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Not all watch companies have the same budget. If you’ve ever watched a sporting event such as golf, tennis or formula 1. There is no doubt that consciously (or subconsciously) you’ve seen advertisements littered around the area of play. These commercial adverts are broadcasted to millions of people around the world and get stuck in our brains like superglue. It’s no surprise then, that brands such as Tag Heuer and Rolex are instantly recognizeable.
Thats not to say that either Tag or Rolex are particularly good or bad watches. They just have a large advertising budget and are able to get themselves directly in front of peoples eyes.
With that being said, there are plenty of watchmaking brands that either cannot afford to advertise, or simply do not feel the need. If you do not sell a lot of watches to begin with, you will not generate the cash to advertise, so a cycle is created. Due to the vast amount of money and advertising campaigns to compete with on a global scale, it can be incredibly difficult to new brands to break through.
Some microbrands will try and break through with new and innovative designs, others may try creating in house and high specification movements. Where as others will try kickstarter campaigns to increase their funding and exposure.
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Best Relatively Unknown Watch Brands
There is a good chance you will have heard of at least a couple of the brands listed below. However, we seriously doubt that you will know all of them. A lot of watch brands slip under the radar due to the highly competitive industry, here is a chance to get to know some rare, obscure or simply a watch brand that you have just never heard of.
Klokers
Klokers are a brand which originated from a kickstarter campaign. It’s easy to see how they got funded so fast since their watches are truly original in an industry which can sometimes be very stale.
The watch design of Klokers is centered around a slide rule which sits in an upright 12 o’clock position from the center of the dial. Things start to get a bit strange as the slide rule does not move, neither are there any hands.
In fact, what makes this watch so original is that the dials move around instead of hands. There are 3 separate dials within the watch, seconds minutes and hours. The time is calculated by looking at which dial is inline with the slide rule. The watches are reasonably expensive as they are powered by a Ronda quartz movement, but if this were an automatic watch it would likely be at least 3x more expensive and quite possibly more given the intricacy of the design.
Another nice point to add is that the straps on Klokers watches are infitely more easy to change, without any watchmakers tools needed. The straps simply pop and slide off the back of the watch case and are interchangable within the brand. Of course this means you will be pretty much restricted to Klokers own straps which aren’t cheap. However, if you do like to change out straps regularly, this is very easy to do.
Autodromo
Autodromo are an American company based out of NYC. If you hadn’t noticed already, this brand are obsessed with all things vintage racing and make products such as driving gloves, as well as watches.
Overall, for what they are, Autodromo watches are very expensive. Although with that being said, the company is designing traditional racing watches which look quite a bit nicer than the likes of Tag Heuer. Therefore, if the company had more advertising dollars behind it, Tag Heuer may be a little bit worried.
Oceaneva
Oceaneva are quite possibly the most underrated dive watch manufacturer on the market. The US based divers watch company is only 13 years old, yet has already made many classic limited edition dials that make you wonder why submariners are so much more popular.
Oceaneva only use top quality materials and movements. Most of their dive watch movements are made by the Swiss brand Sellita and contain a helium escape valve. Some models have up to 1000 meters water resistance, which is really insane. Even the top dive watch brands such as Rolex or Longines will usually only have 300 meters. Obviously most of this is useless, since people will not typically wear fashionable dive watches to dive in the ocean. However, it does at least show you the quality and standard that Oceaneva watches are made to.
Vostok
As you would expect, this Russian brand makes super durable and tough watches. The Vostok brand was created in 1942, but due to the communist restrictions at the time, Vostok didn’t really become commercially available or well known until the 1960s. Since then, things have certainly not been plain sailing for Vosok, as it filed for bankruptcy in the year 2010. Although it seems this hasn’t been too bad for the company after all. Vostok has survived and continues to make tough and inexpensive watches.
Chronoswiss
Despite being named Chronoswiss, originally this brand was founded in Munich, Germany. The brand is still relatively young, being founded in 1983 and is now Swiss owned and operated.
Chronoswiss is much smaller than its luxury competitors, producing under 10000 watches per year and only having between 30-40 employees. With a company of this size, quality control is extremely high and the brand produces luxury timepieces within the 4-5 figure price bracket. This is a brand which will undoubtedly become more popular over time, it is just extremely difficult to break into the realm of luxury watches.
Undone
Undone are an extremely young company that are well under 10 years old. Founded in 2014, the company has already had some big collaborations such as Batman, as well as some strange collaborations… such as popeye.
The brand is mostly known for being able to truly customize your watch, including the dial. Due to the constraints of mass production and watch manufacturing, this is not something which has really been possible until now. It should go without saying then, that you can see the production of these watches is done in-house. Of course, due to the price of the watches, they will typically use Miyota movements (both quartz and automatic), but at least produce the rest of the watch by themselves.
Mr Jones
The first thing that Mr Jones say about themselves on their website is that “we don’t follow trends”. If you have ever seen a Mr Jones watch, you know this to be 100% true. In fact, their watches are so original and unique, it will be very difficult for you to tell what time it is when seeing a watch for the very first time.
The British brand is headquartered in London and manufactures its watches there. Given that the watches are so unique, they really are quite inexpensive for the time and effort that has been put into the design process. It should also be noted that Mr Jones customer service has nothing but 5 star reviews. This is not a brand that tries to manipulate customers into leaving good review, but offers a genuinely great service.
Torino Lamborghini
You will obviously be aware that Lamborghini are known for making cars and not watches. Their timepieces are intended to look like that of a Lamborghini engine – and they do a pretty good job.
There are various Lamborghini watch ranges based off different car designs such as the spyder, which is by far the best selling model. In all honesty, Lamborghini watches are very unique, but not good value for money. The reason these watches are able to fetch so much money is due to the Lamborghini brand, coupled with the fact that it’s pretty much impossible to find another watch that looks similar to this.
