Elliot Brown watches aren’t like other so-called sports watches.
Ian Elliot and Alex Brown share 20+ years of unique watch building knowledge from the world of extreme sports which is how they were able to create the worlds most rugged “tool” watches.
Working on the coast and enjoying just about every land and water based coastal sport was the catalyst to develop a range of watches that not only function in extremes but also look great with a suit or uniform.
This Canford 202-004, like all other Elliot Brown watches has survived at test at 200m in water before being declared fit for use. It features a neat inner timing bezel operated via the upper crown and even when in the our or adjust position, the lower time and date adjust crown is still fully water proof.
The Swiss movement is housed inside a unique steel housing, suspended on a series of elastomer dampers to give immense shock protection. The highly legible dial and hands feature a Superluminova coating that will glow for up to 8 hours.
The solid and beautifully detailed case back is bolted down for a perfect seal with multiple surfaces to minimize the contact patch with the wrist in warmer conditions.
2.8mm thick hardened and tempered crystal protects the dial with an anti-reflective coating applied to the inner surface and the strao retaing bars are solid screw in items that will stand any test.
This is one mean watch and it’s no surprise Elliot Brown are finding favour amongst many military groups.
For more information contact: caroline@brigantes.com
High Angle Solutions is a weekly series of articles focusing on military mountaineering solutions. It’s brought to you by UK-based Brigantes Consulting, in conjunction with several other brands, both here in the US and abroad.
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Great look, plenty of marketspace for a real world sized watch. Yes Please !
Great look, plenty of marketspace for a real world sized watch. Yes Please !
$400 for a watch that you have to set in the sunlight for it to light up at night. Meanwhile my $40 Timex has 2 timezones, a stop watch, an alarm, and lights up at the touch of a button, no matter how long it sits in the dark.
Especially when its in the ballpark of a new Garmin Tactix Bravo price range. Cool watch and I am sure it is built very very well, but with limited functions.
All comments are appreciated thanks folks. We’re clearly not about smart watch functionality but what we are about is fit-for-purpose, last better in any game of watch conkers functionality. Our watches will be ticking long after others when the going gets tough or you’re miles away from a charging point. On a recent ocean row with 5 guys, 2 guys wearing Garmin ran out of power 3 weeks in – ours shrugged off three months at sea and are going on to row multiple other oceans. Watch out for the hash tag #rowitforwards in the next few months and I’d urge you to please have a quick read of our web site to get a better vibe for how we do things.
Can you provide a link to your website?
I’m not sure power reserves are a big selling point for a quartz watch in a world full of automatics and solar powered G-Shocks and Seiko’s.
Seems a bit steep for a quartz watch with no sapphire crystal, and no rotating bezel or chronograph.
Very fair points but you’re jumping to all sorts of questionable conclusions and possibly missing the point..
Power reserve on a quartz watch? We simply use an end of life indicator – very handy to prevent issuing one of our watches when the battery is beginning to run low with changes only every 3 or 4 years. And at the same we can make sure the seals are replaced and re-tested because they don’t last forever on any watch. Great for continued trust in your timepiece when the going gets tough. For ultimate reliability when the going gets tough – we drop every single watch into water and pressurise it to 200m or 300m – only then can we or you be sure it will perform in extremes.
There are advantages and disadvantages choosing sapphire or tempered mineral crystal. It’s a case of choosing the most fit for purpose material – mineral will resist shattering better in some circumstances. MightI politely suggest reading the spec list here: https://www.elliotbrownwatches.com/canford/202-004-n01
You’ll notice technically superior features like triple sealed crowns that remain sealed even when in the out position, a solid stainless movement housing that floats inside the main case to provide immense shock protection, a very handy inner rotating timing bezel (it’s not intended for diving in this instance – we do other models more suitable), solid screw in strap pins for strength and easy strap changes, PVD that’s twice the thickness of the industry norm so it wears beautifully, the soft custom made webbing, and for a bit of light reading, we wrote a short blog piece just on the development of our EPDM rubber strap – it’s worth a read as it gives a good idea as to the detailed approach applied to every component of every watch carrying our trademark.
https://www.elliotbrownwatches.com/blog/why-design-takes-us-so-long/
We will never apologise for pricing because we build up to a standard – not down to a price and price everything fairly based on the sum of it’s parts.
Producing watches with such focus can certainly split opinions and we’re constantly challenging some of the misconceptions common in the watch industry like 100% wet pressure testing – we’re seen as mavericks treading a very different path – if you get us, you get us. Happy to answer any other technical questions.
You want to put your fancy new watch on a four-ring nylon watch band, you might want to avoid looking like function-ignorant yuppies, and run the band properly through the rings.
