The last giveway I posted, no one came and participated, here comes a new giveaway. I ordered a Guanqin watch to set as a prize, it is a full stainless steel watch with quartz movement that offers functions of hours, minutes, seconds, day and date. This watch has a good finish.
To participate the giveaway, please follow the rules:
1.Please share the url link of any of the articles on my blog to one of the watch forums.
2.Please send a email message to show the above mentioned work you did. My email address is berrymoon86@gmail.com.
Prize:
One winner will be chosen and I will send you this Guanqin watch for free, also no need you to pay shipping fee.
For most watches made in China, they are just copying the designs from the Switzerland, but Sea-gull is the only Chinese watch on which sometimes I can still find creative designs, take this 1051 models as example, this is a watch Sea-gull launched in 2024, but it soon caught a lot of attention after being released in the market because of its unique dial design. The most outstanding and popular 1051 model from Sea-gull is the one with colored blocks on the dial, please check the first picture shown below, but this time I chose the ice blue dial version, which will be more like a watch I can wear regularly.
Check the first picture, the watch’s dial will remind many Chinese people of their childhood, especially the happy time in the generation after 80s, watching TV is a very happy time when they are childs, but the TV will have a maintenance time on Tuesday each week, I think most of them will remember this event. So, Sea-gull absolutely adopts the maintenance scene of the TV as the dial design of the watch.
This Sea-gull watch with an ice blue dial also looks amazing, its case shape is very similar to that of the old TV, actually there are other brands that have already adopted this idea on the case of their watches, this is not originated from Sea-gull. However, the TV scene on the dial is a very creative Chinese element Sea-gull added. The case is 36mm in diameter, with this ice blue dial, I think it will also be a good watch for women. A silver dial option is also available for this watch, with more obvious sunburst finish on the dial. The case is not a frame with sharp edge design, but looks more round on every corner, which guarantees a very comfortable wear. The round bezel has a polished finish that looks contrast in visual with the brushing on the case. Just like the contrast finish on the stainless steel bracelet.
The ice blue dial has long stick hour markers, day and date window with stainless steel frame is set at 3 o’clock, they do not look crowded on this small dial. Besides the TV dial, ice blue and silver dial, Sea-gull also offers a lot of other dial colors for this watch.
The watch is equipped with a Sea-gull ST2100 automatic movement, which beats 28,800 times per hour and has 28 jewels. The accuracy will not be bad if you remember to keep winding a bit every day. However, its price is a little high, for Chinese customers, they won’t mind spending a bit more on such a empathy timepiece.
Last time, in another post(https://www.bobswatchstore.com/2024/05/11/farasute-watch-review/) I said I bought one watch from Farasute for a friend in the United States, it is a good-looking watch, although the watch gained one minute and fifty seconds later, I thought he still loves it, and more importantly, this last shopping experience with Farasute is good, because I was normally treated as a customer. But the shopping experience with them, which just occured one week ago, was very bad. This is What Happened:
One reader saw my review about the first Farasute watch I mentioned above, he asked me to buy one for him, the following pictures show the watch I bought, it looks great, I think some of you guys will also love this dial. When I placing the order on taobao for this watch, I did not mentioned with the seller that this is a watch ordered for a friend in the United Kingdom, after receiving the watch, I was not satisfied with the watch. I paid the same money as the last one, but the movement decoration on this one is terrible, it is just a naked movement. And the box looks ugly. My UK friend did not want it.
My problem is I paid the same money, why I got a watch that looks lower quality for the second purchase, because I did not mention this is an order from UK? They treated Chinese customers and foreign customers differently.
The first Farasute I bought, very good-looking movement and box.
The following pictures show the second Farasute watch I am not satisified with.
We all know that Benyar is a watch brand registered under Guangzhou Pagani Design Watch Company, so it is the sub-brand of Pagani Design, this has been widely recognized in watch forums, both come from China and are being sold very well abroad. Pagani Design watches are very cheap and are targeting low-end watch market, while their Benyar watches are even cheaper than Pagani Design, that’s crazy, do you know how much I spent on this BY5177? Only $25, that’s unimaginable, because for most automatic watches, even made in China, it is difficult to buy at such a low price.
