Review of Mathey-Tissot ‘Rolly’ Vintage Automatic

Model # H901ATLV

Brand/Model: Mathey-Tissot ‘Rolly’ Vintage Automatic

Movement:  Swiss automatic

Material:  stainless steel case and smooth leather strap

Complications: date display

Price:  MSRP $650 USD (can be found discounted)

Plenty of photos follow the review. Click on the pictures to enlarge.

Here’s one of those Swiss watch names that has a truly rich heritage and legitimate horological chops yet it gets kind of murky as to what they’ve been up to in the last 20 or 30 years.  I’m talking about Mathey-Tissot, which currently has this trademark held by the Geneva Watch Group which among other fashion brands includes Kenneth Cole.  Whether this is still accurate, I do not know.  There’s also an enterprise called SWP (Swiss Watch Partners) that is listed on the M-T web site.  Where’s Jim Rockford when you need him?  And just to be clear, Mathey-Tissot has no relation to the Tissot watch brand.

Whatever the somewhat mysterious ownership trail of Mathey-Tissot really is, here we are in 2018 with the brand creating a wide range of both automatic and quartz timepieces which fit in the sweet spot of a couple hundred bucks up to a few thousand.

It was 1886 in the Jura region of Switzerland when Mathey-Tissot (or ‘M-T’ here for short) was founded and it seems the company’s heyday was from the late 19^th century into the mid-20^th century.  They did make some pretty sweet watches, including chronographs, repeaters, flybacks and silver dollar ‘coin’ watches.  Even ‘The King’ Elvis Presley had an M-T watch.  Thus endeth the history lesson for today.

What is being reviewed here is a modern, circa 2018 Mathey-Tissot automatic, which is part of their ‘Rolly’ Vintage collection.  This collection includes both automatic and quartz, in a wide range of dial and bezel colors, bezel types, case materials (stainless steel and bronze) and straps or bracelets. 

And yes, I know they all look like a Rolex, but that’s not the reason I bought one (I have two Rolex watches of my own); I purchased this watch because I liked the dial color/strap color combo, the movement and the price (purchased new for under $300 USD).  It’s a fun, easy to wear watch that can add a bit of pop to any collection.

The Rolly Vintage automatic starts with a polished and brushed stainless steel case that measures a comfortable 40mm in diameter (a bit larger it you measure across the bezel, which overhangs the case a bit on its edges), with proper 20mm lugs and a stylish 12.6mm thickness (although the case sides appear much thinner due to the way the case back steps in from the case sides and the bezel and crystal sit on top. 

The crown side of the case has twin guards to protect the crown and the left side of the case features an engraved ‘1886’, marking the year of the company’s founding.  It’s a small and not intrusive way to celebrate the brand’s heritage.

The case and crown together measure 45.8mm, with the crown being a screwdown type that seats home after three full turns.  The crown is also signed and is almost too small for me; any smaller and I would rate it ‘too dainty’ but it just squeaks into my acceptable range.  Overall, it’s a good presentation on the wrist.

The caseback is a display type, polished stainless steel, which shows off the automatic movement with signed Mathey-Tissot rotor.  Overall fit and finish is very good

The dial of the Rolly Vintage is a brilliant shade of green, not too minty, nor too dark, a perfect ‘just right’ in my big book of green dialed watches.  Let’s call it ‘Kelly’ green. 

The dial has screen printed markers in the now ubiquitous ‘vintage’ shade of lume (it looks yellow/orange), with classic hands (minute hand standard straight with pointed tip; hour hand in the Mercedes style), both silvertone with inset lume.  The seconds hand is a silver stick with a lume ball about two-thirds of the way up.  The lume glows a pleasing shade of green and appears to be of fairly decent quality, with solid illumination and no spotting or weak parts.

A quickset date is located at the 3 position with a black on white date wheel.  Quickset action is crisp, with the date being centered properly in the window.  An external cyclops magnifier does a good job of enlarging the date for easy reading, although the cyclops on my example is ever so slightly off-center, being tilted up to the right just a bit.  Not a huge discrepancy at this price point, but worth mentioning nonetheless.

The dial has minimal printing, with ‘Mathey-Tissot’ in script below the 12 and ‘Vintage’ with leaves on each side above the 6.  The ‘Vintage’ script does look a bit cheesy, but it also kind of grows on you.  ‘Swiss Made’ appears at the bottom of the dial.

There’s a 96-click unidirectional 24-hour bezel with a green aluminum insert that matches the dial color nicely.  The bezel turns with good friction and minimal backlash.  The even hours are in arabics, with odd hours marked with a dot and an inverted triangle at the top.  There is no lume on the bezel.

A 24-hour bezel can track a second time zone, so it’s a nifty addition to this watch.

Topping the dial is a moderately domed sapphire coated crystal (still really not sure what ‘sapphire coated’ means, is it applied to the top of a mineral crystal?) and is fit into the case smoothly and exhibits no distortion. 

Assembly quality on the dial showed no flaws or dirt under my 8X loupe exam. 

The M-T Rolly Vintage automatic is factory rated for 10 ATM of water resistance.

Inside the Rolly Vintage automatic is a tried and true Sellita SW-200 Swiss made automatic movement, running in 26 jewels and beating at 28,800 vibrations per hour.  The movement hacks and manually winds, just as you would expect.  The watch winds, sets and runs properly, exhibiting strong accuracy and good run time in my atelier. 

During testing, my M-T Rolly Vintage ran at +2 seconds over 24 hours in the crown-up position with a 42.5 hour power reserve.  Superb!

Another element that drew me to this watch was its availability on a smooth leather strap with minimal stitching, which seems all the rage these days.  The strap on my M-T is a smooth leather in a great looking darker green color which contrasts the dial color in a nice way.  The strap has white coarse stitching near the lugs only.

The strap measures 20mm at the lugs and tapers to 16mm at the brushed and signed stainless steel buckle.  There are two keepers, one fixed and one floating.  The underside of the strap is signed and the strap itself is not padded, but is soft and flexible for a comfortable fit.  It’s also a tad thick but looks great on the watch.

Presentation is a rectangular black outer cardboard box and a black rectangular inner box, all signed with the Mathey-Tissot name.  No instructions and just a warranty pamphlet where included.  The presentation is nothing special and it would have been nice to have a slightly upgraded presentation given the rich history of the brand.

Overall, the Mathey-Tissot Rolly Vintage Automatic does not break any new ground in design or aesthetics (except maybe for the in vogue smooth leather strap) but it also doesn’t violate standards of good taste as so many watches do these days.  It’s simply another in a long list of homage style watches that in this case, exhibits good build quality, a unique combination of available colors, a useful 24-hour bezel and a reliable automatic movement for a small admission price.  Safe to say, it’s a safe bet.

Pros: dependable and accurate Swiss automatic movement, 24-hour bezel flexibility, neat dial color, good overall quality and value 

Cons:  yet another homage style watch, cyclops could be aligned better, somewhat cheesy script on the dial

Verdict:  here’s an homage with some real Swiss heritage, a well-known automatic movement and a fun, carefree attitude.  You really can’t go wrong here for the price

Thanks for reading and enjoy the pics.

Excelsior!

-Marc