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Reef Tiger is a hilarious (find out why later) Chinese brand that makes complex fashion watches, designed to look like luxury watches. In all fairness to the Reef Tiger company, they have really seized on a gap in the market. Before this brand came about, it was very difficult to find mechanical watches in this design format unless you wanted to spend 5 figures.
Since its inception, Reef Tiger has made a variety of budget watches that would have been unthinkable just 10 years ago such as a tourbillon, world time, dive watches, and various other models which are equally as complex.
Overall, the brand is very loud and garish. If you wear a Reef Tiger watch, it certainly won’t go unnoticed.
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Controversy Of The Reef Tiger Brand History
Reef Tiger is mentioned above as a brand which is hilarious. This is mostly due to the brand being a Chinese company that popped up 10 years ago, yet claims to have a history dating back to the 1800s. Whilst this story has taken in many people who are naive about watches. If you know anything about the history of horology or have good lie detection skills, Reef Tigers claim to not even begin to stand up.
Firstly, the brand is posing as a luxury watchmaker, yet mostly sells watches between $100-500 on Amazon. Not only this but their official website is strewn with spelling and grammar errors. For a brand that is selling watches, their English writing ability is pretty appalling. In all honesty, you would be able to find an online translator who could transform their entire website and brand image for well under $200.
Reef Tiger Brand Name History
To quote from the official history page on the brand’s website “Stephane Reef from Geneva and his lifetime friend the British nobility Leandro Tiger hold on the mutual dream of popularizing the wristwatch to the average person”.
Anyone born in the west, will likely never have heard the surname “Reef”. Perhaps it’s possible, but this would be somewhat of an unusual surname for somebody born in Switzerland. Even stranger is the British name “Leandro Tiger”. Neither of these names are British – and I have never met a westerner named Tiger.
Funnily enough, I do have a friend who was born in China with a name that roughly translates as “jumping tiger”. This is possibly where the brand came up with its name. They simply assumed that Chinese names directly translate into western names and ran with it.
Reef Tiger Business “History”
The brand’s history page claims that world war 2 led to the downfall of the brand. Whilst WW2 was not a good time for Europe at all, anyone who knows about Switzerland will know it has always been a neutral country. The demand for Swiss watches was actually quite high after the second world war. The incident which led to the downfall of the Swiss watch industry was the quartz crisis in the 1970s.
Another classic quote from the website is “It had to shut down all the experience centres” – whatever that means.
“Serevin Tiger”
Once again, directly from the official website is a picture of Leandro Tigers’ son – Serevin Tiger. Funnily enough, this is a picture of Arthur Conan Doyle. Perhaps the author of Sherlock Holmes was moonlighting as a watchmaker’s son in his spare time? If only a detective could solve this mystery.
Are Reef Tiger Watches Good Value For Money?
If the Reef Tiger brand did not fabricate its history, people would respect it a lot more. In terms of value for money, Reef Tiger is actually pretty good. They offer a huge variety of watches, some of which come very close to the designs of other brands, for a much cheaper price.
If you compare Reef Tiger to other brands which use the same movements (Miyota Automatic). You will generally find that the Chinese brand is pretty much on par with most of its competitors. Not only this, but Reef Tiger actually makes very modern and fashionable designs. If you like the style of Reef Tiger watches, there aren’t really any other brands making them for this price point.
Overall, it is a good idea to look past the Reef Tiger backstory if you like their designs. Their watches are really not bad quality at all and are good value for money.
Reef Tiger Vs Orient
You really would be hard pressed to find two more different brands.
Orient is a legitimate Japanese watchmaking brand, with a real history dating back to 1901. Whereas Reef Tiger are a Chinese brand with a very imaginative history dating back to the 1800s (but far more likely 2009).
Watch snobs may point their finger at Reef Tiger without actually knowing what is going on under the case. In all reality though, Reef Tiger movements are made by Miyota, whereas Orient movements are made by Epson (Seiko).
Therefore, in terms of movement quality, despite Orient getting a lot of praise, there isn’t too much difference in quality between them and Reef Tiger.
Despite all of this, Orient watches are generally exceptional value for money. Reef Tiger is actually pretty decent too, but Orient are pretty much the best value watches you can buy online. You can typically find Orient watches for well under $150, which is a real steal for what you’re getting.
In terms of design, you couldn’t get more chalk and cheese. Orient provides a very solid and vintage look, which won’t look out of sorts in the workplace. Reef Tiger on the other hand are extremely loud, oversized, and colorful. This is not to say one brand is better than the other, but overall Orient offers much better value for money. Whereas Reef Tiger allows people to buy watches of modern and garish designs which they wouldn’t have been able to get hold of if the brand didn’t exist. If you wanted a cheap tourbillon 10 years ago, you simply couldn’t get hold of one.
