Last month we brought you the line of Aeromatic watches offered by Island Watch as a great entry level watch right under $200. This month Island Watch decided to send us a beautiful dress watch that truly offers a lot of watch for the money but yet we had never heard of it. Introducing the Graf Zeppelin Chrono watch, a perfect alternative to Maurice Lacroix or Raymond Weil but yet at a fraction of the cost.
When we first heard we were getting a Graf Zepellin watch, we wondered what kind of watch it was but more importantly why someone would name a watch Graf Zepellin? We did a bit of research and found more about the origin being German (which explains the name) and engineered from the minds of aviation pioneers and now owned by POINTtec, a larger manufacturer of timepieces worldwide. Despite it’s weird history, we figured we’d give this watch a try so we asked our friend Marc at Island Watch why he picked this one to send us.
Why did you choose this watch?
For a fancier dress up watch, this one is killer. Certainly affordable, it is easily confused as a watch costing many times the price and it is functional too. It has a Chronograph (stopwatch), which is a very useful function, and an alarm. How many beautiful watches like this have an alarm? Zilch.
Is this an Automatic? What movement does it compare with?
It is not. It is a quartz Chrono/Alarm movement, which is why it competes so well on price.
The design is very close to Maurice Lacroix’s masterpiece line but at about 1/3 of the cost, how does it compare to that brand?
Take a look at the case, the finishing. Its superb. Look at the dial, the printing. It is on par with anything out there costing 10x as much. The Breguet style hands, etc. Even the strap is excellent Italian calfskin.
Here is our take on the watch as we got a chance to wear it, feel it and experience it for all of you. So here is the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good: The design is superb and the dial is simply eye catching. The dome crystal makes it look much richer and more classy than its counterparts for the money. The strap quality is high and the weight of the watch is just right.
The Bad: There is no bad and there certainly isn’t any ugly. We just feel like we would have paid a few hundred more to pick up the automatic version instead of the quartz.
Conclusion: We would buy this watch as a dress watch to wear with a suit, as it offers a lot of watch for the money retailing right under $500.00.
You can get this Graf Zeppelin watch at Island Watch. If you do decide to pick up this great watch from Island Watch, make sure to use your Secret Entourage coupon code : SEC-10
