What’s your take on microbrands? To me most of the have some good parts but none are really ‘great’. Baltic for example has created a wonderful looking watch with the MR01 but that Chinese movement really puts me off. Would I buy one with a nice Miyota or ETA movement? Certainly! Would I be willing to spend 2k for that? Absolutely! Don’t get me wrong I appreciate that such nice looking watches are available at that price point but I just feel that they are just not pulling their full potential. I don’t just buy watches for the look but the whole package and I just feel most microbrands stopped at 80%.
The mechanical Furlan Marri is the perfect opposite.
But what are your takes on that?
Would I be willing to spend 2k for that? Absolutely!
A Baltic MR01 is less than $600…
There is a huge range of microbrands. Some worth checking to change your mind:
- AnOrdain
- Autodromo
- Bravur
- Brew
- Christopher Ward (if it still qualifies)
- Elka
- Farer
- Halios
- Magrette
- Massena LAB
- MKII
- Monta
- Norqain
- Oak & Oscar
- Reservoir
- Serica
- Spinnaker
- Sternglas
- Studio Underd0g
- Traska
- Unimatic
- Vaer
- Zelos
The first ‘real’ watch I bought was from a Microbrand in 2016. It’s an Armida A4: ETA 2836-2, sapphire, BGW9 lume everywhere, including a fully lumed bezel. It’s a Chinese-based company, but they were all about their watches actually being used by divers and therefore made as such. So, awesome specs, but a company that community respected (and still do, they just got undercut by other new micro brands), but the watch lack something…something I’ve not been able to put my hands on, and I’ve not decided whether there’s something that bothers me that’s related to the micro-brand-ness of it, or it’s the watch. I don’t know. That said, I’ve worn that thing more than any of my watches, and I love it enough to have recently serviced it.