There is something elegant about a simply executed three hand watch. And the new Christopher Ward C5 Malvern Slimline Squared (or Slimline² for the mathematically inclined) is certainly elegant. Now available for pre-order (watches will ship in mid-February) for $549 on your choice of straps, this is a dress watch for everyone from a recent graduate to the executive that cares more about the watch than the brand.
LIV watches is back on Kickstarter with their send watch, a three hand automatic, the LIV Genesis X1. Their first watch was a Swiss made quartz chronograph. The new watch has a strong visual tie to the first, with a very similar looking sandwich dial, red ringed crown and oversized bezel. LIV did a great job on marketing the watch before it was released, catapulting them beyond the initial funding threshold immediately on launch (they are sitting on nearly $250K in pledges as of this writing). For all you future watch builders out there, take note of how important thus pre-release advertising is.
For many of us (myself included), there is no denying the appeal of a cleanly designed diver. Now, you might argue that the Limes Endurance II is not truly a dive watch, as it only carries a 100m WR rating, and I would concede that point. It most certainly fits into the category as a tool watch, and the timing bezel gives it those hints of a diver
Do you like large watches? Of course, you have to define what a large watch is, and that varies from person to person, but anything around 50mm for me qualifies as a large watch. The largest watch I own is a 47mm, and it is noticably larger than the rest of my collection. Well, now I may need to rethink my upper end. The IWC Big Pilot’s Heritage Watch comes in two flavors, with the smaller of the two sitting at 48mm. The larger one, a very robust 55mm.
Over the past few years, I have had the pleasure of sampling a variety of different watches from Ball, with quite a few different styles in play. For all of that variety, I had yet to go hands-on with anything from their Engineer line (Engineer II, yes, but not Engineer). Well, we saw fit to rectify that particular oversight, and got to spend some time with the Ball Engineer Hydrocarbon.
I see a lot of super slim, minimalist, three hand, Bauhaus inspired watches, many of them for well below $200. Heck, you can’t swing a metaphorical cat around Kickstarter without running into one of these projects. But those are generally quartz watches, sold by a someone just getting into the watch-making business. The GT&FQ Rider M005, on the other hand, is an automatic being sold by an established retailer who is building their in-house brand.
Patrick and I have both had a chance to check out Borealis dive watches in the past, and we both have been left with the impression that the brand is producing great value dive watches. This trend look to be continuing with the Borealis Seafarer II, now on pre-order from the brand and scheduled for delivery in May/June 2016.
Lew and Huey is a brand that I look to when I want to talk about the potential success of the crowd funded marketplace. The brand began on Kickstarter, with multiple watches launched on that platform, all well received. I put the brand in the category of “friend of the site,” and they are always happy to send us information on upcoming watches and then lend us review copies when they are available. I first wrote up the Phantom in April, and now I have a chance to take a two of the three options out for a test drive.
As you are no doubt aware, watches on Kickstarter have become quite a thing as of late. We, through Matt’s efforts, have covered a lot of them. Lately, though, we have restricted ourselves to the more interesting products, because there are a lot of “me too” thin quartz watches cropping up. While what I am going to be talking about today is indeed a quartz three-hander, the design merits a mention. With that, let’s take a look at what the Joogii J1 has to offer.
Over the last year-plus, we have spent time with just about every watch that has come from the team down in Sidney, IL. Some of these have been with watches that were already in production and hitting normal retail channels, and others – like we have today – we actually got to wear around while a Kickstarter campaign was underway. This latest campaign – which is more than fully-funded at this point – is for the brand’s first field watch, the Smith & Bradley Springfield.
