Independent Watch Brand Addict

Specs

• Diameter 41mm
• Thickness 12mm
• Lug to Lug 47.5mm
• Stainless Steel Case
• Aluminum Bezel Insert
• Bi-directional Rotating Bezel
• 100m Water Resistance
• Screw Down Crown
• Sapphire Crystal
• Ronda 515-24H Quartz Movement

Brand

About Vintage is a Danish brand founded in 2013 by childhood friends Thomas Gyvelgaard Andersen and Sebastian Skov Regeser, and was apparently dreqmed up while the two friends were sipping Coronas on a Mexican beach. However they decided to create the brand, what they created was a brand that aims, as the name suggests, to create vintage inspired pieces using modern components and technology. Possibly in part due to the overabundence of smart technology and interconnectivity there is a large portion of the watch buying public, who are very interested in vintage like timepieces (you just need to look at how the more established brands like Seiko and Tissot are constantly releasing vintage homage/heritage watches to see the truth in that), but without the headaches that often come with owning real vintage pieces, such as increased service needs and costs, and About Vintage have positioned themselves very well to take advantage of that.

The brand does fill this niche very well offering good mechanical and quartz options of classical vintage designs, and seem to be generally well thought of. All of their options are limited, generally limited by the year, when inspiration was taken from, this piece for example only had 1982 watches available, if they’re not even more limited. There are people who dislike the very idea of limited watches, and consider the whole idea nothing but a cash grab by brands to try and fool more guillable members of the watch buying public into quickly buying watches at full price; there may well be some truth to this, but in this market where there seems to be an ever increasing number of watch sellers, brands need something to make them stand out and simply being vintage inspired isn’t enough to set you apart. I’ve not had any issues with About Vintage and have always found them to be very professional and I have not heard anything to the contrary, certain people have made mention of their pacakaging, which, if honest I must say does not seem particularly amazing but it is nice to see a smaller brand not cutting corners here, the wach came in a nice wooden magnetic closing box in a well decorated cardboard pacakge.

Positive Points

Okay so this is a very attractive watch. You can tell that a lot of care and attention to detail has gone into creating this case. The polished finishing on the case and Jubilee type bracelet creates a sense of luxury not normally seen on watches at this price point.

The dial is subtle despite being quite busy and beautiful, many don’t like fauxtina, thinking that it looks false and makes it seem as though the watch is trying too hard. I however quite like the effect and with a brand named About Vintage, effekts such as this should be expected. The logo at 12 is subtle blending into the dial at certain angles. The dial is highly legible and both the applied indices and hands can be easily read even in poor light conditions.

The watch is also comfortable on, being light and slim enough on (no doubt thanks to the quartz movement), that you don’t really feel it, and the articulation of the bracelet is very good.

Negative Issues

This is the first time that I wish a watch did not have a date display. Generally speaking I want a date display and have been slowly reducing the watches in my collection without one, having only two in my collection now my Clemence Photic Diver and Studio Underdog. However, this date just sticks out like a sore thumb. It is relatively small, but that if anything makes it worse. It doesn’t fit the rest of the dial in anyway and I can’t help thinking would be better without it.

While the bezel looks great the feel of the bezel in hand is nit great. It feels loose as if the whole thing might pop off. This isn’t really a diver, and shouldn’t really be compared to one, but the bezel really could have done with a bit of care.

Also while the logo at twelve is very discrete almost to the point of being invisible, the text at 6 is anything but and there’s almost a novel’s worth of text there. In all honesty this was not a huge issue for me, but I do believe it is something that needs to be pointed out.

Movement

The Ronda 515-24H movement is a Swiss made gmt quartz movement that uses a 371 type battery, which claims a 45 month battery life and as with most quartz claims a high level of accuracy at -10/+20s/month, which is substantially more accurate than most automatic movements, some of which claim that level of accuracy per day, meaning you will not need to re-set the time as often with this watch as you may have to with a mechanical watch.

Quartz movements tend to be disregarded by many watch enthusiasts who consider quartz far inferior to mechanical movements. I’ve often felt that some of this disregard comes down to a form of watch snobbery, no doubt sparked in part by the Swiss watch industry that was almost wiped during the Quartz Crisis of the 70’s and 80’s, when Japanese firms such as Seiko and Citizen took over as the main watch suppliers with new, cheaper and more accurate quartz movements, while the Swiss industry who chose to concentrate mostly on mechanical movements were almost wiped out. What was true in the 70’s and 80’s remains true today, quartz movements are still generally cheaper, and more accurate than the majority of mechanical ones. Of course, mechanical movements are more intricate and look better than quartz ones, and there is the additional factor of quartz watches needing battery changes, in the case of this one, every 45 or so months, and at the end of the day it’s up to each buyer to decide what’s most important.

Conclusion

This is a very nice watch and is very fairly priced for a watch which has had this level of attention put on it. Unfortunately, my issues with the dial, mainly the date window meant that I didn’t hold on to it, however, having said that if you’re able to get past those issues this is a very nice watch. As with all About Vintage watches this is limited, in the case of this watch to 1982 pieces, but if you’re someone wanting to get your first gmt, are okay with quartz and the small issues mentioned above this watch is a good one.