It’s getting harder and harder to spot the nerd these days. As is typical of the breed, the nouveau nerd has taken full advantage of modern technology. Nowadays, duct tape glasses have been supplanted with the latest in eye laser surgery, invisible braces do what steel cages used to do to push teeth back into place, and as for watches – the nerd will smile affectionately at the cumbersome and complex Casio creations of yesteryear.

Few nerds even bother with watches these days; they have i-phones, blackberries and i-mac’s for that. Where once there were pocket protectors for pens, there are small and funky protector sleeves for mini laptops.

The Nerd Watch Museum

So it has fallen to the Nerd Watch Museum to remind us just how nerdy nerds used to be. They have amassed an awesome collection of early Casio, Citizen, Seiko and various defunct brands designed in their heyday to delight nerds with their multi button brilliance and LCD dexterity.

Only nerds could get these watches to work, there were far too many buttons, calculations and crappy LCD games with impenetrable sequences for anyone else to work out without having to resort to that most nerdy test of patience – reading the Japlish manual.

Nerds could never understand how you could fail to be impressed with a watch that could give you the word ‘hello’ in 50 different languages. Or why you didn’t marvel at the little running man on his watch dial which could run with him as he plodded round the playing fields. But then again, if someone as cool as Sting (pictured) could wear one, there was hope for all nerds.

These watches represent the state of the art in nerd cool gadgetry in the late 70s and early 80’s and if you really want to bring out your inner nerd, there are similar watches for sale through the Nerd Watch Message Board. Trust nerds to set up a message board to sell or trade such watches!

New nerd: Swap Rebel Mobile Phone Watch

Sadly, there are fewer and fewer watches being produced these days that fall under the genuine nerd watch banner. By definition a nerd watch must sacrifice aesthetic good looks for substantial gadgetry, it must be cheap, and in basic black plastic or sensible stainless steel.

The Swap Rebel Mobile Phone watch however, does fall into this category. It’s packed with technology, combining a watch and a mobile phone, a camera, an MP3 player, a video player/recorder with a 2Gb internal storage card. It can even be recharged through a USB transfer point. And at around $311 it’s still nerdishly cheap.

Do you know of any other cool nerd watches out there? Let us know!

All watch pictures except Swap Watch courtesy of the Nerd Watch Museum
Sting picture courtesy of Patrick McMullan