Review of Victorinox Swiss Army Infantry Vintage Mechanical

Model # 241377 (discontinued)

Brand:  Victorinox Swiss Army
Model:  Infantry Vintage Mechanical
Material:  stainless steel case, leather strap
Complications:  none
Price:  MSRP  $925 USD

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

It’s always a pleasure to review a watch that is simple and functional in its design, good looking and rugged.  The Victorinox Swiss Army (‘VSA’ for short) Infantry Vintage Mechanical certainly fits the bill.  Although this particular model is now discontinued, they can still be found new on the ‘net and at pretty good prices, too.

I have already reviewed the big brother to this watch, the VSA Infantry Vintage Mechanical Chronograph and gave that watch high marks.  The manual wind, non-complicated version is equally enjoyable.

The VSA Infantry Vintage Mechanical starts with a 44mm stainless steel case that sports a brushed and polished finish.  It’s nice that even though this watch sports a large-sized movement, VSA managed to keep the case diameter as small as they can.  Many watches that have the Unitas manual wind movement clock in at 45 or 46mm in size.  The shortness of the lugs on the watch also make it much more manageable on the wrist (lug-tip to lug-tip measures 50mm), so kudos to VSA for designing this piece to a usable size.

Case diameter with the signed crown is 47.4mm.  The screwdown caseback is brushed stainless steel and has a mineral crystal display window that shows off the minimally decorated but still attractive workhorse movement.

Thickness is 12mm and lugs are an odd 23mm.  The fixed bezel is stepped in its design and adds just the right amount of panache to this admittedly simple watch.  The VSA Infantry Vintage Mechanical is factory rated for 100 meters of water resistance.

Overall quality of the finish work and assembly is first-rate on this VSA.

The dial on this VSA is a real beauty.  The dial is one of the highlights of the chronograph version and the dial on the manual wind is pretty much the same design.  A black center circular section has a 13-24 hour track, which is surrounded by a slightly recessed and textured section that has the raised arabics on it.  

Thankfully, VSA has not ‘hacked off’ any of the numbers on the dial.  Instead of putting a half or third of a 5, 6 or 7 on the dial, the designers simply left these numbers off....way to go!  It always hacks me off when some dials have arabics that are so cut off that they are barely recognizable as a number...why not just leave it off?  That’s what VSA did here and it looks great.  

Another design element that works is the restraint VSA had when the decided how large to make the arabics on the dial.  Like many watches these days, they have made a couple of the arabics on the dial larger than the rest (the 3 and 9 are about 50-percent larger than the other arabics) but they are not clownishly large, which is good.  And given that the dial on this watch is larger to begin with, the slightly oversized arabics don't look out of place.

A chapter ring on the outer edge of the dial has lume dots at each five minute mark (pointer style marks at 12, 3 and 9) along with hash marks for minute markers and small arabics every five minutes.  The larger arabics on the dial are luminous as well as the hour, minute and seconds hand.  Lume quality is good.

The hour and minute hands are sword style, silver with inset lume.  The lume used on this watch is also the cream or ‘aged’ kind of Superluminova, which is in keeping with the vintage aspirations of this model.  It looks fantastic.

The subdial at 6 is perfectly sized to the overall proportions of this watch.  It has a slightly heavy silver ring around it and has an inner circular dial in black with a cream colored seconds track on the outside with arabics at each quarter minute and simple marks every five seconds.  The seconds hand is the same design as the main hands and features inset lume as well.

The dial is topped with a flat anti-reflective sapphire crystal.  The entire dial is well executed and makes this watch very easy to read.

Inside the VSA Infantry Vintage Mechanical is the long-running and well-regarded Swiss Unitas 6498 ‘six eater’ 17-jewel manual wind movement.  There are several grades of this movement available and this VSA sports the version with brushed plates, for a nicer look through the display back.  

The watch does not hack, but I have measured timekeeping accuracy at about +7/24 hours with a good 48.5 hour power reserve.  The watch winds and sets smoothly.   Absolutely no complaints from this tried and true workhorse of a movement.

The VSA Infantry Vintage Mechanical is equipped with a smooth black leather strap with a slightly coarse off-white contrast stitch.  The strap is moderately thick without any padding.  The strap measures 23mm at the lugs and tapers to 20.2mm at the buckle.  The signed buckle is brushed stainless steel.  The look of the strap fits the overall tone of this watch; nothing fancy, but totally purposeful and attractive.

