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Thread: Anyone bought MN straps from the Thrifty Gentleman?

  1. #1
    Craftsman
    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    694

    Anyone bought MN straps from the Thrifty Gentleman?

    Yesterday I received an MN strap from Erika’s Originals, and I am very pleased with it, so it has sold me on the idea of getting more MN straps in different colours. However, the downside of EO is the cost - £75 a pop. Then I found The Thrifty Gentleman, a UK seller, where the MN straps are only £10 each, and they have some nice looking colour combinations. Unfortunately, unlike EO, their straps are one size fits all: “between 16.5cm to 20.5cm (6.5 inches to 8 inches)”. My wrist is about 17.2 cm/6.7 inches, which is just in range, but I am worried that this will mean the clasp will be tightened up to almost reach the watch case.

    Does anyone have any experience of straps from The Thrifty Gentleman? Of course, I don’t expect the quality to match EO, but that is fine at £10, as long as it is not really shoddy. What about the strap length? I am surprised the range is not adjusted downwards, e.g. 6.0 to 7.5 inches, which would cater for more people with smaller wrists, such as women. Are there really that many people with 8 inch wrists?

  2. #2
    8 1/4 right now, was around 9 up until a few years ago.

    I'd like to hear about the MN style straps too.

  3. #3
    Master earlofsodbury's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2019
    Location
    Tether's End, Lincs
    Posts
    4,852
    I've no experience with this seller, and not to be dismissive, but the straps look to be standard Chinese-made fare - perfectly adequate, but you can get the same thing more cheaply, in a wider range of colours from 'Cheapest Nato Straps', with an extra discount if you buy 5 of any kind of strap &c.

    I did a write-up here that covers a lot of bases for these kind of straps, and would recommend approaching The Watch Steward or Nick Mankey for a more bespoke approach at less cost than Erika's

  4. #4
    Master
    Join Date
    Mar 2016
    Location
    Lake District
    Posts
    2,792
    As the good man above said, go for a Watch Steward or a Nick Mankey. The cheaper ones aren't too bad but they start to stretch quickly which makes the watch head move quite a bit.

  5. #5
    Master
    Join Date
    Oct 2019
    Location
    Chelmsford, Essex
    Posts
    1,168
    I've purchased a couple straps from them quite cheaply from ebay. Nice enough but I get similar (and often better) from Aliexpress.


    Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

  6. #6
    Craftsman
    Join Date
    Oct 2020
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    694
    I have now bought a couple of MN straps from The Thrifty Gentleman (TTF), and I like them, probably in preference to the Erika Original's (EO) MN strap I bought a few weeks ago. Things I like about the TTF straps:

    • Unlike EO, the TTF straps are one size fits all, to fit wrists "between 16.5cm to 20.5cm (6.5 inches to 8 inches)"; they fit OK on my 17.2 cm (6.77 inch) wrist, once I got the adjustment right, thanks to some guidance from Jonathan at TTF.
    • Nice choice of colours - I got the Blue/Red:


    • And the Dark Blue/White:


    • The strap material is thinner and more stretchy than EO. I actually prefer this, as it makes the strap easier to slip onto my wrist with the clasp already hooked onto the buckle - something I struggle with on the EO strap. This also means I can wear the TTF strap a little tighter so it is really snug and comfy around my wrist - the material is light enough so it does not "dig in" at all.
    • Much, much cheaper than EO (£10 compared to £75).
    • TTF is UK based, so the straps only took a few days to arrived, compared to two weeks for EO.


    Some minor points on the TTF strap compared to EO:

    • EO have their M+N anchor logo on the clasp; the TTF clasp is blank.
    • The EO buckle has a small opening which you can pass the strap through if you want to lay your watch flat. Neat, but not a feature I use - it is a little fiddly to pass the strap through the opening, so for me this is more trouble than it is worth.
    • Other than that the metal work seems to be comparable between TTF and EO.


    All in all, I can recommend TTF MN straps - especially as you can get 7 of them for the price of one EO.

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