Baltany field chronograph notes

I recently read of this watch and thought (after watching a few reviews) to see how it felt on my wrist (because that's the only way to actually know). I wasn't disappointed too much, mostly I think its excellent (and its growing on me).

Wots good

Well for starters, I like the understated and simple pragmatic appearance. The VK67 movement is excellent, well regarded and reliable, I applaud its use here because I hate having a 3 dial chronograph where one of the dials does nothing more than show you what the hour hand is already showing you.  

The AR coated Sapphire Crystal is perfect, adds nothing flashy and indeed is perfect because it makes for clear unimpeded view of the face. I frankly don't give a tinkers toss about Sapphire vs Hardlex because I don't give a toss about the occasional scratch, however that AR coating on the inner surface really just makes the watch all about the dial (the crystal that covers it just about vanishes).

As you can see above its a 3 sub-dial chronograph with screw down crown and pushers. People like to go on about how this makes for an improvement in water resistance but actually what I am attracted to most about this design is that you don't accidentally start or stop the chrono. Wound out for use they present a nice button to press.

Wound back down they stop accidental movement. Unlike some other movements I've had (my Pagani comes to mind) the feel and action of the pushers is good and definite.

So while there are a couple of points which I feel are totally absent from mention in most reviews, I'll also run through the basics here too. But I won't cover stuff which is adequatly covered in most of the very positive reviews.

When unboxing I found a very nice padded case and an actual filled out, dated and stamped warranty card.

The supplied NATO is actually what I call good, meaning that its thin, flexible, soft (not coarse) and has nice hardware.

Its black, despite how it looks in the lighting here.

The watch is a nice and neat (but busy) dial which is helped by the fantastic domed sapphire crystal which has AR coating on the back side. 

I happen to prefer to my watch on a leather strap (sourced from the design school of NATO straps) for "daily wear" and only put it onto a NATO (actual milspec is only nylon) when doing yard work or the like.

My wrist is about 6.5" and you can see the ends of the lugs come close to extending beyond my wrist (but don't quite). I measure the width of my wrist at a shade over 50mm and so when I wear a watch like my Seiko SRPE (with just over 44mm lug to lug) I'm more comfortable with that being the maximum size I like to wear.

The Baltany is also nicely weighted at just over 55.3g (no strap, with spring bars). This is also very close to  my Seiko (which is a mechanical and an automatic so it must include a weight for the winding rotor) which weighs just over 59.6g. I'd call them near enough to equal.

Hand placement

This is pretty good in my view, although not perfect on the chronograph seconds, the critical ones are entirely sufficient. Shown  below is the chrono stopped at just shy 54 seconds

Its bloody hard to read this by eye as even the non-magnified image is going to be bigger than it looks at wrist distance when you're also doing something (like driving) and can't just stare at it to be sure. I guess being myopic helps (but I'm long sighted so it doesn't).

This is where things stop being so nice.

Wots not so good

The dial is a bit busy and the lume is shit. The large sword hands obscure the ability to read the Chrono more often than I'd anticipate. 

Its not the watches fault, but why the hell did Seiko make the minute counter 60 minutes per rotation rather than 30? 30 Min would mean it would be much easier to read the chronograph minutes (having twice the space per minute). C'mon fellas ... there's a reason why Omega and Seagull did that.

Next I'm going to say finishing. Now this needs defining a bit, because to most reviewers on YouTube (notice I'm not on YouTube here) the term "finishing" only seems to refer to if a surface is brushed or polished. To me finishing means that edges are not sharp (meaning feeling like "that's sharper than a my cutlery knife") this is done by some amount of bevelling or chamfering. Lets take a look at what to the naked eye (meaning no macro lens) this edge (red arrows) appears as a "sharp" delineation ...

and in the blue elipse there is some sort of chamfer making it easier to put a strap in and it not rub against the watch case (damaging my leather strap, which happened). Note also the complexity of the curves in making the case and the lugs? Difficult to do. Note that even my Pagani had a go (rather rough) of making a chamfer for the strap (full blog post on that here)

Now lets compare that to the case of the Baltany

Hard, flat and sharp, much cheaper to machine. Indeed from the side here you can see that the curve on the lugs actually lifts the watch off the table. This is both good and bad. Its good because it puts the strap attachment place more in line with the curve of the strap so that its not clamping your watch onto your arm with pressure (this is more exacerbated with a smaller wrist) but its bad because it brings the lugs much closer to you (and can poke into you with a simple single pass strap).