How is the quality of this watch? If they sell this watch at $30 and include shipping fee, then you can buy one to try, do not pay express shipping like FedEx or DHL, not worthy, and do not expect too much on this watch. I do not know how to say, however, sometimes such type of low-end automatic watch can surprise you because it can last for a long time. If you want to pay only $30 to get a high quality or middle quality watch, then this Benyar watch must be not your choice.
After receiving this watch, I was surprised that it came with a black box that contains everything inside, you know many watch brands do not provide these accessories, like the Beijing watch I bought last time, which does not include a manual book inside, this is not normal, because Beijing is one of the big threes in China. The first impression the Benyar watch gave me is it is too thick, later I measured, almost 13.5mm, the case diameter is 41mm. And later I felt the entire watch is too rounded, I mean, its case does not have angular sense, entirely polished case with simply brushed stainless steel bracelet, there is an obvious gap between the lug and the end link, the gap also exists between the bezel and case body, if you can accept these obvious shortcomings, that’s ok. Although the watch does not have good polishing and brushing on case and bracelet, it is surely made with solid stainless steel, because the watch has a weight of 150.6 grams.
Fortunately the watch comes with a see-through crystal back, the movement inside is a G2666Z, which is a very low-end automatic movement made in China, nowadays, even the cheapest fakes do not use this movement, with this movement, do not expect that your watch can keep a very accurate timing, by the way, you need to wind your watch at least once each day to gain enough power.
For this Benyar BY5177, my conclusion:
It is a watch that can just tell you a basic time.
Cheap finish on case and bracelet, which is not as good as its brother watch Pagani Design. However, this watch has been high recognized by watch fans who are looking for homages, they are happy with the watch when receiving it. You can see many reviews online about this watch, most saying its quality is acceptable, you get what you pay for, after all its price is around $30, please check at https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_oD7cF5R
Every Chinese knows Beijing watch, while it seems like they are not as popular as those micro brands, I do not see too much talking about Beijing watches in watch forums and Reddit, those watch fans seem more likely to buy micro brand watches to enrich their watch collection. However, not every micro brand watch has a trusted quality, after all, most people are attracted by their more affordable prices. While the big three watch companies in China, including Sea-gull, Beijing and Shanghai, have already established a relatively good reputation in watch industry. There are a lot of watch brands in China, if classified by level, Beijing should belong to the highest tier 0 level, while I think their high-end tourbillon watches and enamel watches make the greatest contribution to make Beijing have such a high position in Chinese watches industry, and our watch fans, whether in Italy, France, UK, USA or other countries, are more familiar with the dragon dial watches and tourbillon watches from Beijing. But there are also some good quality watches with cheap prices and good styles from Beijing, just like this watch I just bought from them.
It is a full stainless steel made watch, I bought it because of its Bauhaus dial style and they said they will also send me a free leather band, but they did not, and in the box, which is hard to draw out, there is no manual book. On the card, all information such as purchasing date is empty. These information sometimes are important to our watch fans, they shouldn’t ignore this.
This Beijing watch has a round polished case that is 40.1mm in diameter, 10.9mm in thickness. The weight of the entire watch is about 90.1 grams, not heavy for a full stainless steel watch because it has a hollow mesh bracelet. Its dial has a very simple and easily readable design with black hour markers and minute markers in white dial background. For Beijing watch, making it different from other micro brand watches in China is that they do not have compromise in the finish of some tiny places, for example, on this watch, the Beijing logo on the dial is tridimensional, the date window has layered silver frame, the clasp has a more secure locking method, these are tiny details, which may not be well finished on some micro brand watches, but are finished perfectly on this Beijing watch.
