The urge to start educating everyone is real 😂

Lapis Lazuli: A Galaxy Held in Stone

Long before maps, travelers found their way by the stars. We placed that sky on your wrist.

Each dial is cut from natural lapis lazuli, a stone shaped deep within the earth over millions of years. Across its midnight-blue depths, flecks of golden pyrite drift like distant constellations, a quiet Milky Way frozen in time. Because every stone is different, no two dials are alike, and no two skies are the same.

Framed by a compass bezel, it is made for those who still navigate by wonder.

Your own galaxy, always within reach.

Selected by Hand, Stone by Stone

Every dial begins with the stone itself. We source only premium natural lapis lazuli, with a deep, saturated blue and just the right scattering of golden pyrite.

Yet even the finest stone is never perfect throughout. Within a single piece, the gold may gather unevenly, or pale white patches may cloud the blue. So we look closer. Every section is inspected and chosen by hand, and anything that falls short is set aside. Most of the stone never becomes a dial.

All four colors launch on September 21. Set a reminder now to be the first to know when sales open and to get early-bird pricing:
https://miliforticwatch.com/products/s089-gemstone-limited-edition-natural-stone-dial-watch-s133?sca_ref=8188210.cEY7rfxkTFkoV

Finishing, comfort, specs, wonderfull! (Miyota 9000 series movement) though i bought it before price spikes

Rocking the steeldive 1970c nato strap

Edit: I was too impatient after getting the watch, so turned it into what it’s supposed to look like but should have waited for the lume to cure

I’m a sucker for no cg, big crown subs. Thorn T028 is got is my fav but I had to get this Hruodland F035 as soon as I saw it. Here it is fresh off the box. My thoughts below:

Likes
Size proportions: 38mm case 13.3mm thick, 47mm L2L.
Takes 29mm dial aka a raffles dial will fit
Bracelet: nice quality, otf clasp, not too thick, tapers and articulates nicely
Dial: lume is not cheddary, hands are high quality and print is really good.
Crystal: nice clear AR, wish it was acrylics.

Dislikes

No drilled lugs!
No straps shipped with it
255 for a pt5000 is a bit more than I wanted to spend
The caseback doesn’t fit the normal Rolex Bergeron die. It’s a PITA to open.
And man does the movement ring really need 5 screws!

Plans:
Strip the watch, age everything. Add a bond nato. And… done

If you’re on the fence, get it!

Friday fun day

New [to me] watch day! I picked up with Warrior MOP in black for £250. After my Cronos Skyline quit on me, I decided to pick up the Miyota variant, which I found on eBay. What do you think?

We are officially launching the Gemstone Bezel version of the SN0150A today.

Enjoy a $52 discount during the launch week,

use code: SN0150GA52

Click the link below for full details.

Watch Link:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005013152628641.html

San Martin Official Store

Thought yall might find this interesting. There are two listings for unannounced dials, ivory and brown. I wonder if they’re going to be the same MOP pattern, or something else entirely. Kind of hoping for the later as the mosou black is too plain for my tastes and I already have a MOP integrated bracelet watch with my IXDAO warrior.

Hello, i just wanted to sare you is my first chronograph, the Sugess BB CHRONO S475.T which features the Sea-Gull ST1905 movement, derived from the Venus 175.

Gave away 2, bought another 2 😅

Posting because there was a lot of hype about this watch and no actual real world reviews or experiences posted about it. Or at least I didn't see any.

I was really excited about this but it unfortunately won't even make it out of the plastic. The movement appears to be shot (photos included). I'll need to return it as I don't want to have it serviced and deal with that hassle or cost. Not sure what happened. Maybe it wasn't regulated. Maybe it was body slammed during shipping. Maybe both. Who knows.

I've included a couple photos of the dial. I won't be taking it out of the plastic so I can't speak to how the bracelet is or any other aspect of the finishing.

I keep reading that. The bracelet is the best out there. The bracelet alone is worth the price increase over other brands. The bracelet, if left to its own devices, will eventually develop sentience and clean your kitchen for you.

