THE MOST DANGEROUS 2000INR WATCH EVER MADE

And Why Your School Teacher Probably Owns One

- 

It has appeared in over 150 Guantanamo Bay prisoner files. Osama bin Laden wore one. So did Barack Obama. The Casio F-91W is the most normal watch in the world — with the most extraordinary double life. Nobody sat down to design a famous watch. In 1989, Casio released the F-91W with approximately the same fanfare as a new bus timetable. Designed by Ryusuke Moriai as his first project for the company, it was light at just 21 grams, cheap, and entirely unpretentious. Resin case. Stainless steel caseback. LCD screen. Stopwatch accurate to a hundredth of a second. A battery rated for seven years of ordinary use. Accuracy of plus or minus 30 seconds per month. Not spectacular, but perfectly adequate for every human activity that does not involve launching a satellite.

Students wore it. Parents wore it. Backpackers wore it. Minimalists wore it. People who were completely done with charging things wore it. By 2011, Casio was producing three million units a year, making it the most widely sold watch on the planet. Barack Obama was photographed wearing one long before anyone called him President. Eminem wore one in the music video for "Lose Yourself." The F-91W was everywhere, in the way that truly useful, truly affordable things get everywhere quietly, without announcement.