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 19th
century into the mid-20th 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