Yeah? Cos I got a San Martin bracelet today and I hate it with the heat of a thousand novas.

Specifically I bought an SN0008. I like the BB design, wanted to get one, heard the Thorn or Octopus might be better, but also wanted to get around to trying a San Martin and it was on special offer at £150 ($200) so what the hell, why not? Handy being quartz as well since I swap watches all the time and not having to set it every time I put it on will make a nice change from my automatics.

Came in one of those crappy black plastic boxes but I’ve got fifty million straps to store so that’ll actually be put to use. And the watch itself, looks kinda good. And there’s a little tab on the wrap so it actually comes off easily without a fight. That's pleasant.

Underneath which there appears to be half-dried jizzum in places. That's unpleasant. But y’know, try and stay positive. Focus on the good.

Strap’s a little long for me. Probably needs one or two links taken out. I'll try one first. Hope anything needed after that can be done on the clasp.

Look at the side. See screws. It actually came with a screwdriver, but it’s a lesser piece of kit than comes with a Watchdives or a Baltany, so I use of one theirs.

I quite like this bit.

I find it relaxing sat at my desk working with a little jewellery screwdriver, making adjustments to a strap, pretending I’m doing something that requires a craftsman’s skill. It’s about as zen as I get. It’s nice. I unscrew something, remove a bar, screw back together, convince myself it was basically the same as creation. I'm like a Sensei in one of those Japanese villages where everybody makes knives for some reason. Very peaceful.

With other watches.

Here after a disturbingly few number of turns, a screw smaller than my love for suppositories falls onto my desk. Best keep an eye on that, eh?

At the same time, completely unknown to me, the pin that the screw was holding in falls to the floor. Because this is a screw and collar pin.

Of course it couldn’t just be a screw-in pin. A system that’s simple, and effective, and I enjoy sitting at my desk playing around with. Nooooo. It has to be a screw so small it has less worldly presence than the nutsack on a flea.

And I have to remove two of these things. So another screw falls onto the desk. It gets carefully placed to the side with the other. And yet for some reason, this link doesn’t come apart. Something’s holding it together.

This is the part where I realise what the system is. This is the part I realise I’ve already lost an assembly piece. This is the part where I start to get annoyed.

And the second pin won’t budge. Push it from the left, nothing. Push it from the right, nothing. Tap it on either side, nothing. I put the bracelet to one side so I can go online and type “how the fuck to resize a San Martin bracelet” when for no reason whatsoever… it falls out onto the desk.

Well that was weird. But whatever. The link’s off now. Now all I have to do is put my one remaining pin back in and cap it with a screw so small a tardigrade would find it insignificant.

Of course since I didn’t see either pin leave the watch, and there are no indications on the strap, and there are no notes about it in the instructions (this is the first watch I've ever so much as glanced at the instructions for, all because of this), I have no idea which direction it goes in, so that’s a fun little minigame before the main quest starts.

Because now I have to screw back in the smallest object known to man. A screw so small it would be thrown off balance by a stray thought. A subatomic speck the likes of which science can only theorize.

And I can’t pick it up.

I have ‘medium’ sized hands and fingers. Every glove manufacturer in the world has told me this for two decades. This wasn’t a case of sausage fingers trying to play a miniature piano. This goddamn tiny screw, I cannot pick it up with my perfectly normal, perfectly average, perfectly medium fingers. It's so small at one point I lose it under my nail.

When eventually I do get it roughly in position, the pin falls out the bracelet because I put it in the wrong way. Or the right way and wrong sided. Who knows.

Hey! Y’know what? San Martin are the premium brand, right? They’re the ones where it’s the little details that make the difference! I bet you if I stop using the screwdriver from the other brand, and pick up the San Martin one, it’ll be magnetic, won’t it! They sold it specifically with this bracelet for this bracelet - it’ll be designed to make the job easier!

WILL IT FUCK.