As I stated at the start of this review, although this VSA model is discontinued, you can still find them brand new if you look hard enough and many places are discounting them, so they represent a very good value for a Unitas 6498-based watch that has high quality and an acceptable size.  The VSA Infantry Vintage Mechanical is a superb watch that shines through its simplicity.  If you enjoy the basic joy of a manual wind watch without any complications, you can’t do much better than this one.  Highly recommended.

Pros:  good fit and finish, very legible dial, basic and rugged Swiss manual wind movement, manageable size

Cons:  still a large watch, too simple for some?

Verdict:  VSA hits all the right notes with this one, the Infantry Vintage Mechanical is a great watch and can be easily appreciated for its classic/vintage style, quality and simplicity.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures.

Excelsior!

-Marc

Review of Oris Chronoris Grand Prix ‘70 Limited Edition

Model # 01 677 7619 4154
 
Brand:  Oris
Model:  Chronoris Grand Prix ’70 Limited Edition (total of 1970 pieces)
Material:  stainless steel case, leather strap
Complications:  date display, second time zone hand, chronograph timing in one-quarter  second increments up to 12 hours
Price:  MSRP  $4,650 USD

Plenty of photos follow the review.  Click on the pictures to enlarge.
 
Regular readers of this blog will know that I tend to like Oris watches.  I have three of them in my collection at the present time and this Chronoris Limited Edition is the standout of the bunch.  Oris makes a ‘standard’ Chronoris watch in orange and black that has one major downfall; it does not have a seconds hand for the non-chronograph portion of the watch.  This may not bother some people, but for me, and especially for an automatic, a watch needs to have a seconds hand.

The Chronoris LE takes care of this problem simply because the watchmakers at Oris decided to include a second hand on this model.  The Grand Prix LE Chronoris has a full 12-hour chronograph and an independently adjustable 24-hour GMT hand and is presented in a great black and green motif.  When I saw it, I had to have it.  The Chronoris is a limited-edition run of 1970 pieces.

Oris has made the Chronoris model for decades and vintage examples pop up for sale from time to time.  For the current LE model, they pretty much loaded it up with contemporary features while retaining a vintage look and created a stunning, functional and exclusive watch.

The Chronoris LE starts with a retro ‘disco volante’ cushion case shape with partial hidden lugs, in a brushed and polished finish.  The large signed crown is a thing of beauty, as it quick-locks with a quarter turn of the finger.  Oris calls it a ‘quick lock security crown.’  Totally nifty!

Case diameter is 42.3mm without the crown, 46.1mm crown included.  Case height is 44.1mm end to end, lugs are 21mm.  Thickness is 14.7mm.  This is a fairly large watch, but it wears well and imparts a terrific look on the wrist.

The chronograph pushers are polished and of good size.  The polished case back screws down and is a display type with a mineral crystal.  A slightly domed sapphire crystal has its edges flush with the case.  Anti-reflective coating is on the inside.  The Chronoris LE is factory rated for 50 meters of water resistance.

The dial on the Chronoris LE is easily described as ‘busy’, but not to the extent that it detracts from the functionality of the watch.  The innermost part of the dial is black, surrounded by a green chapter-type ring with white hash marks for the chronograph seconds hand, although the marks and ring are interrupted by the top and bottom subdials.

Outside the chapter ring is another circle of black, which is surrounded by a green and white 24-hour ring (a.m. on the ring is green, p.m. is white).  The 24-hour ring is in turn surrounded by a black tachymeter ring. 

Silver applied markers with luminous dots at the ends are placed every five minutes on the dial, going from the inner green and white chapter ring to the outer black ring.  I know this description sounds incredibly busy, but look at the pictures and you’ll see that it somehow all works together.

The subdial at the 9 position is the watch seconds hand.  The subdial at 12 is the 30-minute chronograph totalizer and the subdial at 6 is the chronograph 12-hour totalizer. 

The 30-minute totalizer also has an inner white 10-minute countdown ring inside the 30-minute ring, counting down 10 minutes starting at the 15-minute mark and going to the 25-minute mark.  According to the Formula 1 web site, the rules state “ten minutes before the start the grid must be cleared except for team technical staff, race officials and drivers. With three minutes to go all cars must have their wheels fitted (any car not complying will receive a 10-second time penalty).”  Hence, the reason this function appears on this watch.

The top and bottom subdials are oversized and are ringed in silver, making them stand out on the dial and also making them easier to read.  This design element almost makes the watch appear to be a two-register chronograph instead of a three-register style.

