OK, I guess it's time for a proper WL review of the watch. Note - I will post a link to a more...civilized review that I wrote. But here, since this is The Joint, I'll spare no words.
The CaseFrankly, the weather in Europe's New Headache didn't really let me wear the watch a lot. It's been 30-something degrees Celsius on a daily basis. Now, why would that be a problem? During the last few days, the streak of hot weather had me out of places to hide. Been sweating like a pig, whenever I went. Angus the Bernese Mountain Dog had it even worse.
Well, for the Glycine - and for me - that weather was a problem. That's because bronze, as a relatively reactive alloy, tends to develop oxidation/residue, which people tend to be set on calling patina. In this case, it's of a green-ish blue colour, and it's pretty annoying.
And the sweating is where the problem starts. The crown has left blue stains on my hand. The flank has left blue stains on my hand. Frankly, don't exactly find it very practical to have to wipe the hand all the time, because the watch has stained it. OK, it's easy to wipe off, but it just grinds my fucking gears.
The finishing... There seems to be rather little depth to the case. It's not really brushed or polished. In fact, hell knows what it is.
All in all, it didn't get me to become fond of bronze. It still looks and feels a bit as if all the plating came off of a brass case. Yeah... Just like bare base metal. Pretty fucking unexciting.
What had me impressed was the bezel. OK, it's not fully indexed, but I don't dive anyway, so I'm not going to care about that. The part that had me impressed was how it works. There's pretty much no "play" to it at all. It works well in the extraordinary.
How It Wears
In fact, not badly. At 50mm lug to lug, it's well within what I can handle, and far from bothering me. The case back could be a wee bit more flat - then it'd distribute the weight of the whole thing more evenly. Not like it's bad as it is. If that watch had a bigger diameter or was any thicker, I'd simply pop it on the wrist a few times, and then write a lengthy paragraph on how the whole bloody thing sucks cock like Linda Lovelace in
Deep Throat. The thickness is only 10.6mm, and that really saves the day for this one.
In comparison, the Dan Henry 1970 is nearly 50% thicker. However, the case back is much wider, and the good weight distribution compensates for that.
Dial and HandsI'm not quite sure what to make of the colour scheme of it, combined with all the features. It's a bit like a South American soap opera - an awful lot of unrelated storylines. You know how it goes - you could waste a lifetime on explaining what's going on in a single episode, and a moment before you die, you realize that you just never could really put a finger on what the fuck's
actually going on in there.
So, we have a slightly Submariner-ish design, that got de-Rolexed. No triangular marker at 12, and a handset that's been de-Rolexed by adding a very non-Rolex seconds hand and removing the "Mercedes" thing from the hour hand. There's the Glycine name and 24h scale printed in silver, a gilt minute track, gold-tone hands and hour marker frames, an applied silver logo, a red seconds hand, green-ish lume, and a dial that gets darker from 12 to 6. Sounds like there couldn't be a more messy combination. Still, for whatever reason, it all kind of works. I'll be fucked if I know how that's even possible. But, well, it appears that - surprise, surprise! - it is. However, it would only take a white date window to fuck it all up.
The LumeHow'z da loom? Well, that's how:
I just couldn't get the camera to focus properly in the dark, no matter how fucking hard I've tried. Anyway, it takes a short exposure to sunlight for that lume to fire up even when it's not dark at all. Charges up quickly, and the glow really lasts. What more could one ask of it? Further verbal wankfest on its performance - expendable.
Glycine really didn't skip on applying lume to this one. Damn, even the frame around the date window is lumed.
The CrystalOne of the least appealing parts of this watch. I don't even mind that it's just a flat slab of sapphire. The ARC seems to be the main issue. I wonder if this watch has ARC at all. Trying to take good shots is a fucking drag.
The StrapNothing particularly exciting. Still, it's supple, and the free loop doesn't fly around, and that's good enough for me.
The movementWhat Glycine calls its "GL224" is simply an ETA 2824-2. Fortunately, they didn't have the fucked-up idea to show it through a display back. It's not a bad-looking movement, but there's nothing really exciting about it. It just is. In case someone forgot the specs: 25 jewels, bidirectional rotor, 38h power reserve, quickset date, hack feature, frequency 28 800 A/h.
Is It a Bad Watch?Nope. Quite good, actually.
Would I Buy One?Bronze? No fucking chance. Steel? Yep. Still, availability for a decent price is a problem in Europe. EU-based ADs offer all Combat Subs with rather pathetic discounts, some for the full MSRP and no discounts at all. And the MSRP is absolutely fucking barbaric.
In this case, I can't quite fucking believe what I'm saying, but ordering one from the US might actually be a good option. Well, at least from Massdrop. I wouldn't consider buying from, say, Gnomon - where this watch appears to have been bought at. The price there would land me with import costs bringing the total expense far too close to the MSRP. Oh, and did you know that Gnomon doesn't even have a properly secured site? No SSL certificate? Wouldn't do an online transaction on a site lacking any proper security.
If I recall correctly, there was a thread about steel ones going on Drop (previously Massdrop) for 370 bucks, and even with all the import charges, that's still a bloody good deal. EU-based sources of Glycine watches simply suck cock.
Well, guess that's that. On Monday, I'll get the Bomber on its way to Pubbie.
..hopefully, the BBB will have picked up some Eastern European 'ambience' that won't just rub off..don't forget to post a link to your more 'civilized' review when it becomes available..
