Now, San Martin has become a high-end custom made watch brand in China, they have a successful development model, many brands now learn the way but none of them have been as successful as San Martin. If you have ever visited the official website of San Martin, you will know many of their watches are homages of Rolex, while San Martin watches are still sold very well abroad, it seems like a lot of watch fans in the world still like this brand. By the way, if you do not like the name “San Martin”, you can ask them to leave it empty or print another name on the dial, after all, San Martin is a custom made brand, they can do this job for you.
I like San Martin, I have always been on their website to search something interesting, sometimes I saw specific models which I did not see before, so I will search on google and find all details about them, to find the original model behind the homage watch. This San Martin watch is exactly such type of watch I have not seen before, I know it is a homage watch of Rolex when I first saw this watch on San Martin website, but I did not know which exactly Rolex model, I googled and found there is an old Rolex Explorer whose reference is 1016, yes, this San Martin watch is very similar to it. The Explorer 1016 has some features which can not be found on modern Rolex, let’s see if the San Martin has kept these features, this is a very interesting learning process.
The San Martin Explorer homage is made with 316L stainless steel, the case and bracelet are fully brushed, round and smooth bezel is polished, which forms a sharp contrast with the brushed finish on case and bracelet. The case has a diameter of 39mm, not including the crown, it is bigger than the vintage Rolex Explorer 1016, which is only 36mm, however, the 39mm is a more popular size for men. The case is 12.5mm in thickness, including the crystal, which is arched, so it makes the entire case thicker, by the way, San Martin used a sapphire crystal, it is an upgradation from the plexiglass on the vintage Explorer 1016. The lug width is about 20mm, now you can buy one nato band for this watch after knowing this data.
The black dial is very simple, it does not have a window to show the date, all you can see from the dial are hands and hour markers. Certainly, the retro yellow luminous material applied on hour markers and hands is the most eye-catching place of the watch, the San Martin recreates the classic 3-6-9 dial design of Explorer 1016. At night, you will see a strong green lume light emitting from the dial.
Inside the case, it is a Japan Epson YN55 automatic movement, which has 22 jewels and 40-hour power reserve, it is the first time for me to know this movement, it has a beat frequency of 21,600 times per hour. It is said that the inaccuracy of this movement is between 25 seconds to 35 seconds per day, this accuracy rate is acceptable to me, I did not spend too much for the watch, so I can not expect too much, the watch now is about 2 minutes faster after wearing it two weeks. Now, San Martin sells this watch at 35% discount off.
