gangsters were released, or as the Japanese translation of these series says: “Crazy Gang Stars”.

Again this is a variation on the DW-81XX model. The case is therefore the same as last week’s red Techno.

The series are inspired by the US military. Well, it is a bit odd, I think as it seems to me the inspiration is taken from the “Nose Art” of American military aircrafts and patches of the jackets of their flying personnel in, or just after World War II. About 65 years ago America and Japan were not really best friends, but luckily times have changed.

At first sight, the most Crazy Gangsters look pretty usual. They become very nice when the EL background is lit. In this DW-8195-1A6, a logo appears. This logo is composed out of a pilot helmet, a sword and wings. It symbolizes the courage of the flying crew, their love for their plane. I am not sure if this is a fantasy logo, or if it was really used. Sure is that this logo draws a lot attention. This attention is actually a bit distracting the visibility of time, but with such a background, it is a pleasure to lit it twice or more. Of course this will draw quite some energy from the CR2016 battery. Still I am amazed how long these batteries lasts in these DW-81XX models. As I don’t wear them frequently, the very low amount of EL backlight procedures helps probably a lot in the long battery life.

Although I categorize this model between the other “Game” models, it does not actually show a game in the backlight. Instead the watch shows ’90’s youth street slang statements. Funny is that there is a Japanese translation of the statements with the description of the watch.

There are 7 different statements. The 8th option is a big G. They are shown randomly in the upper part of the display. The 7 statement and, in case you don’t know what it means, their description are:
“HANG” = spend time with,
“PARTY” = let’s have a good time,
“DO IT” = Go for it,
“‘S UP” = What is happening?,
“COOL” = good, great,
“MEGA” = good, great
“RAVE” = An all-night dance party.
I guess 1995 was too early for “FAT” and “HARD” (both = good, great), LOL (= Laughing out loud).

Like the Red Techno, the DW-8195 is operated with 4 buttons, so with the light button under the display, that means there is only one button on the right side. Unlike the DW-8140 and DW-8150, you can’t turn the Backlight off on this watch. The watch uses the 1430 module. The functions are good, but simple. The watch offers you a daily alarm, a 24 hour Countdown Timer and a 24 hour Stopwatch function. Pretty much the functions you need on a digital watch.

The DW-8195-1A6 has a purple color scheme. You can see the purple color come back in the model number, where 6 stands for purple and 1 for black, the main color of this watch. It is a pretty rare notation of the suffix. On the watch a lot of the lettering is purple, as is the light button. Also the cloth/leather strap has purple striping. A nice detail are the metal inserts on the straps. Where these inserts on the Techno models say “SHOCK RESIST”, it says on these models “GANGSTERS”. I think it is very unusual that Casio uses a part of the series name on a series of models. They must have been crazy...

All Crazy Gangsters had a different EL background. There are a dragon, an eagle, this helmet with sword and wings, a chimera of a lion (strength), goat (tenderness) and snake (ferocity) with big wings, a stinging bee, a fighter jet and three different pin-ups. The Pin-Ups looks very nice and were inspired by the Pin Ups painted on US war planes in the 40’s. They represented the missed sweethearts at home and were considered the goddess of the battlefield. These pin-ups seem to have regained popularity in the US in the mid-90’s. I do not have big wishes, but one of the models I hope to find ever is the model with the red head Pin-Up (DW-8195-4). A long time ago, when I was not collecting that long, I had for a brief time e-mail contact with a guy in the US (I think it was in Ohio). It must have been around 2004 or 2005. He had a wife and daughter with red hair and was looking for this model. Eventually he found it. I was very happy for him, but secretly I want this model in my collection too. Very secretly actually two, so I can wear one…

 I actually regret the fact Casio does not make these big metal/resin bezels anymore. Closest to these models in the current line are the GWX-56 and GX-56 models, nicknamed “The King”. As Casio is now designing bigger G-Shock models agin, it would be great if Casio would design such a metal/resin bezel again.

I got this model for a very good price from a good friend in Chicago. It came in a lot with several other watches, so I can’t really say what I have paid for it. Probably it would be somewhere in the $60 -$70 range. The watch is worn, but for it’s age in remarkable good shape. The Crazy Gangsters are not easy to find anymore. They were released almost 17 years ago. You can still find them in good shape in Japan, where the prices seem not sky high. Probably these models were produced at large numbers at that time. Still expect to pay around 15000 yen for a good looking/mint model (around €140.-, $180), which is without commissions, fees and shipping costs.

G-Shock #12: G-Shock x The Hundreds feat. Adam Bomb.

Well, I know I was trying to write purely about the "Techno" or "Gundam" models this month, but look what is in this package!

This "The Hundreds x G-Shock" model and some T-shirts are begging for attention on my 50 Gs weblog! So here is an exception to my "Techno March" rule. 

In March 2012 Casio released another big G-Shock collaboration. The street fashion brand The Hundreds have been booming the past years. I think I heard of this brand about 2-3 years ago. I work at a school, which is a good place to see what the trends are in street fashion.

