OK, here are some of my humble impressions of the BBB. Alas, I've been pretty busy dealing with various shit over the last couple of weeks, and so wasn't able to take the Bomber to, say, look at the beautiful city of Aberdeen, WA. But I wore it a fair amount, so I was able to shoot a few pics and collate some info.
Let me say, right off the top, that I wanted to hate this watch. Not so much of the bronze thing, or the fact that Glycine's something of a WLs darling right now. It was the fact that IWG owns Glycine, and no matter how storied the brand, no matter how good it might have been pre-Lalo, there's still that taint.
However, when I got the watch (almost absurdly well packed by Dr. Smells), I was kinda impressed. Hmm, I thought, this isn't too fucking bad. Nice packaging, interesting look of the patina on the bronze, and a very pretty face, too:
Patina!!:
I wore it to work one day, which I commented about above. The bomber did color the skin of my wrist, by the crown and on the other side, where the bronze made contact with my skin. The back is, thankfully, stainless steel:
Regarding the "old penny" smell some people have spoken of--I didn't notice it much at all; I had to hold the watch to my nose, where I could smell it a little bit.
The Bomber isn't a small watch, but it's well sized at 42.3mm across, 46.7mm with crown, 50mm lug to lug, 22mm lug size, and only 10.5mm tall, making it very wearable. The strap was pretty long, and I had to wear it on the last hole. Another downer was the buckle, which is signed:
But appears to be PVD plated stainless.
As I said above, it's easy to wear:
And thin:
The quality of the case seems to be on par with the $400-500 street price. The crown screws in nicely, with plenty of thread. The bezel has 120 clicks, with a nice, crisp action and no backplay. The glass is sapphire, the movement is (I suppose) either a stock 2824 or SW200 that Glycine claims they've modified. Another nice thing is that the movement is quite accurate, running about +5 seconds a day, which is far better than I expected, and considering the Bomber's already far-flung travels.
So, I was not hating this watch at all. It's pretty fucking good. Perhaps I should rethink the whole IWG hatred--maybe Eyal's turned over a new leaf and going out of his way to not fuck up Glycine. I like this watch. While I was wearing it, I found myself not wishing that I was wearing something else.
Next stop for the Bomber is the land down under!