The subdial at 9 has only basic marks at each quarter hour and is not delineated by a ring or circle, making the seconds hand very subdued, but still present, which is appreciated.

All the subdial hands and the chronograph seconds hand are simple silver, with the hour and minute hands of the watch being silver with inset lume.  Lume is C3 Superluminova and quality is good.  There’s not an overabundance of lume on the Chronoris LE, but just enough for adequate time reading in the dark.

The 24-hour GMT hand is executed extremely well.  The tip is medium yellow, while the hand portion is black, so all you tend to see is the tip at the outer edge of the dial; it’s as if the yellow pointer is floating around the dial.  This helps lessen the complexity of the dial while retaining great second timezone capability.

A white on black quickset date window is located at the 6 position, inside the lower subdial.  The window is rimmed in silver and is easy to read.  Alignment of the date wheel inside the round window is good.

Inside the Chronoris LE is a 25-jewel Oris Caliber 677 Swiss made automatic movement, which starts as a base Valjoux 7754.  The movement beats at 28,800 vph and can be manually wound and hacked.  In my testing, I achieved a fine 53 hour power reserve (Oris lists PR at 48 hours) and in my accuracy tests, it runs at +7 seconds over 24 hours.  Totally acceptable. 

The movement runs great, sets and winds fine and the action of all the complications (GMT hand setting, chrono start/stop/reset) are good.  A fine movement for a fine watch.  And of course, the famous Oris red rotor is visible through the display back and is signed with the Oris name and Grand Prix ‘70.

The strap on the Chronoris is very nice.  A black perforated leather strap in a matte finish, a bit thicker but not really padded, with green stitching inside and black stitching outside and green edges.  A super look.  The strap is 21mm at the lugs and tapers to 18mm at the deployant style clasp. 

The clasp is also a beauty; it’s one of those designs that keeps the extra part of the strap (the part that normally would overlap and fit through keepers) on the inside of the strap for a clean look.  The clasp itself is a signed pushbutton machined deployant that has a satin finish on the inside and a bit of perlage on one part of the clasp.  A small but great detail.  The clasp and strap are comfortable and make the watch a joy to wear.

Overall fit and finish on the Chronoris LE is first rate.  I said it in my review of the Oris Maldives diver and I will say it again, I believe Oris has really stepped up their game recently and is producing even better quality watches than they did a short five years ago. 

Presentation of the Chronoris LE is a square cardboard outer box with a rubberized inner box in the shape of a racing tire.  A pair of driving gloves is also included in most sets (I did not get the gloves with my watch, perhaps because I bought this watch at a discount).  No biggie, the presentation is totally in fitting with the race theme of this watch.

In summary, the Oris Chronoris LE is a fantastic watch, if you can find one.  It combines a great retro look with modern functionality and has a color combination and style that is tough to beat.  A superbly executed watch.

Pros:  great functionality with multiple complications, super looks, nifty quick-lock crown, reliable Swiss engine, quality strap and deployant clasp 
 
Cons:  case shape may not suit everybody’s tastes, dial is rather busy, modest water resistance
 
Verdict:  in most respects, the Chronoris LE is a watch that almost does it all without going over the top in any way.  A well-done watch that will definitely get the looks.
 
Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures.
 
Excelsior!
 
-Marc

Review of Christopher Ward C60 Trident Automatic

Model # C60
 
Brand:  Christopher Ward
Model:  C60 Trident Automatic
Movement:  Swiss automatic
Material:  stainless steel case, leather strap
Complications:  date display
Price:  MSRP  $550 USD

Plenty of photos follow the review.  Click on the pictures to enlarge.
 
I was initially excited to receive this Christopher Ward C60 Trident automatic.  After seeing them online and looking at their designs and believing the hype on their web site, I was sold.  Let me state this right now, the Christopher Ward C60 is a good watch, but not a great watch.  The company is trying to produce a decent piece and overall their customer service is very good, but not perfect.  More on these two items in a bit.  Suffice to say, even though I rate this watch as ‘good’, I am disappointed enough with this watch and my experience with the company to not purchase a Christopher Ward product again.  I will explain fully later in the review.

Christopher Ward is a relatively new (since 2004) and small British company that has their watches manufactured in the Jura region of Switzerland.

