Henke
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Christopher ward
Has been what I would consider the leading player in the microbrand space for many years now, to the point where I don't even know if I consider them to be a microbrand anymore. I think they were one of the first to do online sales directly to the consumer. It's just that noone talks about microbrands on this site, whatever the reason might be.
They've been continuously providing haute horology features such as sapphire bezels and smoked dials for ages. This is totally in line with their value proposition, although I don't think anyone expected it to be at this scale.
Why aren't more people talking about this?
Cristopher Ward Bel Canto: a watch for less than 4k that chimes once every hour and with a forward looking design, similar to brands like MB&F. The base movement is sellita, which for the price is more than fair. It's not often that we see avant garde...
Whole industry was caught off guard with this piece...
It's an unknown brand. Small production number. And they didn't do much PR in advance. Thus, much of the entire watch manufacturing, watch retail, and watch-journalism industry was caught somewhat off-guard. I reached out to the brand earlier requesting m...
Agreed.
Hopefully it's reliable. A lot of times these cool pieces aren't very reliable - even if the base movement is a reliable Sellita or ETA. I don't want to speculate with this one, as I haven't seen it yet. It's definitely very compelling!
Reliability should be at the forefront of priorities in R&D
Hopefully it is, I wouldn't mind owning one, but it has sold out already, maybe next time!
Christopher ward
Has been what I would consider the leading player in the microbrand space for many years now, to the point where I don't even know if I consider them to be a microbrand anymore. I think they were one of the first to do online sales directly to the consume...
I agree. I don't feel it it an "unknown brand" at all. They have been around for awhile now and actually quite popular.
They even did a special edition for the Canadian watch forum. (Not my photo) ...
It's fairly unknown.
Case in point: it's only been mentioned a handful of times in our forums in the past 3 years! Furthermore, our watch website does seem to favor discussion of more expensive brands and high horology brands in general. Christopher Ward is thus less on our r...
Ageed.
This site focuses on more expensive watches and CW is a more attainable brand, so this site isn't their audience. As you said, they have only been mentioned a small handful of times: this site isn't their market. That doesn't make them an unknown brand, h...
We do disclose it...
In each article if a watch was loaned to us, we disclose it. If it's a moderator's personal watch, the moderator can choose to disclose it or not. But if it's a supplied watch from the brand, our moderators disclose that. Also, our moderators agree not to...
I really appreciate the time you took to post this - It's something I have never seen discussed here.
As a member, and maybe I am alone here, I have never seen the mention of brand influence mentioned here in any fashion. So I am clear - Brands do influence what posts stay or don't stay up on WPS? I'm not judging either way (I understand that this site is...
Everything stays up on our site...
Everything that is posted stays up on our site. What you see in the front page are the newest posts in chronological order; thus, the newest posts are on the top. What you see in the sub forums like Horological Meandering and the branded forums are all ba...
Thank you for this insightful message.
I’m happy to learn more about this amazing place which is WPS. Every time I log in here I discover new timepieces, I got more knowledge of horology, I enjoy whatever the members are kind enough to share with us… great work !! Kudos to you and everyone con...
Thank you for your kind words!
We try. We really do try. We've got a passionate team of moderators whom are passionate about the subject and try to share what they can with the group. And we try to do it in a way that's mostly free of the marketing dribble and we try to cut the "noise"...
Hear, hear!
Tahnk you kindly for your elaborate reply, which I can only underline over and over again. When "The PuristS" (back then without "Pro" was founded, it was clear from the beginning that our standards regarding the industry have to extremely strict, and we ...
Thank you. I really appreciate the honest reply. My question, however, is center more around members posts.
I've always wondered why in some cases member's (not moderators) posts, though true and not favorable to a particular brand, sometimes are removed. I was more speaking to brand intervention around this scenario and was wondering if that was the case.
Generally, we don't censor posts unless they violate our Terms.
