© OceanicTime
By TLex In the last few months there has been a spate of 2000m rated dive watches released onto the same online dive watch market that all seem to be sharing the same case design and most likely also all originating from the same Asian case manufacturer who make a number of other familiar cased dive watches that I will omit in this article as they are not relevant to it.
These 2000m cased divers include:
Arctos ELITE SEKM
Debaufre (new) Triton
DEEP BLUE Master 2000
HELSON Shark Diver
Sonic Watches Barracuda
Wilson Watch Works (sterile) Diver
The Arctos Elite and HELSON Shark Diver although both produced by the same Asian case-maker do not share the same case attributes as the others and from an aesthetic stand point are very different in look and feel.
So what of all these 2000m divers?
Each watchmaker brings their own unique style and interpretation of the watch. From my personal experiences (so far) the cases are of a very good quality. I would assume that one CNC machine works just about as well as another, whether used in Asia or Europe, China or Germany. 316L AISI Stainless steel, is the same no matter where it comes from, too, right? I could be wrong, these are just presumptions.
For us the consumer things couldn’t be better, choice is everything! The dive watch market is growing ever more competitive, as more and more of us are demanding ever more rugged and well built mechanical watches that can withstand the rigors of our active lifestyles. We demand that they look the part on our wrist and make less of an impact on our wallets.
For the small watchmaker, though, (again I would assume) things couldn’t be worse. Entering their new 2000m diver into an already ferociously competitive online dive watch market to discover that yours is one of at least 6 other 2000m divers released at the same time (in their various forms) and vying for position and a share of the same market. A nightmare scenario!
I can’t help but ask myself if this was sound business practice by the said case-maker? Were all their customers aware of who else was getting the same product and which markets they were going to be introduced to?
This kind of thing has happened before with Longio cased divers but not quite to the same extent and certainly not within the same short time frame. I’m sure it will happen again as it does in many other industries.
By the way how many traditional Sub clone cases do you think there are? How many of these also come from the some factories?
All this is a VERY GOOD reason to support those watch companies that develop their OWN cases, of course you pay more for them, but you get something far more special and hopefully more unique.
For me two watches, the DEEP BLUE Master 2000 and the HELSON Shark Diver have set themselves apart form the crowd, in more ways than one and as such (of the bunch) are the only two that aroused my interest.
I hope by offering an impartial and unbiased report of both watches I might aid anyone considering each of them in making a more informed decision. As you will see in my comparison (yet to be published), from an aesthetic stand point they are VERY different. At the end of the day the look and feel of a watch is the most important factor when deciding upon a purchase. We buy with our eyes. To be continued . . .
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