This Sunday I am doing something a little different. Instead of showing off a few videos, I am going to do a pair of re-reviews, Rewind Reviews if you will, second looks at watches that we have featured here at the site. I have a pair of divers that Patrick reviewed the Benarus Vintage Moray and the Van Speyk Dutch Diver. I have had some time with both watches, and I like them both, though they are very different.
Sales, sales, sales, that seems to be the mantra of the season (at least in the retail world), and we are happy to pass along these notifications to you, our dear reader, as long as they come from a brand we know and trust. And this is the case with the Tempest Viking V2, a serious dive watch with a 2,000 meter depth rating (yes, it is overkill) and a helium escape valve. For the holiday, Tempest is offering 10% off the Viking V2 if you use the coupon code “xmas2015” prior to check out.
It was back in July that we first brought you word of a new Dutch brand, Van Speyk, and their inaugural watch. As I concluded in that writeup, the Van Speyk Dutch Diver had a thread running throughout it – familiarity with differentiation. That observation was all based off of what I was seeing in the photos. The question loomed, however – would that impression hold up after seeing the watch in the steel?
Boschett is not a brand we have written about for awhile, and things had been relatively quiet. Then, not that long ago, we received word of a new model they had coming out, with the pre-order currently underway. While we looked at their Reef Ranger previously, their Harpoon lineup seems to be popular as well. So, with that, let’s take a look to see what the Boschett Harpoon Spirit of Essex has to offer.
Sometimes, you just have to go with the tag that the marketing campaign uses, and I will admit, “Back into the blue” is lifted straight from Oris’s press kit. But it fits, doesn’t it? This pretty diver, with retro cues and a light blue chapter ring pays homage to the original Oris Divers Sixty-Five, while staking itself out as a modern diver.
Most crowd funded watches I see are start-ups that are trying to get going, and they are portraying their watches as a value versus what is on the market. Sometimes, you see an established brand going the crowd funding route for something really different, like when Bathys wanted to make an atomic wristwatch. With the Pellikaan Timing Diving Dutchman, I am seeing something else, an existing higher end brand looking for a minimal commitment to get tooling going on an expensive watch.
With the holidays right around the corner, we are going to be highlighting sales from time to time, and I wanted to bring this one to your attention. Touch of Modern is a membership site that runs short duration sales, usually for about a week. If you are not yet a member, you can join through this link, it is free. Through November 11 at noon Pacific, the site is having a sale on Hexa Osprey Dive watches.
Is it my fault? Am I not being clear enough when I review the Cobra de Calibre watches and say, “hey you should check this guy’s work out.” There have been a few great success stories with crowd funding where one project turned into two or three and then into a full blown brand (looking at you Lew & Huey). I can’t understand how John Lee has not yet developed a cult following that funds all his projects. Well, it isn’t too late to jump on board with his latest, the Cobra de Calibre Crossfire seeking funding on Kickstarter.
I left the family at home and waded into deep, German-watch waters recently. I almost drowned. I attended the WatchBuys.com road show in Atlanta and learned three uses of technology that are worth remembering the next time you buy a dive watch, all demonstrated by the Sinn UX EZM 2 B Hydro.
I don’t see a lot of watches with tritium gas tubes for illumination, so I was pretty interested in checking out the two Chronologia Dive Watches, the R004 and R004 Chronograph. I was also a tad skeptical, since I do have an automatic preference for automatics, but I found that I really enjoyed wearing both of these watches (though the 3-hander is more my style).