We only remove a member's post if it violates our rules as stated in our Terms of Conduct. Otherwise, all the members' posts are generally available, even going back many years! For instance, I recently removed another member's post because almost the ent...
Thank you. So there is a record of sorts of who "complains" or is deemed as a "complainer" and in a case as you describe they may be treated differently...
Based on the views of the moderation team. I appreciate your candor.
Not exactly... There is no record.
There isn't a "complainer" list. But basically if there's a known frequent complainer or a first-post complainer, we would reserve the right to remove the post. We've definitely had A LOT of complainers who have no real intent to contribute to the forums....
You're welcome!
Hopefully you feel a little bit assuaged that we're trying to do our best. We might not be perfect. And I don't know every single case, so it's possible I don't know what case you have in mind, but we do have good intentions. Nobody on our moderator team ...
Let me illustrate this with an anecdote ....
A short while after I started moderating the Ulysse Nardin forum eons ago, then UN owner Rolf Schnyder, whom I dearly miss since he passed far too early, once asked a member comment to be removed, because it contained false statements about an "endemic pr...
Wow! Amazing!
And yes. Herr Schnyder did pass away too soon. That's an amazing relationship, and these were the amazing days when we really had a connection with the brand. Unfortunately, now that watch journalism is so prevalent, we don't have those relationships as w...
Absolutely Marcus!
Thank you for chiming in Marcus! Yes. We definitely don't give those PR people an easy time. Sometimes, our own knowledge and technical questions stump them, since some of the PR members aren't familiar with the technicalities of the watches themselves. A...
CW is popular among younger collectors, those starting out, and collectors on a budget. It's also made public guarantees that it'll never charge customers more than 3x the cost of production, in an industry where this can exceed 10x or more
The company was a rare British-based success story during the height of the pandemic in 2020, when its exclusively online marketing, outreach and sales model resulted in healthy sales growth. So much so that CW attributes its successes since then in part ...
Thank you
It's nice to see small brands at this level coming up with impressive designs
I completely agree….
I suspect the reason is that people have been trying to get one. The green version announced yesterday has also sold out.
Yes, it sold like hot cakes
And it's completely understandable, I hope they'll release a non limited version in the future
Perhaps it is just the people here not talking about it...
The blue and green dial versions sold out extremely quickly (much to my own chagrin).
It was too much fomo for my taste.
Had the chance to buy both versions, but I passed on both. The magic of the chiming mechanisms is the programming needed to get it to chime the time; this one ding per hour is more mundane to me. I felt like once the initial shock of "omg a chiming mechan...
We are, just not in this discussion board until now. 👍
Am loving these new releases that bring what decades ago was ultra-high to now be at good value. Blue was first, they released green yesterday, and yes both are sold out. Red is said to be next. I'm waiting for the purple or orange dial version (if they m...
My apologies, no one really knew...
...when it was released and i saw it and had hours to get one. i should have posted the news here so WPS enthusiasts could get it. My bad
My thoughts
Cause it is a good tread to discus brands that get not much attention. I think there are more forgotten watches which are treasures and nobody noticed. First i think there are enormous much watch brands, so it is easy to overlook brands. Second, than the ...
The design is surely not to everyone's taste
This piece appeals to people who like weird time displays
An amazing timepiece and it is of course a shame that many independent brands remain firmly under the radar of the many.
Then again it is good for us enthusiasts and collectors is it not? 😆
I looked at it and the watch sold out very quickly
Even the second (different color) batch sold out very quickly. I think they will release some more colors soon . Hope they will release a salmon dial and i will try to get one 🙏🏻🤗. Such a cool watch
I can only concur with all here, really cool proposal for this price point…
And indeed what a pity most of us heard about it when it was too late already 🤷🏻♂️
Concur!
It is definitely one of the best "budget" complications brands out there and this just demonstrate this fact! I did hear on the watchfinder and co's channel that they could actually have included the inhouse movement and it would be the same price but it ...