Affordable Diver-esque Watch: Baltic Aquascaphe Dual-Crown
Background:
Baltic is a relatively young brand, starting it’s journey in 2017 through a Kickstarter campaign that amassed nearly $580,000 in funding, surpassing their goal of $74,000, thanks to their near 1,050 campaign supporters. Baltic’s initial launch would produce two separate models, both of which are still sold today, the Bicompax and the HMS.
Amassing much support the company received praise for their sleek designs, offered at an affordable price point compared to the competition. In order to achieve such a competitive price Baltic did two things, the first of which is utilizing outsourced components to minimize the development costs that comes with an “in-house movement” and refined manufacturing processes. The second is not utilizing “authorized dealer” like traditional brands, rather their sales are kept direct to consumer to cutout the middleman, reducing any unnecessary markups. While Baltic may not have an manufacture all of the watch, they are still able to influence the quality as the watches are assembled in Besancon, France where they are tested, adjusted, and sent out for final shipment to the customer.
Now knowing a bit of the background on how Baltic operates to provide a relatively affordable product, it is time to dive into one of their more unique offerings, that offering is the Baltic Aquascaphe Dual-Crown. Read along to find out the details about what makes this watch unique.
The Specs:
The Baltic Aquascaphe Dual-Crown as the name suggests has two crowns; the crown at 2 O’clock which rotates the inner bezel and the crown at 4 O’clock which winds and adjusts the watch. This watch comes in a stainless steel case that measures 39mm x 11.9mm (DxT) featuring screw down crowns, giving this piece 200m of water resistance making it suitable for everyday wear. Additional details include a domed sapphire crystal with an anti-reflective coating looking at the dial which features utilitarian indices filled with BGW9 luminesce for low light legibility.
Looking under the hood this watch sources an Automatic Miyota 9039 movement, a reliable Japanese movement that oscillates at 28800 Vph, has 24 jewels, and has a power reserve of 42 hours. This movement features time only on center, has hacking seconds, and features Miyota’s “Parashock” anti-shock mechanisms. Additional detailed specifications are listed below:
Specifications:
Movement: Automatic Miyota 9039
Frequency: 28800 Vph
Power Reserve: 42 Hours
Case Material: 316L Stainless Steel
Case Diameter: 39mm
Case Thickness: 11.9mm
Water Resistance: 200m
Crystal: Domed sapphire with antireflective coating
Features:
Bi-directional inner rotating bezel (controlled by crown at 2)
Screw down crowns
All time on center with hacking seconds
Dial Colors: Black & blue
Price: $729
The Details:
The Dial:
All good details start at the dial of the watch. This piece maintains a simplistic look, cultivating many traditional dive watch characteristics. One of those iconic characteristics is the round shape indices used for hour markers and the pill shaped indices at the 12, 3, 6, and 9 O’clock positions. All of these indices are filled with BGW9, giving them a blue-green luminescence in low light conditions. This same BGW9 Super-LumiNova is also applied to the hour, minute, and seconds hands which track along the outer chapter ring with their brushed finish pencil & lollipop style hands.
Dial branding is left relatively basic with two separate insignia on the dial surface, the brand name “Baltic” shown just north of center and the model “Aquascaphe Dual-Crown” marked just south of center. Both are written in white text, giving them exceptional contrast against the black background of the dials surface. In fact, the sharp white to contrasting black background works well across the whole watch, highlighting the important information, a key characteristic when it comes to a functional dive watch.
The Bezel:
Moving just beyond the dial is the singular feature that makes this watch unique, the internal bezel which is externally rotated from the crown at 2 O’clock. The bezel itself features a slight taper upward from the flat surface of the dial, allowing it to stand out to the user and further fulfilling it’s functional qualification. Similar to a traditional dive bezel, this bezel features indices from 0-60, with increased sub-hashing between the 0 to 20 indices. The one feature that strays from a traditional dive watch is the bezels ability to be bi-directionally rotated. A typical dive watch bezel only rotates counter clockwise, the purpose being if the bezel gets inadvertently moved, time will only be added to the bezel rather than subtract, a must when using the watch to time decompression stops. That being said, this bezel is much more difficult to unknowingly rotate as it is not exposed, but rather contained within the watch.
The Case/Case-back:
Moving beyond the dial and bezel, we get to the case which is a 316L stainless steel and features some interested details that might otherwise be over looked. Those details come in the form of the various styles of brushed finishes on the case itself. The face of the case has a non-concentric radially applied brushed finish, giving it a sort of swirl effect as if the case was being whirl pooled into a central location. Transitioning down the chamfered edge from the front face, the diameter of the case features a polished finish until transitioning to the top surface of the lugs. The top surface of these lugs features a circular brushed finish which is concentric to the case diameter. Following the next polished chamfered edge we transition into the side profile of the lug which features a linear brushed finish, spanning length wise from lug end to lug end. All of these finishes contrast nicely against one another and pair well with the simplistic dial. The last notable detail on the case is of course the crowns located at 2 and 4 O’clock which match the stainless steel case and feature a polished metal finish with checkered embossments on the crown end.
The last notable detail is the case-back; the case-back of the Aquascaphe Dual-Crown is left rather bland, sporting a blank stainless steel case back which features a circular brushed finish that matches the concentric brushed finish on the lugs just outboard the case-back.
The Options:
There are a few possible options for this watch. Starting with the dial colors, they are limited to two colors, black and blue; however, the black dial has two variants within it allowing the buyer to select from a stainless steel case or a PVD black coated stainless steel case as shown above. The secondary option for customization is of course the watch strap. Shown above are the three watch strap variants: tropic rubber black, metal beads of rice, and tropic rubber blue. Both regular stainless steel watch variants allow the buyer to select from all three strap options with the PVD black stainless steel piece only offering the two rubber straps.
While the standard selection does not allow the metal strap variant for the PVD black piece the user can add a secondary strap, allowing them to select from an array of varying strap options for each piece regardless of the variant. These secondary strap options are shown below and range from about $35 to $125:
All in all it is difficult to beat the value proposition that Baltic offers with their sourced watches and direct to consumer sales strategy. The Aquascaphe Dual-Crown is one of the more unique offerings with it’s internal bezel, a design that is not very commonplace among other brands. While this piece remains in a lower price tier it is a beautiful piece with it’s simplistic design and very practical and functional design. What do you think of Baltic? How about the Aquascaphe Dual-Crown? Do you prefer another watch within Baltic’s lineup over the Dual-Crown? Let us know in the comments.