Watch Review: 2016 Winner Skeleton Mechanical Watch

Before I share to you my highly opinionated and very personal review, let me get a few things out of the way.

1. I am not a watch critic. I am a watch enthusiast. I have little experience in reviewing watches and what I write in this post is not the "law".
2. I have little technical knowledge about watches. If I happen to mention or mislabel some parts in the watch, please be kind.
3. I am not recommending any brands nor is this blog backed by any watch brand or manufacturer.

Let's start.

I purchased a watch online back in March, 2018. It's a mechanical dress watch that is made in, you guessed it, China. A very affordable, manual wind, mechanical watch that caught my eye mostly because it didn't look half bad, with the skeleton movement and display back, and mainly because it was a manual wind and not an automatic. This one was not my first choice, but it turned out to be for the best since I now realize my first choice was not very coherent in terms of its color scheme and overall theme. Anyway, I'll be posting the photos and commenting on them as we go.

First, the packaging.

The watch comes in a simple, textured, black box.

Not much can be said about the box, but for a watch like this, the box is definitely a plus. The box gives the watch protection from dust and I can chuck it in my bag without worrying about the watch getting scratched. Let's open it.

There is a  manual and underneath there is foam spacer.

Removing the manual and foam spacer, the watch is contained in a translucent plastic bag.

The box has a cutout foam that holds the watch in place.

Packaging is quite simple, but very functional. What's funny is the manual. Its a general manual for 3 watch brands. More about this later. The cutout for the watch is helpful so that the watch doesn't rattle around in the box during shipping. So far so good.

When I bought this watch, I didn't expect much. I had very low expectations and I even mentioned in my previous post that I would give the watch only 6 months before something goes wrong. At 5 months, at the time of this writing, it surprisingly still works fine.

The Strap.

The watch has a black leather strap

The underside of  the strap is mocha brown.

The watch has a leather strap. No it's not real leather. Out of the box, the straps are very very stiff. It takes quite a while for them to become pliable. The first time I tried the watch on, one of the straps bent 90 degrees. I was actually afraid that I might have torn the strap in half, but after a little bit of strap massaging, it was fine.

At a glance you can tell the straps are made of fake leather. The buckle is not bad. I don't have a wrist shot, but the watch fits my wrist just right. It is a bit big compared to my other watches. Lets get the watch specs out of the way first. The specs are from the online seller.

SPECS

Case Diameter: 41mm

Case thickness: 11mm

Movement: Mechanical; Manual wind

Lug Width: 20mm

Style: Dress

Water Resistance: None

Case Material: Stainless Steel

Crystal: Anti-scratch Glass

To be fair with the seller, they did specifically mention that the straps are made of artificial leather. That doesn't excuse the horrible quality of the strap. I'm also hesitant to have the watch strap replaced since most of the quality straps are more expensive than this watch! Imagine that! This watch is even cheaper than watch straps.

The Watch Case

I know for certain that the watch case is not stainless steel. To me it looks chromed. The one thing that tells me that its not real stainless is that its too shiny for stainless steel. Another is the price. I'm pretty sure that the silver polish of this watch will fade in a couple of years. That is if the watch doesn't die first.

The watch has a display back. You can see the movement in its entirety when you look at the back. The movement is also skeletonized so you can see most of the moving parts. You can even see the main spring coil up as you wind the watch. Its amazing to behold. In this particular design, I guess one can say its a see through design. Since the crystal at the back is as big as the front crystal.

The main spring can be seen behind the branding/logo of the watch.

The watch is of course made in China and the quality is also as what one can expect from a generic brand. I say generic because the brand "Winner" does not have exclusive rights on the design of this watch. I have seen other postings of watches of the same exact design sporting a different brand name.

The Manual

The manual is just one piece of paper folded in half. The English is not that bad compared to other manuals I have read for products from China.

The Manual is for 3 watch brands??!!

Since the watch I bought is fairly simple. Anyone with experience with mechanical watches will have no problem with this watch.

The watch is easy enough to set and wind up. To wind the watch, just turn the crown clockwise. The winding is smooth enough and you can hear the ratchet sound as you wind the watch up. You will feel the crown resists once the main spring is fully wound and that means you must stop winding. Any further turning of the crown will definitely damage the watch. To set the time, you just have to pull the crown and turn counter clockwise to advance the time. Once the time is set, push the crown back down. This has a non hacking movement.

The Movement

It took me a while to get some info on the movement used in this watch. Initially, I thought it was a cheap clone of some Swiss movement or a clever counterfeit of a Japanese movement. Apparently, that is not the case for this watch. Though the movement is somewhat dated, its a movement developed in China some time in the 70's. To my surprise this even has a designation. I present to you the CSM Caliber 2650SS. CSM stands for Chinese Standard Movement also known as "tongji". The SS after the number stands for Skeleton and Silver. This movement has a few variants in both gold and silver color.

The display back case featured the movement in all its glory. The movement is a 2650ss from China.

The looks of the movement is not too bad, but it could have been polished and refined more.

Not much info is available other than the designation. If I remember correctly this is a 17 jewel movement. For a watch of this price, I cant hope for much more. I guess having some decorative engraving on the movement is asking too much?

The movement is held in place by a silver spacer which I can only assume to be made of plastic.

Hour markers are printed on not applied. Hours are in Roman Numerals.

The hands of the watch are lumed, but of course, not that great. It is afterall, a dress watch. With or without lume doesn't matter to me. This watch has no other complication except for telling the time in hours, minutes, and seconds. Though the minutes and seconds are impossible to read since there are no indexes for these. Only the hours are marked in roman numerals.

The dial is shiny silver with some decorative engraving. Under bright light, the dial is so reflective that reading the time is somewhat challenging. If it were up to me, I would have placed a matte grey dial or a brushed finish dial to mitigate the glare.

The Price

I've been using the words cheap and affordable to describe this watch, but I haven't really mentioned the price. This one goes for an equivalent of 14 USD as of this writing, which includes free delivery.

Yup! It's dirt cheap for a mechanical watch that doesn't look all that bad. It keeps time rather well and being able to see the moving parts is a bonus. I was told that buying stuff from China is a bit of a gamble - a hit or miss if you will. Sometimes you get a nice working product and sometimes you get a piece of crap. Customers receiving defective merchandise is not unheard of especially in online shopping. I guess that means I've been lucky so far.

The Bad

There are a few things I don't like about this watch or rather about how it was put together. I already mentioned the straps and the reflective dial, but one thing I really didn't like was dirt inside the watch. The following photos will show you.

There are some white spots on the inside of the glass on the back. You can see some at the left side near the screw.

There is some dirt and some smudge on the large gear. There are also some scratches that were not buffed out.

Here is where the line is drawn in regard to the quality of the watch. If this were a luxury watch, these sorts of minor defects would be unacceptable. It makes one think that there is little to no quality control for products such as this. And because of that, Chinese products in general, get a bad reputation from the international market.

Of course one cannot expect heaven on earth for a watch this cheap or rather affordable. Ok fine, It's cheap! And one might even fault me for buying a watch like this, but think about it, 14 Dollars for a mechanical dress watch! Talk about bang for your buck and for that reason I can say that I like it!

Will I buy another one? Yes, but maybe an automatic variant. Or I could just save my money and buy my dream watch.

Enjoy!