Lets look at 2 other watches I have the Seiko and the Pagani Design Speedmaster homage

You can compare with other watches you have, but aside from wrist rolls and faffing about with words like "how the light plays off the watch" (and I'm like FFS, haven't you ever seen a Christmas Tree decoration ball?) I've not seen any direct mention of this issue.

The careful eye will observe that I've actually used a diamond file on the edge of the Pagani and put a small bevel on it, because it was about sharp enough to cut. The careful eye will also notice that my Seiko has some evidence of the (almost daily) wear its had since 2020.

Straps are tight, due to a lack of thought about the lug drill location. Its so tight  you can barely thread a NATO in. The spring bar visible here is 1.8mm in thickness ...

... and another spring bar will not pass through between it and the case, meaning its impossible to fit in a "luxury" NATO strap without removing the spring bars.

Further because that edge is so sharp there it shaved the polish off my strap (and I had to remove the normal spring bar to enable me to release my strap without more damage.

This is the only watch I have which is like this.

Getting back to the chamfer I spoke of, its present also on knobs, this means its actually part of good. You can see its presence on the edges of the grip for the screw down covers on the chronograph pushers and its also present on the crown too. 

More than I can say for the Pagani which was also just a straight cut without any chamfer.

So the crown finish and the grips on the screw down locks on the pushers are good.

As you can see here on a crown there are cuts in to give grip (the red line) and then a chamfer to make it not so sharp. 

I call that part of "finishing".

Going back to the above macro of my watch, you may also notice a strange discolouration around the knobs, yes that's visible with the magnifying glass, but again its nothing you'd spot by eye (probably).

I'll update this in the morning with the view of the Lume (which I expect will be good). 

Bottom line

If I knew this and had access to sharp eyed reviews I perhaps wouldn't have bought this watch, instead for little less money I'd buy a Seiko (who makes that VK67 movement BTW) or a Pulsar (a sub brand of Seiko) and probably be able to get to try it on in a shop before. 

Instead almost every review on YouTube spouted the same stuff (almost like a bunch of AI's copying each other).

Still the thing which really stands out on this watch is the effect that the AR coated Sapphire crystal has on visibility. Its fantastic. 

Would that really tip my hand if I knew all this then? Dunno.

This underscores my experience of Chinese watches. You can get something you can't otherwise easily get, from China on Ali (such as an ST19xx movement in a fully mechanical watch or a cheap homage of a much more expensive watch) and at a good price. But if you just believe every YouTuber out there you can get suckered into thinking that quality of finish you have come to expect (even in a cheap Seiko) just isn't there..

Live and Learn I say.

Still, no harm done, because the difference would be only a few bucks and all I bought was a chinese case and assembly and got a Sapphire crystal thrown in for a few bucks.

Wearing for a week

Its interesting, the dial looks like it'll be easy to read, but in many cases isn't. For instance:

• its often the case that I can't see the chrono sub dials because the hands are so thick (interestingly the original Omega never suffers from this, nor the Phylida (if only that was a proper 3 dial chrono not a 2 dial chrono with a useless hour hand added) either
• in lower light you need to get some reflections off that chrono seconds hand because the little red tip is nigh impossible to find fast (and when driving and timing things you don't want to stare at it)
• really, who the hell thought dividing an itty bitty sub dial into 60 seconds rather than 30 seconds would be smart. You have to be TOTALLY sure that you're seeing 15 not 14 or 16 minutes
• the lack of quick change on the minute counter is not just a feature its a must because at 30seconds or so then guessing the measured minutes is pretty much a coin flip (not least because the hands are not placed with scientific instrument precision)

Watch feels nice on and the above mentioned lug design really does (IMO) make it more comfortable on the smaller wrist (mine's 6.5").

Time keeping accuracy of the watch is of course everything you'd expect from a Seiko VK movement, 2 seconds a week.