The 8 Best Reef Tiger Watches
Tourbillon
Derived from the design of the Junghans Meister Calendar. The Reef Tiger tourbillon is quite a striking watch and much more elegant than many of their other designs. At around the $1000 mark, this is pretty much the cheapest flying tourbillon movement you will be able to find. Much like other complicated technology, if the tourbillon had not been reverse engineered by Chinese companies, you would only be able to find a flying tourbillon for a price in the mid 5 figures.
In terms of longevity, the watch has not been tested over decades as it hasn’t been released for that long. Although it has lasted well since its release date. Of course, the watch is much more machine-finished than a Swiss-made tourbillon watch since this is mass-produced and designed to keep the costs down.
Aurora Tanker
First impressions of the Aurora Tanker are that it is absolutely giant. Bear in mind that the watch is not circular, so already looks a little bigger than normal. Its case size is 45mm and 22mm thick. Not only this, but it has a domed mineral crystal as well as a crown and pusher combination which hangs over the edge of the case. Based on this, the watch looks absolutely giant when worn on the wrist.
Not that you are buying it for this, but the watch also has a high level of practicality. It measures every metric of the date that you can think of such as year, month, day and week. For the price point, this is a pretty solid watch and a very original design.
World Time / Geographer
The Reef Tiger world timer is pretty much a direct alternative to the Jaeger Le-Coultre master geographic. The general shape of the case and colors on the dial are not identical, but we can clearly see where the ideas came from.
In fairness, this watch is an automatic, so Reef Tiger has put their efforts into making complications that are reasonably difficult to produce. The most difficult of which being the world time wheel at the bottom which scrolls through various world cities. In comparison to the master geographic, obviously this watch comes off second best by some way. With that being said, for the price, this is yet another great value watch from Reef Tiger.
Aurora
The Aurora is one of the cheapest Reef Tiger watches you can buy. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, this watch is quartz and not automatic like most of the other models. With that being said, the movement is made by Seiko, so there is no need to worry about reliability for this model. Secondly, the watch lacks a lot of complications that other models do. Other than a chronograph and date wheel, this watch is quite unremarkable when compared to the rest of the range.
Seattle
Strangely named the “Seattle”, I doubt even Reef Tiger can tell you why. As far as I can see, this watch has no history or connection with Seattle, or any American city for that matter.
If you are not fond of the blue dial, this is OK since the Seattle also comes in black and white. In particular the black looks very striking and there are not really many other open heart watches with black dials. So at least from this perspective, it is unique.
In addition to all of this, the Seattle is relatively inexpensive since it contains an automatic Seiko NH39A. The Reef Tiger price is considerably cheaper than you would pay for a Seiko watch running on the same movement.
Deep Ocean – Fifty Fathoms Alternative
As you can see, the Deep Ocean is Reef Tigers attempt at making a visual copy of the iconic Blancpain Fifty Fathoms watch. In terms of reliability and cost, the deep ocean is pretty good value for money and has a Seiko automatic movement. This means that you aren’t going to get let down in terms of mechanics.
On the other hand, if you were to use this as a dive watch, would you really trust a Chinese brand that has a very dubious history page? Probably not. If were to wear this as a fashion watch, it would be money well spent, but in terms of a dive watch, it is much safer to go with a reputable brand for the same price point. A company such as Seiko or Citizen would be a better alternative.
Transformer
A very strange-looking watch. The overall look of the transformer model looks like a Graham Chronofighter has been bred with something that Hublot decided they wouldn’t release.
On a positive note, this is an inexpensive automatic watch and is available in a variety of different colors. This is much more of a gamble than other Reef Tiger models since this watch uses a Seagull movement rather than a Seiko. Whilst they may appear to keep similar time to each other. Seagull is simply not finished to the standard of Epson movements.
Overall, unless you are really set on this style, there are other Reef Tiger watches you should consider before this model.
Bahaus
If you’re looking for a cheap Bahaus style watch, Reef Tiger offers this model which is simply great value for money. The watch has a simple layout with a day/date wheel in the standard 3 o’clock position. Not only this, but the watch is well under $300 with an automatic movement made by Seiko. In all seriousness, it’s very doubtful that you will find a Bahaus dial with such a movement for anywhere near this cost. Your only other choices for anything near this style would be Orient watches, which are of great quality, but not quite the same style as this model.
