The Underline collecting vs Kickstarter: Introducing the Pompeak Gentleman Watches

Lately the watch world feels saturated, we as watch enthusiast try to avoid this saturation by looking at minute details from the color of the hands to the position of the name of the watch on the dial, to be honest I never got the underline watch collecting, some people call the Rolex Daytona RCO ( Rolex Cosmograph Oyster) the ''proper'' Daytona and snub down on the ROC as is not as rare, sometimes I feel like I am taking crazy pills as they all feel the same (now I understand Mugato in the Zoolander film) but I digressed.

So what is all of this has to do with Kickstarter? As watch enthusiast this underline collecting makes us forget that there are things out there that we tend to forget. I am not comparing a Rolex Daytona with a Kickstarter watch, but the main idea is that we just forget to look.

Once we step out of the minute details of the watch world we can see that not only there are other established brands with beautiful product but also young upcoming ones that have a great value proposition. When I hear the words 'value proposition' I always think : '' they probably cut some corners so I should go to Seiko'', but if you do your homework you can find some great designs which can punch way above their weight, and this my friends bring us to Kickstarter. It is no secret that you can find a lot of -lets put it nicely- generic bad built stuff in general and lets not start with some of the watches out there.

But let us talk positive, I always look at Kickstarter campaigns as a sanity check because coming back to the underline collecting we get really price desensitized, to me Kickstarter is a reality check on how much a product really cost, we would never know how much in percentage of your hard earn cash goes to branding and to product in the world of watches but they cover all this kinds of sins with the word heritage. Which brings me to the watch in question (finally!!.. and thank you for making it so far) the Gentleman from Pompeak Watches.

I stumbled across the design you see below on Instagram and I was immediately drawn to it. If there is an unanimous thing that watch lovers like is to see the mechanism and open hearts are always welcome, it’s a beautiful addition to justify that what you bought is really something different and special.

Given that the watch is still on launch phase I really wanted to explore how the whole process works and see the watch on the metal, so I contacted the brand to get a demo. They were really responsive and I got the demo very fast.

The specifications:

I was very happy when I received the unit, the first impressions were amazing and the dial was a beauty, ''clou de paris'' dial in beautiful blue, then that open heart mechanism which looks amazing and as of centered as the sub seconds register. Once you finish with the obvious you start looking at the specifications sheet. Under 200 GBP (40% off retail once is launched) you get the sapphire crystal, 316 stainless steel, a reliable Japanese automatic movement with a display caseback and SuperLuminNova C3 BGW9, in other words if you go retail you can get a well spec watch with an amazing design for under 300 GBP.

On the wrist:

The watch feels incredibly comfortable and with 40mm it’s a good blend between sporty and casual, it would look incredible on a leather strap but that said the bracelet that came in was very well built with solid end links and solid milled clasp which gives a reassuring felling of build quality.

Conclusions:

This was my first time with a pre- released watch and I have to say that all the experience was very positive, the watch felt really well and although they mentioned some refinements regarding the lume, the finished product felt very well made, that dial and the combination of the open heart beating with the small sub seconds looks like something else.

As mentioned above I am not trying to convince anyone that we should stop buying vintage or high established brands and start going to Kickstater to fund every campaign with a good design, the take away is that we should focus in the whole industry and not only on one brand and how names or lines are written on the dial.

For more information on the Gentleman please visit:

https://www.pompeak.com/coming-soon

Kickstarter Campaign:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/pompeak/pompeak-the-gentlemens-collection