Best watches for dads

A watch for every part of his week: sapphire, 200m, a 70-hour 6R35 with a published accuracy tolerance, and a field dial that looks right with a suit or a T-shirt.

41mm with a 46.9mm lug-to-lug, and a published $296 overhaul when the time comes.

This is where Seiko starts publishing an accuracy figure (+25/-15 seconds a day) and fits sapphire. A 6R35 overhaul is $296 against $176 for a 4R36 — a real difference, and one you can plan for.

Sapphire, 200m and a screw-down crown on an in-house hacking automatic, with three years of warranty — the pool, the lake and the boat without a second thought.

41.8mm on a 22mm strap.

On paper this is the best value in the category and it is not close: sapphire and a hacking, hand-windable in-house caliber at a price where Seiko still fits Hardlex. Orient's three-year warranty is longer than Hamilton's or Tissot's.

A legible 42mm pilot's dial with the day and the date, sapphire, 100m and an 80-hour H-40 — a watch that answers "what day is it" as well as "what time".

Two years of warranty, and Hamilton publishes no US service price.

Hamilton fits the same Nivachron hairspring here as on the Khaki Field line, and the H-40 runs 80 hours. Sapphire and 100m on a watch this legible is the pilot-watch specification sheet most of the category never manages.

Thin enough for a cuff and rated 100m, with sapphire, an 80-hour Powermatic 80 and Tissot's published $210 service price.

The integrated bracelet is the watch — it cannot go onto a leather strap.

Tissot publishes a US complete-service price of $210 for a mechanical two-or-three-hand watch, which makes this the most predictable Swiss automatic here to own. The 12mm lug width is not a strap size — the bracelet is part of the case.

Light-powered, so it never needs winding or a battery, with sapphire, a Super Titanium case and five years of warranty.

42mm across, and Citizen does not publish the thickness.

Sapphire is the upgrade the 37mm Chandler never got, on a Super Titanium case with Citizen's five years of cover. Citizen publishes neither the thickness nor the lug-to-lug, so try it on before you commit to 42mm.

A 37mm field watch on nylon that runs on light, rated 100m, with Citizen's five-year warranty — the one that can go into the garden and the garage without a thought.

Mineral glass is the compromise.

37mm, 18mm lugs, 100m, no battery, five years of cover. There is very little here to go wrong and almost nothing that will date.