This watch is sold at less than $100, it comes with a see-through crystal back with an automatic movement that looks like Citizen 8215, well, the watch has been on my wrist for three days and still keeps a very accurate time.
Baltany is a micro brand that produces watches in Dongguan, Guangdong of China, I did an introduction of Baltany in my previous articles, today, I want to talk more about this brand by introducing a new watch I just bought from them, because I love Baltany more after reading “About” on their website. Here I posted two screenshots I took from the “About”. From the first picture below, we can know the type of watches Baltany is producing, yes, they are redesigning and making the vintage watches that had appeared in old time, I appreciate this because this is also the thing which I have been wanting to do. I want to create a micro brand and remake these retro watches, is there anyone here interested in this project, we can do together. From the second picture, they said they are a small company in Asia, actually in China, they are honest, not like some other micro brands in China that like making up a false Swiss watch-making history. By the way, Baltany also accepts custom-made watch orders.
Now I will introduce the watch that was just bought from Baltany. The watch came to me very fast, I received the package three days ago, opened the package and found a draw-out box, there is a brown leather packet and an envelope inside. When I opened that brown leather packet, I was surprised, because the small hand is still working and the watch keeps an accurate time. Inside the envelope, there are white cloth, card, manual book and screw driver. I like the brown leather packet, it is the most beautiful watch packing, and compared with the box of other micro brands from China, this leather packet is more in line with the watch production DNA of Baltany.
It is a small watch with a cushion-shaped case and looks like the old Rolex watch with first Oyster case in 1926, you can see keywords “1926”, “Oyster” and “Tribute” on the product title on their website, which mean Baltany redesigned this watch to pay tribute to the first Rolex Oyster watch made in 1926. The watch is small, its case is measured to be 39.5mm in diameter, including the crown, you can see the big threaded onion crown without trademark. The case is about 11.4mm thick, including the crystal. The width between the two lugs is 18.1mm. The watch adopts fully mirror polishing finish, the threaded bezel is the fluted bezel feature on modern Rolex, it is in golden color that has the same bright polishing finish as the case.
The black dial is under the protection of a domed sapphire crystal, the hour markers have been applied with the luminous material that has the same color as the golden bezel, small second hand is running on the subdial at 6 o’clock, three hands have polishing finish on the edge. The track-style minute scale looks very classic.
The Baltany watch is equipped with the Sea-gull ST1701, which is automatic, not manual winding. ST1701 has a power reserve of about 40 hours, 20 jewels and beat frequency of 21,600 bph. Any way, the watch still keeps an accurate time within this week, only several seconds faster.
The watch has a black leather strap, which has a smooth leather on the front side and calfskin grain on the other side that contacts your skin. The leather band is fitted with a polished golden pin buckle.
Conclusion:
Baltany is one of my most favorite Chinese watch brands, almost all of the watches produced by them are vintage styles, I like vintage watches, and in my collection, I have several vintage models, I love this Baltany 1926 and the Explorer. This Baltany watch is a great re-edition of the original Oyster watch published in 1926. With modern watch-making technology, many classic designs of the old Oyster watch are reproduced by Baltany. The 39.5mm case makes the watch a good fit for most mens wrist, the watch also uses a good Sea-gull movement that can offer a durable stability. By the way, the leather packet comes with the watch is perfectly in line with the style of the watch. Such type of vintage watches can also bring you a lot of fun by changing different leather bands on. If you are interested in this watch, please check it on their official website at https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_oklahdr
About Binger, actually I do not know too much about this brand, just do not buy from this watch company now, I saw all watches on their website(https://bingerstore.com/) were sold out, means they do not sell them now. Also on their aliexpress site, there are only four watches left. I guess that they will quit the watch industry, too many niche watch brands have appeared in recent years, they can not compete.
Like other niche brands, Binger also made up a watch-making history, they said they came from Switzerland, this always can not cheat people who are outside of China, but works for some customers in China who know little about watches. At the beginning of their business, that’s about more than ten years ago, Binger used good sapphire crystal face and has good finish, their watches were more well-known in China than in other places. Well, people are now more acceptable to those homages than the watches that look like Binger, that’s the main reason why they can not run their business now.
