My kickstarter watch - Exciton II

[m j b]

If you're reading this, hopefully you know what Kickstarter is. I've never done a successful campaign there before (a few I supported did not get funded) and took a gamble last year because I liked what I saw, and honestly it wasn't a huge monetary risk since the guys doing it had done a successful one before.

This watch was designed and built by two guys, Gary Williams in the U.K. who has a YouTube channel about watches, and his partner James (I'm not sure we were ever told his full name) who is a scientist/engineer in Canada. Its appeal to me was primarily the size (38mm) and the enthusiasm shown by the creators. Long story short, the campaign took longer to do than planned for various reasons I won't go into here, except that obviously some of the Covid lockdowns slowed down some of the efforts. But these guys did sweat the details, and produced what I think is a nice watch.

This diver styled watch has a brushed finish on (from what I can tell) everything except the knurling on the sides of the crown and the edge of the bezel. The bezel is ceramic, but also brushed, so it's not bright and shiny like 99% of the ceramic bezels out there. Really the only thing that is shiny is the crystal, which is AR coated sapphire, and flawless as far as I could tell. The face has a nice texture to it, the lume is good and I like that lollipop second hand. I think that's what it's called. The only color on the watch is on the tip of that second hand, and the barely discernable "Exciton II" name above the 200m that resides above the 6, both in a purple. Speaking of the 6, the numbers are quite large and visible, as are the indexes. Stylistically perhaps they are a bit too large, but that is naturally subject to personal preference. The Japanese made Citizen Miyota 9015 movement is a 28.8K BPM automatic hacking movement with 24 jewels. So far in my limited time with the watch, it is dead-on balls accurate. (Thank you Mona Lisa Vito) It is also very smooth - the second hand glides across the face, the adjustments and winding are very smooth with little noise. The bezel turns easily with satisfying clicks and lines up perfectly. It's not as hard/difficult to turn as a "true" diver's watch (think Rolex or Omega) but honestly, I prefer it this way with less effort required.

The bracelet is really nice, very intricate and nicely finished, again brushed stainless with no sharp or unpleasant edges as one usually finds in a Chinese made product. The comfort is right up there with the Breitling bracelets that it resembles, and although there is a fair amount of play or slop between the links, once it's on your wrist you can't tell. Kind of like those old tuna can clasps that Rolex used, which felt like they were worth the $1.62 that it cost to manufacture them, but once you had them on you never noticed.

All this with a nice little plastic case, a screwdriver to adjust the bracelet, extra end-links for the bracelet if you to put it on another watch, a bracelet removing tool and a two year warranty for 210 pounds, which at today's rates is around $265 USA, which included shipping.

So yeah, I think they hit this one, if not out of the park, pretty darn far. A very fine watch on its own merits, even more so when you consider the price.

Which of course makes me wonder, especially since they made this in a very low volume of (I believe) less than 150 watches, why does everything else cost so much more?