E-mail from Reader : Bronze Diver at RM3,000 Budget

I received an e-mail over the weekend from a fellow reader whom asked for recommendations towards a bronze diver piece at a budget of circa RM3,000.

Given that I was in the same quandary a while back, it would be an easy recommendation from my side. But beware, if you were not a fan of micro-brands or dared not ventured into the dark side, you could stop reading right about now.

I like micro-brands. The ones that I have purchased todate were started from promoters whom were enthusiastic about watches too, so there were genuine affection from the project owners. But as with any micro brands, quality could be a hit-and-miss sometimes, depending on the batch or piece that was allocated to the buyer. They were buying parts and assembling these (or paying others to assemble for them), so they have no full control over the full processes involved. And warranty could be harder to claim as they may not have local service centres, so you would need to send the piece back to the originating countries for any repairs.

So with a micro-brand, you have to pray very hard that the piece that you received was good at the first count. Then, you would have no further issues. Servicing for the movement would mostly be a breeze, as the movements used typically were sourced from Miyota, Seiko, ETA and Selitta. Any watchsmith worth his salt could easily work on these movements.

Me? My luck has been good with micro-brands, all except for a Steinhart piece that had to be sent back to Germany but dealing with Mr Gunter was no issues. As mentioned earlier, the promoters of micro-brands were mostly enthusiasts too so it was easy as we spoke the same lingo if anything was to happen.

But I digressed. Coming back to the Bronze Diver at a budget of RM3,000, I would recommend one of the following :

1) Magrette Vantage Bronze (WR 500m) @ RM3,000 - from New Zealand;

2) Prometheus Poseidon Bronze (WR 3,500m) @ RM3,100 - from Portugal.

Both uses the Miyota 9015 hacking movement, which was rated in the same breath as ETA 2824-2 and had similar 28,800bps. This movement from Citizen Japan was a very reliable and dependable one, and servicing was essentially a walk in the park. So no worries about the movement there.

The Magrette Vantage had Panerai influences in its cushion case, while the Prometheus Poseidon had IWC influences. Granted that they were not original designs, but they inserted their own re-interpretations to make these pieces stood on their own. In any case, given the poor performances of the local currency in the international arena, getting another Bronze Diver with real WR specs and at just north of RM3,000, would not be that easy these days!

(PS : At circa RM3,000, take another look at the WR of the Bronze Divers listed above- Vantage @ 500m, and Poseidon @ 3,500m! Yes, that was not a typo!)

So, which would you choose given that pricing was almost similar between the two pieces above? I personally believed that both pieces warrant a look, and I liked both pieces in their own right -

so much so that I added Both pieces to my collection.

Give me some time for the reviews thereafter. In the meantime, these were from their respective websites :

1) Magrette Vantage Bronze :

2) Prometheus Poseidon Bronze :