When I heard that there would be a collaboration with The Hundreds, I knew this would be a popular model. Frankly I thought the watch would be primarily popular by fans of street fashion, but the fuzz was also high in the G-Shock collectors community.


There was a rumor the watch would be released in February in my country and probably in most parts in Europe, but at the end of February the release was delayed officially to begin April. Just before I heard about this delay I contacted my favorite sneaker shop “Unknown” in Alkmaar, if they could contact me if they come in. I had a bit of bad luck with the Dee & Ricky when I missed the first batch, which came out a week earlier than expected and I want to have one of the first batch, so I have a little time to write bout this model.

Already before the watch came out, I got e-mails and PMs where to order this model. On February 29th this model was released officially. Frankly I get a little bit careful to give too much information where I get my models from, as I might cut off my own source. Nowadays there are people buy collaborations in big numbers for retail prices before real collectors can get their hands on them and have to double the retail price. Since I am a simple collector with a modest salary, I try to get my G-Shocks for a good price and not for an artificial inflated price.

I think I am somewhat lucky the watch was released first int he US, so that most collectors can buy their Hundreds G-Shock there. Still I was amazed that the first batch that Unknown got, were sold in one day. Since these watches arrived pretty early, I guess the other two went to sneaker freaks or fans of The Hundreds. The official release of this model was planned for the beginning of April, so there will be more available.

I have been trying to find out the numbers of this model made. It is pretty hard to say, but since it is a worldwide release I think you should think about 2000 to 5000, but probably closer to 2000 than 5000. Unfortunately exact numbers are not known.

So what is “The Hundreds”? The Hundreds is a men’s street fashion brand and magazine, founded in 2003 by law students Bobby Kim and Ben Shenassafar, who were looking for a way getting out of their study at a law school. The brand is probably best known for their pretty cool bomb logo, which is called “Adam Bomb”. They started in their shop on Rosewood Ave in the Fairfax District in Los Angeles. Now there are 4 shops. Beside the shop in Los Angeles, there is one in Santa Monica, one in San Francisco and one in New York. Beside the US based website with magazine, on-line store and blogs, there is also a Japanese website with an on-line store and weblog. It’s actually not too hard to find clothing by The Hundreds, as you can find it at good street fashion shops world wide too. My shirts come all from Dutch stores (Unkonwn is also an official The Hundreds dealer). The brand can be compared with other small US street fashion brands that have been grown pretty large land are also very popular in Japan, like Stüssy and Supreme.

This G-Shock is the second collaboration with The Hundreds. The first one was actually an XLarge x The Hundreds X G-Shock collaboration in June 2008. For this collaboration The Hundreds used the newest 5600 style model, the GW-M5610, full model number GW-M5600TH-1ER. The watch has a very nice black and white style. Most striking is that one of the straps is white. I think that is pretty cool on this watch. You find small The Hundreds logos back on both straps. On the white straps there are the locations of three of their stores, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. No idea what happened to the Santa Monica shop. Maybe that shop is not a big one, or it is so close to Los Angeles that it wasn’t worth mention as a location. On the black trap there is also a big The Hundreds logo. A little stealth detail is that all visible metal parts (buckle, bezel screws and buttons) are black. Pretty cool actually.

The GW-M5610 is the recent successor of the GW-M5600. The first GW-M5610 model came out in November 2011 and thus far already 8 models, including this one, have been released since.The most important improvement is that this model is now Mulriband 6, which means it can receive the atomic signal from 6 public transmitters of Atomic time in the world, 2 in Japan, 1 in China, 1 in the US and 2 in Europe.

Extra photo's added March 15. Photo's taken by Richel Cominencia

The GW-M5610 had pretty basic functions. When you press the mode button, you get into the following modes, World Time Mode, with 48 cities in 29 timezones, Alarm Mode, with 5 alarms (one is a Snooze Alarm), a 24 hour Stopwatch Mode and a 24 Hour Countdown Timer. For those who have been looking for improvements of the functions, compared to the GW-M5600, the Countdown Timer is now 24 hours, where it was a 60 minutes version on the GW-M5600. The Stopwatch function has been reduced to a more normal 24 hour type. Personally I think this is more than sufficient. I think if you are timing for about a month (1000 hours is more than 41 days), you probably think more in a scale of days instead of minutes or seconds.

The recommended retail prices vary quite a bit. In Japan the retail price is ¥25000 (€230, $300), In Europe the retail price is €169 (¥18300, $220) and in the US it’s $169 (€130, ¥14000). You can see it is not interesting to order this watch in Japan as the retail price there is almost double. For Europe it is also not interesting to import from the US, as only the shipping cost would make it less interesting (set aside the 20% tax plus custom fees added if you are not lucky). My advise, if you want one, be quick and look for one on your continent. This model looks very nice for a 5600 collaboration and the very nice designed box is also a big plus.