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If you haven’t previously owned a Nautica watch, they are extremely good value for money. Considering the build quality of Nautica watches, they are extremely underpriced compared to commercial rivals.
Obviously Nautica are not a luxury brand that makes high end watches. But in terms of entry-level quartz watches, Nautica are surprisingly tough to beat in terms of style and ruggedness.
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About Nautica
Nautica is a fashion brand that was first created in 1983 by designer David Chu. The company produces various clothes, apparel, fragrances and watches. Suited to it’s name, the brand always has a nautical theme throughout its various collections. This can be seen on its watch dials which are often decorated with sailing flags.
Given that the brand is based around nautical themes, it makes sense that they are involved in ocean conservation work with the charity Oceana. You can find out more about this work on their website.
The American brand is truly an international company with over 290 stores in over 65 different countries. Over the past 30 years, the brand has changed hands through various acquisitions 3 times. It is currently owned by the Authentic Brands Group (ABG) who also own the rights to other brands such as Juicy Couture, Forever 21 and Tapout.
Despite being a brand based around the Ocean, most Nautica watches are not suitable for diving. Although almost all models are water resistant to great depths, it costs a lot of money to create a dive watch which can withstand huge pressure. Due to the fact that Nautica is a fashion brand and people will not wear their watches for activities such as scuba diving, it would not be worth the brand investing in this technology. It should also be noted that Nautica only make watches exclusively for men, they do not have a womens range of watches.
Is Nautica A Luxury Watch Brand?
Where Are Nautica Watches Made?
Nautica watches are made in China. For the most part, Nautica uses Miyota (Japanese quartz) movements in all of its watches. These movements are very commonly used in fashion watches by various brands such as Michael Kors, Hugo Boss & Coach.
Who Manufactures Nautica Watches?
Nautice watches are made by Timex. This is a standard licensing agreement in which Timex make watches on behalf of Nautica. Timex also manufacture watches branded by Guess and Versace. Once again, this is fairly common in the fashion industry as it is extremely difficult to set up a watch brand without the expertise.
How Much Is A Nautica Watch Worth?
Nautica watches typically sell for anywhere between $75-$200 from online retailers such as Amazon. If you’re buying from a brick and mortar store, you can probably expect this price range to be $150-$400 as the store has a lot more overheads and is a smaller business.
How Durable Are Nautica Watches?
Nautica watches are pretty long lasting. They are made by Timex (which is a good thing) so the quality controls will be high compared to Chinese fashion brands.
As a company, Nautica use various materials for both watch cases and straps. Obviously 316L grade stainless steel is going to be the same across the board, no matter who uses it. Nautica does not use sapphire crystal, but instead mineral glass. This is cheaper and will scratch a lot easier, but the overall price of the watch reflects this.
The movement of the watch (Miyota) should last for at least 10 years, although you will have to change the battery every 2-3 years. It’s likely that you will get bored of your watch or buy a new one long before it stops working.
If you weren’t convinced by this, Nautica offers a 5 year US warranty. This should remove any doubts that their watches are not decent quality.
Are Nautica Watches Good Value For Money?
Yes, on the whole Nautica watches are very good value for money. When you compare Nautica with other fashion brands, they are considerably cheaper. Typically if you look the prices of various rival brands on a website such as Amazon, you can see that companies like Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger are anywhere from 30%-100% more expensive.
Considering Nautica watches have their own distinct style with the same movement inside the watch, they are good value for money. The materials Nautica uses are very similar to rival brands and they are also manufactured in the same country.
Even if you compare Nautica to other Timex produced watches such as Guess and Versace. They are still a cheaper price for a similar specification.
Is Nautica A Respected Brand?
Nautica is obviously not in the same watchmaking league as fine Swiss brands such as Rolex or Audemars Piguet. After all, it is a fashion brand that primarily makes clothes rather than watches.
With that being said, the company does have it’s own unique style and design when it comes to watches. Nautica timepieces are not marketed at the same audience who are buying MVMT, Daniel Wellington or Michael Kors watches. Instead, the brand is appealing to a more outdoors based fashion market, rather than creating rose gold watches with diamante dials.
The Nautica brand is generally well respected because it does not overprice its watches, sticks to a solid design format and manufactures decent quality watches which are very good value for money.
The Best Nautica Watches
N83 Solar
The best thing about this particular N83 model is that it is solar powered. N83 is one of the biggest ranges within the Nautica watch brand and it should be noted that not all watches use solar capacitors.
However, this particular model of N83 sticks to the usual nautical design of the company with a textured blue dial. Instead of relying on a battery, this watch will last a lot longer due to the fact that it uses energy from light sources. This means that you won’t need to do anything with the watch for around 10 years. If it ever runs out of power, just leave it by a window for a few days and it will be good to go.
Wesport
Nautica Wesport is a cheaper alternative to the Corum Admirals Cup watch which costs around 10-20x the price of this model. Most notably you will see that it has regatta style flags all around the bezel. There is no practical use for these, they are purely for design purposes.
The watch is well lumed as Nautica have managed to fit hour inidcators within the dial even though it is extremely busy. In addition to this the watch has a quartz based chronograph which is obviously going to be both accurate and reliable.
Galley
A galley is a long and flat ship that was used for piracy and warfare. It’s doubtful that you’ll be using this watch for either of those activities, but there aren’t too many boat themed names to give to watches.
This watch is an oversized chronograph which wears bigger than it measures. The case size is 46mm, although this will look bigger due to both the chronograph pushers and the massively oversized crown. Unusually, the chronograph pushers are square which is very rare to see. With that said, it does fit well with the overall look and design of this piece.
Bay Ho
The Nautica Bay Ho is a day-date watch with 3 subdials. As you can see, it does not have chronograph pushers, as this model does not have a stopwatch. Instead the subdials show 24 hour time, day of the month as well as day of the week.
Another atypical design, this watch has very large crown guards with a crown protector over the top. This is pretty much overkill and if the guards were this large, then a crown protector is certainly not needed. Although with that being said, they clearly were not designed like this for practical reasons but more to give the watch an oversized and fashionable look.
Hammock
Perhaps the most nautical themed Nautica watch of all is the hammock. As you will be able to see, the dial has textured waves akin to that of an Omega Seamaster. A watch which is both superior to the hammock, but also over 30 times the price.
The rusitc gold case color alongside the 4 o’clock crown position make the watch look very naval. Accompanied by this is the rugged edge of the bezel. This has 2 purposes, one to make it look like the wheel of an hold ship and secondly it will allow you to get an easy grip, should you want to turn it.
