In the early 70's TIMEX produced some interesting models. Bright colours, nice dial lay-outs, a range of interesting bezels in both plastic as metal. This contributed to that distinguished 70's look a lot of TIMEX watches had. And this is why I love these watches so much. However, the majority of the TIMEX watches had traditional cases. Round, cushion shaped or somewhat squarish like some of the Electric cases. There were exceptions though. Let me introduce you to my Timex 'Brick & Tile' watches.

The TIMEX 'BRICK' watches

The nickname 'Brick' originates from an Instagram talk amongst vintage TIMEX enthousiasts where I showed my latest vintage TIMEX buy and we were thinking of a name for this unusual TIMEX case form. It's a bulky steel, goldtone or even gold plated rounded square case with a small round watch dial in the middle. The outer edge of the case is also somewhat higher than the crystal of the watch, which gives it an extra visual effect. Despite the large massive case the 'Brick' is still stylish and elegant. 

From left to right you see a gold plated TIMEX Sprite, followed by a chrome plated one of KELTON with reference 24050 from 1975. On the right there's the TIMEX Viscount Day-Date reference 47860 from 1973. I'm still missing a "Brick' to complete my collection. It's the Viscount Day-Date reference 47850 also from 1973 with a beautiful blue silver 'bulls eye' dial in a chrome plated case. Edit: Now in my posession thanks to my IG friend and King of Tiles, the one and only #Timetrope.

The TIMEX 'TILE' watches

Where the TIMEX 'Brick' entails a stylish case finishing, the TIMEX 'Tile' lacks this completely. Though less bulky as a result of a much thinner case, the rough finishing of the bezel makes these models much more down to earth. With bright colored dials they tried to compensate this. Did they succeed? You decide! It's unusual to say the least. 

I have found a dozen different configurations of this TIMEX Marlin 'Tile' watch when surfing on the web and exploring 70's catalogs. Thus far I have only four of them in my collection. The first one is the refence 27552 from 1972. A chrome plated case with a champaign dial and grey minute track with nice black red hour markers. The second one is a special one that I believe is from 1970. A magnificent goldtone case with a gold dial with black applied hour markers and a black and white racing minute track. On it's original goldtone metal TIMEX bracelet. The third one has a polished goldtone case with a fading brown dial and the date at 4 o'clock. As you probably can see, the corners of this case are slightly different from the other ones. Ref. 28550. The fourth one is the reference 26650, the chromeplated crosshair version  from 1975.

Here are some other Marlin 'Tile' watches that were produced by TIMEX.

King of Tiles Mark (Instagram: @timetrope)

One of my fellow vintage TIMEX enthousiasts Mark has sent me some pictures of his 'brick & tile' collection. Until further notice he definitely is the TIMEX King of Tiles!