Kemmner Marine
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History of the Marine Watch
It is not possible to write a review of a watch like this without delving a little in to the history of the design. The design of this watch dates back to the 1940s and the German Navy. The Kriegsmarine (literally ‘War Navy’ in German) pocket watch was produced to the same style by six different companies. Here we can see a Stowa on the left, a Lange & Sohne in the centre with power reserve in addition to sub-seconds, and an IWC on the right.
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Much like the B-Uhr no watch company owns this design and many companies make wristwatches to the design today. Below, from left to right, we see the Dornbluth 99.0, introduced in 2003, an exquisite piece, and priced accordingly at €3400 for the base model in stainless steel with no options. In the middle is the Stowa Marine Original, introduced in 2006 and priced at €840. On the right is the Jacques Etoile Lissabon Saximus, introduced in 2003 and available with a variety of movements, and prices ranging from the Stowa to the base Dornbluth for the most expensive option.
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Case
The case is a Kemmner SG8210. Available in a variety of finishes this one is fully polished, fitted with a 45 degree bezel, coin edge crown and display back. The case measures 42mm diameter (without the crown), 52mm lug tip to lug tip and 10.7mm thick. Lug width is 22mm. The quality of the case is superb with crisp edges, perfect mirror finish everywhere, and all parts fitting together correctly. The rear crystal is mineral glass. The front crystal is sapphire with double A/R. Under most light conditions the crystal is completely invisible and it looks as if you could reach in and touch the hands and dial.
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Dial and Hands
The dial is gloss white with printed Arabic numerals, railroad minutes track, and recessed sub-seconds dial. I opted for the sterile dial but it can be had with the Kemmner logo. There is no lume, unlike the original Kriegsmarine pocket watches which had full-lume dials. The dial printing is generally good and withstands scrutiny with a loupe for the most part, however the curved bottom part of the number 5 has a slight imperfection. This is not noticeable at normal viewing distance but can be seen if you look very closely with the naked eye, and is clearly visible in the macro photos. The Poire hands are not heat blued but painted with some type of translucent paint. The effect is very pleasing, the colour varying from almost black to pale blue depending on the angle of the light and the type of light source. Hand alignment is perfect. The minute hand reaches deep in to the minutes track and makes reading the time to within 10-15 seconds a snap, even at a quick glance.
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Movement
The movement I selected for this watch is a non-hacking ETA 6498-1, with Geneva stripes, blued screws and sunburst gears. It beats at 18,000bph. Winding is very smooth and can be accomplished with just one finger. Power reserve was measured at a little over 48 hours. As delivered the watch was running 15s per day fast (worn for about 16 hours a day), however this rate was very stable and, after allowing it to settle in for a few weeks, regulation to better than a few seconds a day was easy to achieve. As is apparently normal for the 6498 there is some positional variation:
Face up: +8s
Crown down: +2s
Crown up: -4s
On the wrist: -2s
This allows the time to be ‘tweaked’ by leaving it either crown-up/down or face up over night although simply leaving it face up every night accrues only around 10s error per week. The movement/case combination is relatively loud, making more noise than any of my other wristwatches (which use smaller movements), but it is not obtrusive.
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Strap
The strap that the watch came on was strange. Very strange. The quality was fine, calf leather with a croco grain, nicely finished but it was huge. Maybe it was designed for Arnold Schwarzenegger or something. Measuring 130mm hole side and 95mm buckle side I couldn’t have used it on my 7” wrist even if I had wanted to. On a crocodile strap it looks quite dressy, and on a plain leather band it looks a lot more casual.
Customer Service
Roland Kemmner is an enigmatic figure, with much speculation on watch forums about his activities, parts sources and how to contact him. This is probably partly because he has no website and rarely contributes to forums (but has stated he is an avid reader of some). He was a former production engineer at Fricker before branching out on his own. He has worked on the design and assembly of a number of Time Factors watches from the PRS-20 onwards. He also does much work designing and supplying parts for other niche brands – for example the Kemmner Octopus started the whole ‘2000m diver’ thing which is the basis of the Deep Blue Master Diver, Wilson Watchworks 2000m and a host of others. He has an ebay shop (‘erkahund’) which has both parts and whole watches for sale on a sporadic basis. I had been watching his shop for some time waiting for a Marine to appear with no luck. In the end I emailed him directly. He replied just a few hours later, on a Sunday at that. After stating what I wanted the watch was assembled and dispatched in 2 weeks. Roland is a pleasure to do business with, very flexible and very quick to respond to email.
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Conclusion
I love this watch. It feels quite ‘exclusive’ due to the fact that you can’t just go and order one off a website. Also, the other Kemmner Marines in existence often look different as you can choose from 3 cases (in multiple finishes), 4 bezels, 4 crowns, 2 dials (with/without the Kemmner logo) and no less than 8 movements (various combinations of Seagull 3620 or ETA 6498 in plain, decorated, PVD or skeleton finish). The Seagull movements are considerably cheaper but various articles on the web seem to indicate issues with quality control on this movement hence my choice of ETA.
The value for money is superb. Roland provides a full breakdown of the cost rather than quoting an all-in cost. The most expensive part of this watch was the ETA movement but it was still 30% cheaper than the price from UK wholesalers Cousins. The total cost was €259 inc shipping.