Guanqin, about this Chinese brand, I already have introduced its watch-making history in one of my previous articles https://www.bobswatchstore.com/2022/04/08/guanqin-tonneau-shaped-watch-the-skeleton-beauty-of-mechanical-watch/, Guanqin is not old or very new, it has some customers in China, but not too many. Besides, the customers of Guanqin do not have a young age now, most of them are over 40 years old, or even older, and many customers who have bought Guanqin watches are not well educated, people here who have graduated from college won’t choose Guanqin watch. That is my opinion, I do not know how you think of this brand.
Does Guanqin succeed in Chinese watch market? Yes, their watches are accepted by a small group of customers, and prices are very affordable. In recent years, many niche watch brands appeared in China, but none of them have succeeded like Guanqin.
Does Guanqin have boutiques in China and in other countries? No. They have an office in Guangzhou and online stores in Taobao.
My advice:
If you want a mechanical watch from Guanqin, just choose the best seller with a very affordable price, the fewer functions the watch has, the better finish the watch will have, the watch will also be more stable. Just like this Guanqin I show below, it is the cheapest automatic watch from them, works very well, case and bracelet have moderate finish. Overall quality is acceptable.
How about the popularity of Shanghai watch? I do not know how popular it is in your country, maybe you have not heard of this brand, but Shanghai watch had been very hot during a period in China, I still remembered when I was a child, there were two Shanghai watch in a drawer in my father’s house, they have elastic stainless steel bracelet, look like couple watches, later I know they were purchased when my father and mother got married. At that time, in China, every couple will buy Shanghai watches when they are getting married. I think Shanghai watch was even more popular than Sea-gull.
I like to collect watches, I have several pieces of Shanghai watches, and this silver white is my third Shanghai watch. I seldom wear Shanghai watch in my daily life, I will choose to wear it when I go dating in a restaurant. This silver white Shanghai watch is not for every one, but I think it is a very good gift for your father, young people may not like this watch, because it does not look sporty and does not have a bold design, all you can see from the watch is its elegance.
This watch has some similarity to one of the Longines watches I have seen, its case is measured to be 39mm in diameter and thickness is about 11mm. Stainless steel case and bracelet are polished, with round and smooth bezel. All details on the dial just show you how elegant the watch is. There are artistic Arabic numbers in black to be used as hour markers. The lattice on the center enhances the elegance of the entire watch. Hour hand, minute hand and second hand are blued stainless steel. Minute markers are on a beveled inner bezel, which adds the space sense of the dial.
The watch has functions of hours, minutes, seconds, date and week. The crown is not screw down, you can directly wind the watch, pull out the crown to the first position to adjust the week display, and then adjust the date by rotating the crown in another direction. Pull out the crown to the second position to adjust time. Through the crystal back, we can see the movement, do you know where this movement come from? It seems not to be developed by Shanghai Watch Factory.
The watch keeps time accurate, I have had the watch for one week, its inaccuracy is about 13 seconds each day. There is also a two tone model for this watch, it is really a good watch for those people who want to know better about Chinese watches.
It is the first giveaway on my blog, but there will be more in future, you can add my blog to your bookmark, or subscribe my youtube channel, which is @ketriciaferguson5957.
There are three rules for this giveaway:
1.Please share one post of my blog to reddit.com, or to any other watch forums.
2.Subscribe my youtube channel @ketriciaferguson5957
Contact me via email berrymoon86@gmail.com, in email message, please send me the link you have posted and tell me your youtube. One winner will be chosen on November 30. Random choose.
Very simple. Easy to get a watch.
The prize will be one digital watch, brand is Synoke, this watch is cheap, but it is the toughest digital watch I have ever seen, if you have seen the three tests I made on it in the past, you will know how high quality this watch is. Please check the test videos again below.
