The Breitling Watch Blog

Ocean7 makes a very nice looking watch, and I greatly enjoyed the Ocean7 LM-6c I had while I owned it. Great hunky-chunky look, and fantastic curved crystal. Lume was not the greatest, but I’m not really picky about Lume. The skeleton hands look pretty awesome on it too.

I owned it for quite a while, and then decided to sell it recently. I found out that when I bought the watch, the price was $1599, and then now the watch sells for $899, direct from Ocean7. For a company to drop the price so much is pretty drastic, and not much of a service to their customers. But, if that’s how they want to do things, I guess that’s that.

The Ocean7 uses a Valjoux 7750 movement, likely not modifed at all. It is completely swiss made with your typical 316L stainless steel case and Sapphire Crystal. Water resistant to 500m. Its a big watch at 44mm, with 24mm Lug width and includes both the steel bracelet and the strap. Overall a very nice watch for a very reasonable price, especially since the price reduction.

Here’s my recently posted Video Review of my George J Von Burg Sport Chronograph. I reviewed the George J Von Burg here, and now I’ve posted the video review as well so you can see that. The watch uses the workhorse ETA/Valjoux 7750, and measures 40mm in diameter. Swiss Made by GJVB, a privately owned, family-business watchmaker.

In the spirit of my budget watches series of articles, I bring you a video review of the budget Swiss Army Ambassador automatic Day-Date. This is a very well made watch for the money, and is crafted very well. The case work is substantially better than many watches in the price range.

If you’ve been following my blog, you guys might know that I’ve got a thing for Pilot watches. I’ve been collecting them for the past several months, and one of the ones that I have kept is the Eklund Pilot Watch. This watch uses German and Swiss parts, with the Swiss ETA 2824 workhorse movement. Glass is sapphire and the dial I believe is from Germany. Retail price on this watch is $650US from GNT Watch.

Dial is a simple Pilot dial with the Dots and Triangle 12 o’clock marker. Lume is good, but not fantastic – the luminous material is SuperLuminova. Matte black finish, with a 41mm case diameter, which makes it very wearable without being too large and uncomfortable. This is a great beater watch!

The Sapphire Glass is not AR coated, but it is curved so some reflections are noticeable. The case is brushed and the bezel is polished. Hands are polished stainless steel with SuperLuminova. There is a Date feature with quick-set and hacking seconds, which is standard with the ETA 2824 movement. I have mounted the Eklund Pilot watch on a Hand Made in Germany Jurgens pilot watch strap which looks great with the watch and is extremely comfortable.

As you can see, the watch has a Gilt ETA 2824 movement, and it is accurate at the moment to about 10 seconds a day. This could possibly be regulated to be slightly more accurate. The case back is exhibition and polished. I think having the caseback bushed like the rest of the case would have been better as it sometimes seems to cheapen the look of a watch a bit when they do not match.

The proverbial Wristshot. Shown on my 6.75″ wrist, the watch appears smaller from the angle that I’ve taken the picture, but I feel the 41mm diameter looks fine on my wrist. It does seem to wear more like a 40mm, however. The thickness is 11mm, and feel just about right. Not a bad watch if you can snag it for half price used, though at the retail price you have some more recognizable German and Swiss brands that would be a better choice.

My second and last Pyrolume Watch video review. I don’t think that Pejman at Pyrolume appreciated my lukewarm reviews of his watches, but that’s the way I feel about them. They are essentially Alpha watches with a custom made dial. Look neat, yes, but the premium for the dial on what is essentially a dressed up $50 watch is pretty high.

Having said that, his dials are pretty unique and they are not something you can get anywhere else, and they are CNC’d in-house and hand lume-painted. I think I would appreciate them more if he used a $250 base watch and charged $500 for the watch, however.

I’ve posted video reviews of both Ticino Big Pilots of Youtube, and here they are for you guys to check out if you haven’t seen them already. Both are 47mm reproductions of the Nav B-uhr Pilot watch from WWII. Manual winding Chinese unitas copy movements.

The video review for the budget-watch Ticino Big Pilot in the stealthy black case with sterile dial. A very cool watch for the money, and definately something that will keep your watch bug at bay if Pilot watches are your thing! Massive 47mm full sized big pilot case, with Chinese Manual winding Unitas movement.

Since the Economy has not recovered, I will continue to review some more affordable watches!

WWII style Pilot watches are a popular style of watches these days, with IWC coming in at the top of the price range, with a dozen or more other Swiss and German brands coming in anywhere under them. Some of the major Pilot watch producers include Steinhart/Debaufre, Archiemede, Ollech & Wajs, Damasko, Tourby, and Laco. What many may or may not know is that Laco was one of the five brands selected by the German military to produce watches for them during WWII along with Wempe, A Lange Stowa, and IWC. So if you want an authentic, yet affordable WWII style Pilot watch, Laco is definately your best bet.

Now, this is an automatic pilot and 42mm in diameter, which makes it different from the originals which were 47mm, and manual winding. They were large so that they could be worn around the outside of a flight jacket and still be easily seen. You can get the 47mm version from Laco, but the one I have here is 42mm, and has an ETA 2824-2 Movement, etched with the Laco logo on the rotor.

Its a very nice watch, with a mineral crystal (it can be ordered with Sapphire), and sits very well on my somewhat small wrists. The lugs have a interesting shape as they stick straight out from the case, rather than curving down. The Lume on the watch is okay, but not fantastic.

There you can see the air-cooled perforated strap, but it is only perforated on the back and sides. It remains solid on the top, which is a nice feature. It makes the watch very comfortable to wear, and even comes with the same strap in black in case you want to swap.

And finally, a wrist shot. More and more I am finding I like the 42mm size, and though I do enjoy the 47mm pilot, I find the 42mm more suitable for me, and really in the end looks better, regardless of wrist presence.

If you like the Pilot watches, do yourself a favor and check out Laco. They are one of the original suppliers for WWII pilot watches, and they continue to make a great product for a great price today. This 42mm Pilot sells for about $450 new.