Reply With QuoteThat's a knockout! Love the egg shell dial.
Shame they don't have a UK AD representative.
Being a chronic flipper of sorts, I rarely get that giddy feeling anymore when receiving a new watch, especially since I tend to research to death before buying.
Well, this particular one has certainly went above and beyond my expectations, both in fit/looks, as well as performance, so thought worthy to write a mini-review for it, and would highly recommend these to anybody looking for a very slim automatic with rather retro/classic looks.
First, some figures:
- 39mm case, with nice stepped bezel...wears a bit smaller than other 39mm case dressy watches I had, including a Citizen Stiletto which was identical in case size and certainly thinner/lighter, yet this seems to feel more nimble and sets better on the wrist.
- 6.85mm case thickness - they achieved that via using a 2892-2, which is rather thin, and a flat sapphire, as well as a clever way of setting the movement inside the case with very little space unused (there's also a ladies version, 33mm case, same movement, and that took it to an even higher level, by replacing the caseback with screws with a simpler, snap-off type, admittedly maybe not the best look, but certainly helped cram that movement in such a limited space.
- regular 20mm lugs, and a lug-to-lug of 45-46mm, nicely curved lugs as well, so hugs the wrist brilliantly
- weight with pictured slim blue strap is 39 grams, a very nice achievement indeed for a modern-sized watch with auto movt. ; the original (black) croc print strap is not too bad, but I just like this dark blue one better.
Timekeeping so far in the weeks I've had it has been stellar. Around +2 sec/day or less average across the last two weeks where I wore it most days and when not left on winder. The movement has blued screws and looks a bit better than 2 other watches I own with same 2892 type movt, which means maybe they used a higher spec/top grade movt, I've read that Mido uses top grade movements in some of their not-so-expensive watches like Commander so seems to be the case.
The dial of course is another nice touch, it looks more JDM than Swiss at that, another part of the appeal to me. Maybe the date window ruins it a bit, as you will find in some reviews of this, but for me a date is an almost must, so I'm happy to live with it for the added functionality.
In all honesty, when I started my search for yet another dress watch, I was veering towards older Grand Seiko models or King Seiko (70-80's models) but was not turning up the results I was hoping for via my usual trawling sources so by chance I stumbled onto a discussion on WUS that talked about this model and the review Hodinkee wrote about it so I was hooked, could not find it easily though via the shops I look at mostly so ended up getting if from a (grey?) dealer in Austria via Chrono24, the price was rather OK considering direct EU purchase so no VAT hassle versus buying from US. All in all it cost me close to 750 EUR, thus pretty good value I would say and I'm even already considering replacing my current dress black watch (an Eterna Heritage arrived just months back) for the black dialed version of the same watch, either the SS case, or the rose-gold plated version, not usually my style to have a gold watch, in fact I've only had 2 ever out of hundreds of watches come and gone, both of which were out pretty fast, but for some reason it has a nice warmth/glow to it that I find attracting.
Lets see how long I resist flipping this for something else, as my dress watches I buy usually are the first victims in my flipping-frenzy, however I have a feeling this will stay for a while, as I really can't fault/doubt anything about it.
Few actual pics, albeit very poor (and somehow rotated!):
L.E. BTW, after examining the second hand under a loupe, it seems to be temp. blued steel rather than painted, which is also a nice touch, really pops out in certain lighting.
And a web photo showing the lovely egg-shell dial texture, impossible to capture on the phone:
Last edited by Dan83bz; 26th January 2018 at 13:52.
That's a knockout! Love the egg shell dial.
Shame they don't have a UK AD representative.
Quite like that, nice pick up.
If it was a bit bigger it would be on my to buy list.
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