9 photos
There’s something about a watch you could actually buy with your current bank account, right now, that gets the heart thumping and the synapses firing. These watches — specifically, the ones that cost less than $1,000, many of them less than $500 — are the subject of our new series “Time Is Money“.
When Tom Anstead created the Oceanis, which he debuted on Kickstarter in September of 2012 for $250 (two for $450!) to huge success, his goal was to make a watch that reflected his time spent as a Navy Officer aboard an aircraft carrier, a submarine, several aircraft and while “SCUBA diving in Hawaii”. His backers gave their blessing to the tune of $46,000 more in funding than he originally asked for ($6,000). This was a big beast of a watch, 44mm, with a wide, prickly bezel that looked a little like the metal skeleton of a prehistoric creature plucked from the seafloor, its crown a very toothed, very unabashed stub. Stick hands were fully lumed and dial markings looked like dots and dashes from a morse code translator’s key. Viewed in the dark, the bottom of its trick seconds hand disappeared, leaving the lumed dot and bright orange tip to magically levitate around the dial. Depth rating was 300 meters. This was mostly a diver’s watch for the man who meant to use it — except that it came on a leather strap.
This surprising nod to landlubber life in the midst of a hardcore seaman’s and diver’s tool — know when your midship watch is done, navigate by the stars and the like — was enough to pique my interest as a amateur admirer of watches. Oddities (small diameter, semi-gimmick features, and prices defying a style) were particularly appealing in what appeared to me a sea of new mechanical timepieces. Just as important was the Oceanis’s low price, which eventually settled around $399.
How well would a full-on sport watch — one with a cool wrinkle or two that separated it from the norm — perform outside of its comfort zone, in a world of coffee shops and workplace doldrums rather than no-deco times and wetsuits?
Anstead’s second watch, sold now on his very own site rather than on Kickstarter, is an update to the Oceanis rather than a sea change. I’d decided before I even saw it that my review should focus on that little hint of urban life that the first Oceanis kept tucked away close to the vest: how well would a full-on sport watch — one with a cool wrinkle or two that separated it from the norm — perform outside of its comfort zone, in a world of coffee shops and workplace doldrums rather than no-deco times and wetsuits?
Unfortunately for my nascent article’s premise, Tom Anstead seemed to have moved the opposite direction with the Oceanis 001 ($649). While the matte-black dial, stick minute and hour hands, orange-tipped seconds hand and date window remained nearly identical to the older model, the razor-toothed bezel had gone extinct, superseded by a less ostentatious gear-toothed one; a crown guard and a calmer crown replaced the previous bigger stub; price had leapt from $399 to $649 (though it’s currently on sale for $499); and gone was my favorite wink, the leather strap, replaced by a wide metal bracelet with hardy links with screws rather than pins. The weird sport watch with a secret penchant for dry activities had taken a turn for the hardcore tool of Cousteau.