2016-09-02

No 216 - Armida A8

Bronze and brass watches. Yeah, the hype has been crazy. Almost every micro builder has come up with at least one bronze/brass watch in their line-up the last couple of years. The alloys are quite similar in appearance where bronze is the more expensive of the two due to its higher content of copper. I can’t say I’m a big fan of the bronze look but when I found this Armida A8 (made out of brass) it felt like a good watch to give a try just to get a feel of what this material was all about.

The previous owner had apparently kept the watch in a bag of hardboiled eggs, which rapidly had got the whole aging process going, and I remember unscrewing the lid of the tube, which the watch was delivered in, and how the strong smell hit me. What. The. Fuck?

#216 - The Armida A8.


Was it the zinc in the brass that caused this? It might be me who had an extreme sensitive sense of smell but I just couldn’t stand it while others, who I asked to smell the watch, told me they could smell it but not that strong and it didn’t bother them in any way. I almost felt sick because of it. So even though the watch was quite cool and had a really spectacular patina it had to go. 

During the day I wore it worked great. The NH35A movement (manufactured by Seiko) worked fine and the overall build quality felt very high in comparison to the low price. The look-a-like Isofrane rubber it came with was of a good quality and looked really good on the watch. OK, so it’s an obvious Submariner homage but the brass added another dimension to it which toned down that whole rip off feeling quite a lot. It measured 42mm excl. crown and had 22mm lug width. Water resistant to 300m. The crown for some reason wasn't made out of brass which I think looked odd.


Looking at the rest of the watches in the Armida line-up didn’t excite me very much and I’m pretty sure that this was my only one from the brand unless they come up with something a little more creative.



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