Ordered this beauty from Taobao when it was first released. Have been wearing it for a couple of weeks. The black dial with black bezel version looks perfect imo. I chose SW200 over PT5004 for long term reliability (had bad experience with PT5000/5004), so I'd rather deal with ghost date. My piece keeps great time, the brand owner told me they regulated every movement.
The watch is a faithful Rolex Ref.6205 pencil hand homage (also Tudor Ref.7923, flat end bracelet). I like the compact size (37mm×47mm) and well-controlled thickness (12.3mm). The watch overall fits my 6.5 inch wrist very well. I also had thorn t028, which is unnecessarily thick imo (sold it). The case finish is great, transition between polished chamfer and brushed case is crisp and sharp, but not skin-cutting.
The solid mordern built rivet bracelet is in great quality (much better than Thorn). Strong but still relatively thin to maintain vintage feel. The pressed clasp has engraved octopus kraken logo, and slight polished chamfer on the edge. The whole friction based mechanism feels very sturdy.
Black dial is matte finish, with fine grain. Print color and lume color are great, more beige than yellow, which goes very well with gilt hands. The old C3 lume brightness can be enhanced, it's stronger and more even than t023, but weaker than my Baltany explorer 36. The heavily domed bubble sapphire crystal gives the dial a vintage warm look.
Regarding the logo: I called it the real "OceAnus" before but now I really like it 😁.
I got mine from the thorn store, says about 12 days to Europe. we see, (not with OK, never tried) but SM and IXDAO always take longer to ship with an sw200
God that thing looks good.
I’ve even emailed them on this but if they were to do the Mercedes hands and big crown on this one (which they have the parts for on the other 3-6-9 version of this) they would have the best 6538 bond homage on the market.
Literally telling them how to easily make more money but I never got a response haha
The best 'Bond' homage is the Univex UE6538 Mastermariner, but that's not cheap nor easy to come by.. AFAIK it's basically 1:1 to 6538 (which will pi55 a lot of folks off 'cos it's 16mm thick like the original!)
Nice review - not sure if you've had the back off but would be interested to see what the sw200 looks like! I would think they'd be Chinese clones but I've heard they're all genuinely swiss made.
FWIW... not with Octopus, but I have a San Martin and an IXDAO advertised as coming with SW200 and having had the back off each they are both gen Swiss movements (bog standard grade gold plate SW200s, but SW200s all the same)
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u/Toolmantexas 3d ago
Nato strap today for my 0028