A few years ago, this was probably the most dangerous watch in the world to own and wear – in certain locations & contexts at least – despite being one of the most common watches globally.
This is the Casio F91W.
Introduced in 1989, still on sale and selling well, costing between £4 – £15 (€4,5 – €17) depending upon the colour and material (the metal case/strap version costs more).
It was dangerous because, bizarre but true, possession of one was taken by US Military investigators as evidence of being a terrorist – specifically, to having links with al-Qaida.
The “logic” behind this is a simple as it is dumb: it amounts to “Dogs have four legs, therefore anything with four legs is a dog” style reasoning.
The F91-W was frequently found used as part of a simple timer circuit for Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). There are two reasons for this: firstly, it was (and remains) widely available and cheap, yet keeps time to about +/- 30 seconds over a month (runs faster in warm climates and slower in cold ones). Secondly, in common with simple watches of this type, behind the metal back cover is a piezoelectric speaker, responsible for the various beeps and alarms. This makes it really simple to remove the speaker and use the wires to it for a simple trigger circuit. Here’s one I made earlier. Only kidding! Here’s one from the Wikipedia page for the F91W. I remember taking similar (slightly earlier) model watches apart as a youngster to see what made them tick (so to speak).
So why on earth am I writing about this watch in my girl-mode blog, I mean, it’s not particularly relevant to girl-mode is it? Well, you’d be wrong about that.
Being a creature of habit, if I’m going to wear a digital watch, I’d like to stick to just one model. (I’ve got a clockwork pocketwatch which I’d wear in girl-mode if I could work out what to attach it to – maybe I’ll have to get myself a girl-mode waistcoat with a watch pocket). And Casio, bless them, have provided just this so I have a pair of F91Ws, set within a fraction of a second of each other, and can pick the appropriate one at any time. (For the colourblind, the one on the left is black and the one on the right is pink with a semi-transparent pink strap1.)
Having too much class to wear a Rolex, and insufficient cash to own a Patek Philippe, I’ll be sticking with these for now. Of course, owning TWO F91W watches would probably have qualified me for my own cell at Gitmo all by itself 😬
Unbelievably, for such a cheap product, there are knock-off versions around (although the displays are apparently inferior). However, using the Secret Function available on the recent models I have confirmed that both all three of mine are genuine.
Update March 2024!
I couldn’t resist the red one too 🙈
Luckily I’m not planning on visiting the USA, Guantanamo, Afghanistan or similar. Whilst I’m not completely risk averse, I’m not stupid!
Footnotes
- I should remember to describe images for those using screen readers or otherwise visually challenged. “Must try harder” ↩︎
Sophie Baskerville 