Categories
Merkur

Merkur Pierre Paulin Panda Style Watch Review

Merkur Pierre Paulin

Merkur, which is a young Chinese watch brand, now has owned a great reputation abroad. I usually visited their website and found that many people bought their watches, at the same time they left good feedback. About their sales store on aliexpress, they have an almost ninety-eight percent of positive feedback, a lot of other Chinese brands can not achieve such a high rate. Each watch Merkur has produced has their own features that make them different from other Chinese watches, I like them so much, I want to choose one at least from each of their series, now this Pierre Paulin is the second watch I bought from Merkur.

Merkur Pierre Paulin Stainless Steel Case
Merkur Pierre Paulin Chrono

The watch I bought from Merkur watch company is a sub-brand, which has a name “Pierre Paulin”. I like this watch because it shows the elegance to the maximum, but keeps a little sporty feature and retro flavor. The watch is a chronograph model, the chronograph function works, it uses a Sea-gull TY2901 movement that offers a working chrono. You can push the two buttons on the case to operate the chronograph, when the button at 2 o’clock is pressed down, the central silver second hand will move, if you want to stop the second, press down this button again. When the button at 4 o’clock is pushed, the central second-chronograph hand will be reset to zero, which is precisely at 12 o’clock on the big dial.

Merkur Pierre Paulin White Dial

I like its white dial, the two black small dials like the two eyes of a Panda, I remember Rolex also has the Panda Daytona, just like this design. Two small dials, one is for small seconds display at 9 o’clock, the 30-minute chronograph counter is positioned at 3 o’clock. The dial has a high readability because it only uses white and black color, all hands and hour markers are in silver tone. The printings of “PIERRE PAULIN” indicates the designer name of the watch. The panda dial has white tachymetre scales on the outermost circle in black.

Merkur Pierre Paulin Movement

The Merkur Pierre Paulin is equipped with a Sea-gull TY2901 movement, it is hand-winding and looks like a copy of the Venus 75 movement. Usually this movement is used by most Chinese brand watches that has a chrono feature but with very reasonable prices. The movement has 21 rubines and a frequency of 21,600 times per hour. The Sea-gull TY2901 is a perfect match for this retro-style Pierre Paulin Panda watch. Besides the manual winding movement and panda dial, the third retro element on the watch is shown through its arched acrylic face.

Merkur White Wrist Shot

The watch has a black leather band that features fabric textures and white stitching. For this white panda dial version, Merkur also offers one stainless steel bracelet option.

Categories
CIGA Design

CIGA Design Z Series DLC Skeleton Watch Review

CIGA Design PVD Black Watch with Box

This is my second CIGA Design watch I received several days ago, it looks very cool and is my most favorite tonneau-shaped Chinese watch.

The history of CIGA Design is very young, but this brand has made a lot of amazing models which we are very pround of, some CIGA Design watches even received important awards from abroad, many people are talking this Chinese brand now. I like CIGA Design, this is the second watch I bought from them, the first one is the X Series Gorilla model. This CIGA Design watch has a full black outlook, I love it, the design of its case and dial is a highlight of the entire watch. I think every one who likes sports style watches will choose it.

CIGA Design PVD Black
CIGA Design Box

The case is made with 316L stainless steel, its surface has a thick DLC black coating, which not only increases the hardness of the case, but also enhances its corrosion resistance. The case has a width of 40.8mm, not including the crown, its height is 48mm, case thickness is 12.3mm, the DLC coating is thick and black color can last a long time, so that the entire watch can keep a cool black outlook for a long time.

CIGA Design Skeleton Dial

The arc-shaped crystal is sapphire that is highly scratch-resistant and is perfectly installed. Under the sapphire crystal, it is the skeleton dial, where you can the golden balance wheel and gears and other machine parts, it looks like skeleton is a big feature of al. most all popular CIGA Design watches. The red color usage on central hands makes the dial more readable. There are white hour markers and minutes scales on the beveled inner bezel, together with the skeletonized dial structure, they give the entire dial a three-dimensional visual effect.

