Kemmner Mechanik -10

posted 3 Jun 2015, 08:27 by Markus Helander [ updated 3 Jun 2015, 08:27 ]

After trying to find a shoe that fits with rather poor results, I stumbled upon a post featuring different pieces of Roland Kemmner. They were mostly made on a tonneau case or a simple round dialed three-hander. I started digging around since the watches were (and still are) made in Germany which meant that shipping would be fast and no extra VAT would be added to the price.

However, and this still seems to be the case, there is no actual site to browse, customize or order the watch of your dreams. Roland Kemmner operates mostly though Ebay with the username 'erkahund', though, he also takes orders through his email. Even if I eventually ordered a watch from him, this was actually really frustrating! Ebay as a sales site for Kemmner watches is OK at best, but that only covers the watches that are ready-made. But I can't, for the life of me, figure out why hasn't Kemmner invested even in the lightest of own pages even just to list the parts available for truly custom watches.

No, the order procedure goes as follows:

You email Roland for your interest in a brand new, custom designed, Kemmner watch. Roland then lists basically all parts one after another as a reply to your email, which is absolutely fantastic to read. The list includes different cases with prices, several crowns with prices, dial & hand combinations and colors with prices, case backs and bezels with prices and, of course, compatible movements with prices. Oh, and straps, bracelets and boxes with prices. With dozen pictures in the end as attachements. I like to mention the prices, as you can see, since they combined with the pictures make browsing the email an agony.

My selections were:

42mm simple round case with a clean cut bezel.
an onion styled crown.
Arabic numerals with long white arrow hands.
sapphire sandwich with PVD black movement.
manual-wind Seagull 3620 movement.
no bracelet, no box.

So, I went with a conservative black and white look with a raunchy black PVD movement.

Soon after ordering I got message of estimated delivery of two weeks and sure enough, in two weeks, I got an email telling me that my watch had been shipped. The watch was shipped with a nice leather pouch the held the piece still during delivery. I found no issues with the Kemmner, even the budget Seagull worked just fine. The option would have been to order the watch with ETA 6498-1 but I didn't mind. Still wouldn't. Power reserve was slightly over forty hours and the Mechanik felt as mechanical as it should have.

So, there you go. Some custom German action to fill in your fancy.