The Breitling Watch Source Forums

Mikey H's post over on the watchmakers rank thread alerted me a brand of watches I had not heard of -- Roland G Murphy. I went and checked out their website, and they have some beautiful stuff.

So I got to thinking...

What is you favorite brand that most other people haven't heard of?

And when I say most people, I mean "watch people" by and by, because at least where I live, most people have not heard of Breitling. I'm interested in hearing about those diamond-in-rough, lesser known makers who might make great watches but don't have the advertising budgets of the big boys.

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Coral Dial SuperOcean
Black Dial Avenger Skyland
Arctica Dial Bentley G/T Racing

Coral Club Founding Father

Roland G Murphy, or Bozeman Watch Company. I really like both of these watch company's simple, classic style.

For me that's easy. The Swedish brand Sjöö Sandström, of which I have two. Same price range as Breitling, approximately.

http://www.sjoosandstrom.se

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Collection: http://s540.photobucket.com/albums/gg32 ... mview=grid

I'm quite a fan of these by N.B. Yaeger, especially the "Charlie" collection - http://www.chronomaster.co.uk/nb_yaeger.htm
Pretty unique aeronautical look to them....

I also like Damasko - http://www.damasko.de/eng/index.html
Their steel hardening process is quite amazing and they used to make cases for Sinn before going their own way. I think some of their models have a bit of IWC look about them....

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Driver8

Site Moderator

A show here in the us called Made in America with John Ratzenberger (cliff from Cheers) did a special on RGM. I showed them doing some engine turning and design and a little assembly. I believe it was on the first season of the show if you wanted to try and find it.

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--Chance

White Super Avenger
#235

Not sure whether you would class them as lesser know, but Carl F. Bucherer have been calling to me lately.

I really am partial to my Fortis. It's not well known here in the states. Very comfortable to wear, and very luminous at night.

~Brian

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Breitling Super Avenger
Fortis Flieger Chronograph
Rolex Submariner Date

Roffensian--Carl F. Bucherer makes amazing watches, I was gonna list it as my top 10 in that other thread, but I couldn't bring myself to drop one of the names from there. I love their Patravi line, beautiful timepieces.

I do consider myself somewhat of a "watch guy", but I got recently introduced to Romain Jerome, really unique watches especially the rusted steel models. Check out their website

http://www.romainjerome.com

also check out this video, its in french, but still interesting!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9i5vgYTjLg

I can never quite get my head around the hands on the Romain Jerome's, but definitely a unique look.

If money were no object I would have to go with Antoine Preziuso - http://www.antoine-preziuso.com/index_flash.php?lang=en, but unfortunately I am never going to get my hands on one of them.

For Lesser known brands I really like Temption, Eberhard and Anonimo. A lot of the German brands sold on Watchbuys are nice too. I guess those three above are actually pretty well known, just not one of the really big ones.

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BreitlingSource Admin
http://www.breitlingsource.com - http://blog.breitlingsource.com

in this lesser known brand arena, how would the russian made watches rank. could someone shed some light on that.

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Time is precious, keep it with elegance!
-Alien13-

I've owned a Vostok Europe and a couple of Poljot watches in the past. The Vostok ones are quite nicely made and reasonably good value for money. They look very Eastern Bloc IMHO, the automatic movement is not overly smooth and mine gained time like a b*stard, but for around £150 what can you expect! The detail let it down a little - very weak luminous material on the hands, and the the hands themselves were a little "unfinished" looking. Good value, but I sold mine pretty quickly after I bought it.

The Poljot watches are also good value but tend to all be manual winds (which I'm not a huge fan of). I owned a couple a few years ago that basically ripped off the look of the Navitimer. They were OK-ish, but as soon as you put them next to a proper Navitimer, they looked like just what they are - cheap Russian time-tellers! Again they are good value if you want something other than a Casio that tells the time for cheap money, but they didn't do it for me and I sold them pretty quickly.

Generally I'd say they are OK if you want to cheaply bolster your watch collection, but I certainly won't be heading back east again!

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Driver8

Site Moderator

Driver8,

These are some great looking watches

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Jerome

I really like my Reactor Neutron. Big, solid, impressive look and feel. I get a lot of compliments on it. Not nearly as expensive as some of my other watches, but it gets more wrist time.

http://www.reactorwatch.com/w_neutron.html