CIGA Design See-through Case Back

CIGA Design claims that they use a Sea-gull automatic movement in this watch, I am not sure if they use a real Sea-gull, I do not know the model of the movement, maybe it is a basic Sea-gull movement, which has a beating frequency of 21,600 times per hour and 40-hour power reserve, well, maybe the watch can not work 40 hours continuously after being fully winded, I tested it, about 32 hours, that’s ok, I suggest you wind it every morning.

CIGA Design Black Watch in Box

The CIGA Design watch has a black rubber band, which feels very soft, the rubber band also suitable to wear in hot summer, it does not have a bad smell and also dust proof. By the way, the watch comes with one pair of black leather straps, which is free. Besides this DLC black version, CIGA Design also offers three stainless steel models with rubber straps in different colors, there are black, red and blue.

CIGA Design Watch Wrist Shot
CIGA Design Rubber Strap
CIGA Design Pin Buckle
Categories
Sea-gull

Sea-gull Ultra-thin – the most elegant Chinese dress watch for men

Sea-Gull Small Seconds

This Sea-gull ultra-thin is a combination of elegance of quality, it is the best dress watch I like among my Chinese watches collection.

Sea-gull is the most famous Chinese watch brand, it was established in 1955 in Tianjin of China, during the sixty-six years of development, Sea-gull has laid a solid foundation for the watch-making industry of China and also made a huge contribution, Sea-gull is one of the few watch companies in China that can develop movements by themselves, they are also one of the biggest movement manufacturers in the world, many luxury brands now also buy movements from Sea-gull. I always think Sea-gull is the boss among so many Chinese watch brands, it is the only watch manufacturer in China that owns watchmaking techniques of tourbillon, perpetual calendar and minute repeater. If you want to buy a Chinese watch, I will recommend Sea-gull first.

Sea-Gull Watch Unboxing

The Sea-gull watch I am going to review here has a classic Bauhaus style, with an ultra-thin case design, the watch reveals the superior watch-making craftsmanship of Sea-gull. I received this watch in a Sea-gull box, there is also a manual book in Chinese comes with in the box, I immediately decided to use this Sea-gull watch as my first dress watch choice when I opened the package, I love it very much.

The watch has a reference of 819.17.6004, its case has a diameter of 39mm and is measured to be only 8mm in thickness, the silver case is fully polished and made with 316L stainless steel, round bezel, angular lugs with smooth corners, the case has a classic Bauhaus design style. The crown has a “S” logo in sanded finish, which looks very nice, the crown is very small but I found no inconvenience when rotating it to adjust time. The case back has engraving info about waterproof depth, model number and case material, the case back is screwed down and integrated with the case seamlessly.

Sea-Gull Small Seconds White

The dial is white in matte, the dial looks familiar and has somewhat a similar design with Nomos. Each hour marker, including the numbers 3, 9 and 12, uses black and has a big size, with the central hour and minute hand, it is very easy to read time, just need a glance. A sunken small dial at 6 o’clock features a small seconds hand, also in blue color, this blue color used on the watch highlights the entire watch.

Sea-Gull Thin Case

The movement uses Sea-gull in-house ST17, which is manual winding and has a beat frequency of 21,600 times per hour. The thickness of movement is about 3.22mm, so it achieves an ultra-thin case that is only 8mm. I have this watch for more than 11 days since I received it, the watch still works very accurate, only 4 seconds faster each day. By the way, the watch can work about 40 hours continuously once giving it a full winding. The Sea-gull Ultra-thin is my first hand-winding mechanical watch.

Sea-Gull Engraving on Buckle
Sea-Gull Genuine Leather
Sea-Gull Buckle

I chose a black leather band for this watch, the band feels a little stiff at the first time, but it became soft and comfortable to wear in next days. For this watch, Sea-gull also offers a stainless steel bracelet option. Besides, if you are interested in other Sea-gull watches, please check their official site, there you can find a lot of styles, including dress, military, diving or tourbillon.

Sea-Gull White Dial
Sea-Gull Wrist Shot