That set of two rings is there to isolate the watch from having the pins levered out when the band gets hooked on something. Don’t run it through and lock it? You’re demonstrating that you have no idea why that bit of design is there, and showing your ass.
Thanks Kirk – appreciate your comments. We’ve since deleted the additional loop and associated D-rings on the webbing strap as the strap pins are solid and more than tough enough on their own. It means the watch sits with a less bulky profile on the wrist which our users really like.
I have to ask… Do you understand why those features are there, in the first place?
Dude it’s a watch…lighten up a touch. Constructive is fine but you’re sort of being a dick.
+1
Add a Sapphire Crystal and Tritium Tube illumination and I would be all over this. Good looking field watch, overall. Water resistance is good and the Internal Bezel is a nice touch you don’t see on most field watches.
Interesting watch but WAAAAY overpriced. A REAL military watch has to be one that’s of “throw-away” value, not $400.
During my 21 years of service I very quickly abandoned quartz watches because they require a battery. This was before the “solar” powered which I might consider, depending on many other factors. You can have all the “dead battery imminent” warning you want. Where are you going to find a jeweler to deal with a screw down back with a supply of fresh watch batteries wandering around the sand dunes of the Middle East? You’re NOT! For the same reason, Seiko and Citizen both sell very inexpensive mechanical watches all over the 3rd World which cannot supply watch batteries everywhere or anyone qualified to pull a watch back properly to replace one. Tell the dude on an outcropping somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan he’s got a few days to change his watch battery before it dies. The dead battery double-tick warning isn’t good for much more than a few days. Watch batteries continue full voltage until death is imminent and then they plummet almost immediately, unlike alkaline cell technology. Sorry, been there, done that, with battery quartz watches and wouldn’t have another on my wrist after the 2nd time that happened.
Worse is a large FLAT crystal. Doesn’t matter that it’s got some AR coating on it. It’s still like a mirror, reflecting a very bright round disc. In direct sunlight it can be used as a signalling mirror! Been there, done that also and had to cover the damned thing unless I was looking at it to maintain light discipline. EVERY REAL military watch should be REQUIRED to have a domed crystal to prevent this. For all the sand blasting and black PVD, the crystal that can double as an emergency signal mirror completely negates whatever value that had. High polish stainless wouldn’t have the reflectivity. The black PVD will eventually wear through anyway, looking butt ugly when it does. Bead blasted stainless finish suffices.
Almost is bad as being a dead flat mirror, is the crystal material, mineral glass, which won’t just chip or scratch, it will shatter under impact. The most durable crystal in mil watches is domed acrylic, which can endure all manner of abuse without breaking, and still be polished out sufficiently with an abrasive toothpaste or Brasso to make it usable again. Second best is thick domed sapphire that cannot be scratched and requires considerably greater impact to shatter.
The testosterone oozing 44mm diameter without the crowns or lugs is impressive to look at, but at least 6mm too big in diameter, and 13.5mm thick is about 1.5mm too much. Shouldn’t be any bigger than 38mm diameter and 12mm thick. A 36mm diameter at 10mm thick is even better. A watch this large gets caught up on all sorts of stuff. Obvious the designers had no clue about what soldiers must wear for battle rattle and the nature of the weapons systems and transportation equipment they use.
Combine the diameter and thickness with a ridiculous NATO strap and now it stands much too proud off the wrist resulting in getting hung up even more on battle rattle, crew served weapons, their platforms, their prime movers, and aircraft interiors. Strap should be a one piece, relatively thin woven nylon in subdued color, only one layer thick passing under the watch head, with a single subdued buckle. No extra fancy or large metal loops hanging out to catch on crap.
Overall, an impressive Tacti-COOL watch for those pretenders and wannabes who have more money than brains to spend on a watch to impress their clueless friends about how Taciti-COOL they are, ready for the impending apocalypse! Did it for REAL for 21 years and for me it’s completely Tacti-UNSAT and utterly impractical for real military field use! Its exorbitant 350 GBP translates to about $500 USD. For $75 less, and that’s MSRP from Hamilton, not street price from online retailers, I can get a H69419363 Hamilton hand-wind mechanical field watch with domed sapphire crystal, and a higher grade ETA movement inside, that’s 38mm dia and 9.5mm thick, replace the canvas with a one-piece OD Green nylon strap on it for $10, and have a substantially better watch at a lower price. Street price on the Hamilton is $260 USD. Lowest price I could find for this Canford was $450 USD (incl. shipping). Or, I could by a GW6900-1 G-Shock Solar Atomic for approx 1/3rd of that, about $90 USD on Amazon, and they’re nearly indestructible, without any battery to replace, which is why GI’s buy them. Stands a little proud on the wrist, but it’s not large in diameter.
John