Lew & Huey are back with another Kickstarter campaign, so our pal Matt Himmelstein is back with a look at their latest…
After the successful kickstarter campaign for their first watch (OK, it took 2 tries, but they did it), Lew and Huey and offering their second automatic watch up for sale on kickstarter. As a refresher, the Riccardo Automatic (project page) was an automatic chronograph with a Seagull movement for $455 and up.
Delivery seems to be going on now, about 2 months past the expected date, but still well in time for the holidays, so I consider this a pretty good execution. The Time Bum has a hands on review of on of these, and he says generally good things about it.
This time, the watchmakers have a diver watch on offer, the Acionna, driven by a Miyota 9015 with a 42 hour power reserve for $450 and up. With one project completed and delivered, I would feel pretty confident that this second one will also be executed, so if you are considering it, save the $50 and skip the pre-order reserve (I think they have the math wrong on the pledge spots).
The watch is housed in a (to my eye) beefy brushed stainless case with a polished bezel. What I like about it is the internal rotating bezel. As an actual dive watch, I think you lose some functionality because I would be hesitant to move the bezel underwater (I would use it to time safety stops), but as a parking meter and oven timer, I think the internal bezel is a nice touch.
The watch is shipping with both a stainless bracelet and a leather strap with deployment buckle, which allows the watch to be dressed up a bit. It is rated to 20 ATM, so it can go diving. The lume looks to be quite impressive as well. It is described as tubes of luminescent material, but it is not called out as tritium, so I do not know what they are using.
Still, it looks quite bright and readable in the images. As a stretch goal, they are going to be offering up their third model, a retro/modern take on the classic German Aviator, with a Seiko cal. 4r36 movement, which is both hacking and hand-winding.
They need to hit $25,000 in pledges to unlock the Spectre, but my assumption is that if they don’t hit it in this campaign, the watch will get a kickstarter page of their own. Help ’em along by heading on over to the project page and voting with your dollars (or not); the project ends January 18, 2014.
