Pulled The Trigger : Maranez Rawai Brass-Green California

So, there I was reading through e-mails from fellow readers when I saw a few e-mails with regards to the new Maranez Rawai. Now I knew that Maranez was a micro-brand based in Hong Kong, that has a few watch models paying homage to Panerai designs of the past. The movements used in their watches were the dependable Seiko NH35 hacking automatic- Japanese' equivalent of the Swiss workhorse ETA 2824-2 in bare form.

The readers asked if I could do a review on the Maranez Rawai, and I thought that I would look into that some day. Thereafter, while I was surfing through a watch forum site, I read a thread about Maranez Rawai again; and at that deja vu moment, I thought that I should just take a look at this micro-brand's new model and gauge for myself what was the hype all about.

I went to their site and read that the said Maranez Rawai's specifications were as per the following :

Model: Maranez Rawai
Movement: NH35 automatic
Case diameter: 45mm excluding the crown - lug to lug 56mm - height 18mm - weight on leather strap 166g
Case material: Brushed brass with stainless steel case back
Bezel: 120 clicks brushed brass with  lumed pin at 12 
Crown: Screw down brass crown 11mm
Crystal: Acrylic (double domed)
Dial: Black, green,blue, or brown, indices with Super Luminova
Water-resistance: 300m/1000ft                                         
Strap: 24mm leather one dark and one light brown
Buckle: Brushed brass

Now, there were 2 types of metals for the model i.e. stainless steel and brass/bronze, with many customisation options for dials. Normal RRP sans promotion was USD349 (circa RM1,300). A very decent price for a brass watch, in my humble opinion.

I decided to go for the Brass-Green California option, which looked as per the following :

From the pictures of the Maranez Rawai, you could gauge that it was paying homage to the Panerai Egiziano. Of course, that was a limited edition rare piece that had a gigantic 60mm case as per the following :

There were other homages from other brands on the Panerai piece, and I believe that Maranez's piece were more similar to RWC's homage piece as per the following :

If I had chosen Maranez Rawai in Stainless Steel-Black Sandwich, it would have looked rather similar as per the following :

Well, I still prefer the Brass version with California dial for the differentiation, as I was not looking at picking up a clone for the Panerai Egiziano. I would perform a review on the Maranez Rawai pursuant to receipt of the said watch. Do keep your eyes peeled on this blog, fellow readers.

PS : I had barely put up this post and in less than 2 hours, 5 fellow readers asked if I could assist them to put in a purchase too. That's an additional 5 Maranez Rawai watches in various guises. One of them explained that he had his watch withheld in custom before so he was more worried about online orders from overseas. I supposed I was lucky in that regard, as I have a business entity to bring in the watches into Malaysia legally. All for a good cause.