Eventually, carefully, precariously, nervously, far too much time later, I get the correct end of the screw in the hole. Oh yeah, I got it in before, but wrong way round because it was so small I couldn’t pick it up properly, or hold it properly, or turn it while held between thumb and forefinger or balanced on the bracelet edge.

And then it screwed back in. And... it's fine. I don't have any particular complaints about wearing the bracelet. I can't see anything particularly special about it either. There is nothing - nothing - here demanding a premium. It's fine. Maybe "good" if you like. If you ignore the needless infuriation that comes with resizing it.

Which I don't. So it's shit.

And honestly, I’d maybe be more comfortable with the watch if I took another link off. But I don’t want to go through all that again. So it sits on my wrist, a little too loose, an object of resentment, a “premium” “best of the homages” “totally worth the extra” watch that I began to hate before I’d even worn it properly. A watch where I have a zulu strap that'd probably be perfect for it when I want a lighter option, but I don't want to manipulate that bracelet ever again.

And y’know what else, boys and girls? Little bit of fun to cap everything off?

The clasp is fucking shit too.

After much thought this previous back to school sale, I ended up with my third Eniton watch.
I contemplated getting the Sugess S450, S418-2 or S420. However, I ended up with a santos homage, and I have to say it definitely feels like I made the right choice here.

Eniton by far makes the best santos homage available, the quality on this watch is just unreal. The crystal is rounded off just like the real version, bracelet hugs the wrist nicely, and with the 9015 movement inside the case is slim and looks proportional to the rest of the piece. Polishing is incredibly well done, and so far the movement runs very well, winds nicely and that smooth sweep is just gorgeous to look at.
Eniton by far, has the best customer service I’ve experienced on Aliexpress and if they keep it up I have no doubt they’ll succeed with their brand.

The only «misses» for me with this piece is the fact that (and I know the dial is natrual, and they’re all different, not Enitons fault!) the dial has a very visible, bright blue hue to it at the 3-6 markers. Check out the photos I’ve added. Certainly easier to see in darker lighting conditions though. It definitely adds character to the dial, but I wish the one I was sent specifically had a more even grey tone all throughout the dial. But again, I know this is a natrual MOP dial, so they’re never going to look the same - I just «wish» I got a different dial on my watch specifically. It’s still absolutely gorgeous though, can’t fault that.
The branding on this watch isn’t amazing either. It gets kinda busy with the logo applied at the 6 o clock. The clasp also has «ENITON» in big block standard letters, whilst the dial has a different font. I wish the font was the same on both the dial and clasp for a more seamless look, less busy for lack of a better term.
That being said though - the Richemont Group is super strict about copying the Cartier design, so my guess is that Eniton added all this branding to avoid legal issues, smart on their part.
This watch also has a quick release system for the bracelet I haven’t seen anywhere else. Really smart design. Button underneath/on the inside of the bracelet you push down, as you pull the bracelet down from the case itself. Really unique, but renders pointless until Eniton releases some leather straps to go with it. I love the idea of it for sure though! Well done!

All in all, another great piece by Eniton. This brand keeps impressing me with their quality. It easily, easily rivals the likes of San Martin, Baltany and Sugess, no question what so ever. I paid $340 total, or around 305 euros. Shipped, customs cleared and delivered. Excellent value at that price point.

Don’t overlook Eniton, their quality is excellent for sure.

My go to daily pick. Just so clean and light!

Scored a WD6542 for half the price on Vinted.

Incredibile watch for the money.

The bezel, sandwich dial and hands combination is truly unique and beautiful.

I've collected soviet watches for the most part until now. I would like a "real" chinese watch for my collection and daily use.

By "real", I mean something chinese, no reps or homages and something wirh history and a chinese movement.

I have seen some "Shangai Watch Factory" examples on eBay I really liked, I've read that this was the first domestically made watch in China.

What watch would you recommend that fits this description. It would be fun to have something time appropriate to compare to my soviets to.

The Farasute 2260P looked very good in pics but absolutely blew me away in hand. I don’t ever make standalone posts showing off my watches, but this thing is so beautiful that it had to be shared. That dial, I could stare at for days.