The company prides itself on customer service and tries to market their watches as keepsakes to be handed down from generation to generation with exceedingly high quality and strong value.  This is laying it on a little thick.  Judging from the C60 I purchased, this watch is really nothing special and is almost worth the money they charge, but only after they make some QC adjustments.  There are better values around, as in Tissot and Hamiltons of comparable design and price.  Hey, if these small watch companies want to compete in the rough and tumble world of watches, they need to know where they stand in regards to their product and that’s why I do these reviews.

To begin with, the C60 Trident sports a ‘marine grade’ stainless steel case with brushed and polished finish.  The lugs have a somewhat awkward cut to them at the bottom that looks too severe to my eye.  This design doesn’t cause any discomfort while wearing, it just makes the lugs look too stubby.  Case diameter is 43mm without the signed, screwdown crown; 47mm crown inclusive.  Case thickness is 12.6mm, lug spacing is 22mm.  The case flares out a bit to form crown guards that run about one-third the way up the crown, not overly protective, but not obtrusive, either.  The crown does screw down a satisfying three-plus turns to lock.

The caseback is polished and screws down.  The caseback is decorated with a trident logo and has the wording ‘Deus Maris Altum’ which means ‘Deep Sea God’ in Latin.  Okay, this watch is rated at 300 meters of watch resistance, which to me is more ‘Medium Sea God’ instead of ‘deep sea’, but I guess I’m just being difficult.

One of my quality control quibbles pertains to the case, specifically the finishing (or rather, lack thereof) on the inside edges of the lugs and the sloppy, shallow spring bar holes in the lugs.  I realize that many watches lack proper finishing on the inside edges of the lugs and/or between the lugs because often, you can’t see this area, but for a watch that is sold on both a bracelet or strap, the lugs should be finished properly to prevent any unfinished areas from showing when the watch it worn or when it is held and examined. 

If you look closely, you can see the lack of finishing on the insides of the lugs on the C60.  Worse, the spring bar holes are incredibly shallow and sloppy looking.  Luckily, the strap has remained in place without popping off, but I was terribly disappointed in the quality of the spring bar holes, so much so that I let the three principles of the company (Chris Ward, Peter Ellis and Mike France) know about this problem, since they solicit feedback directly on their web site, but alas, I heard nothing back from any of the three.  Disappointing again, especially if you tout customer service and ask for feedback directly.  Note to Mr. Christopher Ward, respond directly to your customer’s complaints or stop asking for their feedback!

The dial on the C60 was one of the elements that initially attracted me to this model.  It is a black wave-pattern dial somewhat reminiscent of the older Omega Seamaster wave dials.  The dial has round applied markers, a double rectangular marker at the 12 position and single rectangular markers at the 3, 6 and 9 positions. 

All the markers are filled with white lume, as are the hour and minute hands.  The seconds hand is a simple stick style with a red tip (no lume) and a cool trident fork on the tail end.  There are also small lume dots on the outer edge of the applied markers that are set in a printed chapter ring with minute and smaller hash marks.  These lume dots tend to glow brighter than the larger markers.  Lume is SuperLuminova and the quality is good, being the in-vogue blue color, while the lume pip on the bezel glows the standard green.

The hands are semi-skeleton (semi because they are only skeletonized for a small portion of their overall length).  The handset is rather unique and does look good.

The wording ‘Chr. Ward’ and ‘London’ appear below the 12 position, while ‘Trident-Pro’, ‘300m/1000 ft’ and ‘automatic’ appear above the 6 position.

A quickset date window is located at about the 4:30 position on the dial.  The window is surrounded by a silver frame and the date wheel is black on white.  Alignment within the window is good. 

Many WISes I have talked to find the location of the date window on the C60 to be off-putting and not in keeping with the overall clean lines of the watch.  It does look a bit odd being at 4:30 as opposed to even just the 4 position.

The dial is capped by a flat 4mm anti-reflective sapphire crystal that protrudes slightly above the bezel.  The bezel is a 120-click unidirectional type that rotates easily and has a moderate about of backlash.  The first 15 minutes are marked off with printed markers, while the remainder has standard arabics every 10 minutes with a larger marker between the arabics at the five minute marks.  Overall bezel action on my C60 is acceptable, but I have heard from another WIS that the bezel action on his brand-new C60 was not acceptable to him (too much free play and bad alignment), so again, QC issues are rearing their ugly head.

The C60 Trident is available in a couple of dial colors and a variety of bezel colors and the other reason I purchased this watch was because of the khaki (olive greenish) colored bezel.  It is a nice color that you don’t see on very many other watches.

