biglove wrote:Have to admit that the case is actually looking good with the patina. And I like shiny things. This whole bronze thing may be worth getting into.
Here's another pic on a different NATO. I remember thinking "ooh, with all that dial colour, a HFH NATO will look great" but it just swamps the watch and adding the yellow/orange tone of the case, and the lime green of the lume, the whole thing looks like a Gay Pride wrist band. Also it looks crap with the polished steel keepers. So I'll bin that later in favour of a self-consciously austere black leather strap and see how that looks.
Some initial thoughts:
- Blimey, it's in good nick and well looked after!
- Incredibly clear crystal and dial combo. Looks like it has dual AR coating and using the subtler grey tint, not the bright purple favoured by Omega, Breitling and others.
- Bezel a bit loud in operation but tight, lines up perfectly, has no backlash at all and I like the raised tab at 12. Brands that could learn a thing or two about making well-machined, properly aligned 120-click bezels: Oris, Seiko (obvs), Tudor, Christopher Ward and a name I thought should never be types, Rolex.
- Chocolate bezel insert colour is incredible.
- Great lume, It does fade, but still readable in the small hours.
- Flat on the wrist
- Lumed dial surround is a great little touch.
And some human-resources development points:
- It is big. 51mm lug to lug is just about OK on me but I wouldn't want it any bigger than this.
- That stamped chrome logo... not so much the shape, it looks fine on the crown, but cheap on the dial.
- Dial lume plots excellent for readability but they swamp the delicate handset a bit.
- the Patina is a bit too much for me. I'll leave it to build up but if it was mine, I'd probably give it a wipe down with whatever shit you normally use to get rid of it, and start it over.
- And the killer for me, just too many colours going on. There's bronze, brown, green lume, two dial blues, and red. And steel if you include the caseback. If the second hand was the same bronze PVD as the others, and a uniform blue dial, I'd prefer it.
Let's see how the timekeeping goes but it looks good so far after 24 hours. I'm also going to wear it ostentatiously over the weekend drinking beer, and see if it gets any eyeballs : )
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