hero restored – dw-5200c-1

the dw-5200c-1 was christened the “hero” watch by japanese fans after it was used in the now classic ice hockey commercial which displayed the watch’s toughness and resistance to shock and torture. the original commercial can still be viewed here.

released in june 1984 after the dw-5000 and ww-5100, the dw-5200c-1 revived casio’s line of g-shock watches. much has been documented about how this watch breathed life back into casio’s g-shock sales, and i shall not parrotised what you can read here and here.

i managed to lay my hands on a battered copy of the watch from yahoo japan about three months ago. next was the long wait for the parts to restore the hero to its former glory.

the bezels were bought from pacparts, a company based in the usa. it was a two-month wait… from the time i placed the order till the day it was finally shipped to the forwarder i use for usa shipments. the straps were from ebay and left over from my dw-5600c restoration project. it finally all came together today and it is my pleasure to present to you the restored hero.

the watch has obviously seen better days. the area under the crystal has started to bubble and the screwback certainly isn’t pretty.

it still sports the original single-slot bezel screws…

… and the very charming tiny single light bulb.

~ by sgshock on July 22, 2008.