Inside the C60 is a Swiss automatic movement, either an ETA 2824-2 or a Sellita SW200-1.  Again, I have a problem with this.  The Sellita is a fine movement and some of the Sellitas I own perform better than the comparable ETA, but the Sellita is basically a copy of the ETA and is NOT an ETA.  The way they describe it on their web site, they make it sound like the movements are the same but they are not.  Come on, Christopher Ward, have transparency here and let us know exactly what movement is in the C60 each of us buys.

Since the watch has no display back, I don’t know what is inside my C60.  It’s like buying a General Motors car when they started using engines from all their divisions and you never knew if your Chevy had a Chevy engine, a Buick engine or a Pontiac engine in it.

I suspect my C60 has the Sellita in it, that’s my guess.  The movement winds and sets fine and has performed without any problems, running at -4/24 hours with an expected power reserve of 41.5 hours.

I originally ordered my C60 Trident on the stainless steel bracelet, but upon receiving the watch and attempting to size the bracelet, my enthusiasm for Christopher Ward pretty much went out the window.  The bracelet utilizes those irritating and insufferable pins and collars and the bracelet that was on my watch had the tightest pins and collars I have ever encountered on the hundreds of watches I have sized.  I could only successfully remove one pin and move about one-quarter of another before I gave up in utter frustration.

I contacted Christopher Ward’s (‘CW’ for short) customer service, explained my problem and they did get back to me promptly and didn’t give me any guff about the situation, so I did appreciate that, but they also did not address the problem, other than accepting the bracelet back for a refund and exchanging it for one of their leather straps. 

So I sent the bracelet back to them, they refunded the extra cost of the bracelet ($85 USD) and sent me the leather strap I selected (or so I thought).  When my new strap arrived, it was not the model I ordered; it was a pilot style with rivets and a deployant clasp (I wanted a standard strap with a standard pin buckle). 

They did refund the cost of my initial return shipping on the bracelet which I applaud them on, but I was not about to go through this song and dance again to return the mistakenly shipped strap for the one I really wanted.  I put the CW strap on a different watch and installed the aftermarket 22mm oily dark brown leather strap that is shown in the pictures.

To CW’s credit, the quality of the leather strap I received was very good and the strap itself looks nice and wears decently, although I am still not a fan of deployant clasps on straps, especially butterfly style deployants.

After this experience, I came away with more thoughts on the company.  First, if you are to compete in the United States, you have to have a U.S.-based customer service and repair center to accommodate people like me that don’t want to wait two-weeks to mail stuff back to England and then receive replacements from England, not to mention the costs involved in doing so.  I don’t think I’m out of line here. 

Secondly, while overall, CW’s customer service was responsive, they shipped me the wrong item.  We all make mistakes, but after the lousy QC on the bracelet, the sloppy spring bar holes and the lack of inside lug finishing on the case, I decided to wipe my hands clean of this experience and sell my C60 for a substantial loss.  I was past their generous 60-day return policy (which in hindsight I should have used and just returned the entire watch to them for a refund) but we all live and learn, I suppose.

The bracelet was a solid link stainless steel three-link design with a signed clasp and machined deployant, but it had a somewhat cheapish feel to it.  The same WIS friend that had the bezel issues with his C60 also had bracelet problems with overly tight pins and collars and an ill-fitting spring bar/bracelet end link and a rattle-prone clasp.  So I am not alone here.  And just so you know, this bracelet represents the second, improved design for the C60.  Hmmm.

Presentation consists of a large pale yellow two-piece outer box with a black padded inner box.  It looks fine, but they also offer a deluxe box for an extra cost.  The standard box is perfectly suitable.

I did my best to be friends with the C60 and there are elements of the watch that I do like, but the combination of not knowing exactly what movement is inside, the QC issues (which I feel are not that trivial), the customer service snafu and the lack of response from Mr. Ward himself all have conspired to leave me with a negative overall view of this watch and the company.  Sorry, gents, that’s the way I see it. 

Pros:  nice wave dial, unique handset, great bezel color, cool trident on end of seconds hand
 
Cons:  niggling QC issues, cheapish bracelet, some design elements don’t jive, ponderous customer service, what is the movement?
 
Verdict:  while CW is trying their best, it’s not good enough.  My experience with a Christopher Ward watch was less than perfect.  IMHO, there are better values out there for your hard-earned dollar at this price point.
 
Thanks for reading and enjoy the pictures.
 
Excelsior!
 
-Marc