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A trio of watches have popped up on Kickstarter lately, one from a brand we know, one associated with a brand we know, and one from a newcomer. There is the Portsea by Melbourne Watch Company, a brand who’s previous watch I reviewed, and liked a lot. Second up is the inaugural model from Throne Watches. Though it is a new brand, assembly is being outsourced to Smith & Bradley, a brand Patrick has covered. Finally is the newcomer, Instrmnt Limited, with the Instrmnt 01.

American watches have been popping up more and more on the site, some by design and some by accident. The Weiss Watch Standard Issue is one of those accidental finds, something I came across while checking out site dedicated to cool toys for guys. The fact that is it is assembles in Los Angeles, a few miles from where I write this and the city where I grew up, is a bonus in my eyes. I am a fan of clean, readable designs with interesting touches, so this watch really ticks off the right boxes for me.

When you first start getting into watches, you find yourself swimming in the waters of familiar brands. Then you venture out into some deeper waters when you find the online forums, and you start running across a wide variety of brands, especially if you’re talking about older, second-hand watches. A large segment of those older watches (at least from when I was on that path) seem to revolve around watches coming from the former Soviet Union. They’ve got their ardent supporters, for sure, and now there’s a new brand playing in that pool. Today, we’ll take a look at the CCCP Shchuka.

While I don’t write on this class of watches all that much, I do love running across a watch brand that breathes new life into an older movement that might otherwise be headed for the bin. Then again, if you run across an signed (but older) Blancpain movement, odds are that it’s going to get used in some form. That’s exactly what TNT has done with their Seahunter1 Combat Diver.

A lot of smart watches I see try to be everything. Email, facebook posts, texts, weather, and so on and so on. They are not watches in a traditional sense, but rather wearable computers that display the time. Today, I wanted to highlight two watches that are more “connected” watches than a do everything wearables. The HotBlack by Hoptroff.com and the Withings Activé, with the former connecting you to your favorite football (soccer) team and the latter tracking your daily fitness goals. Interestingly, both watches are coming out of the UK.