I woke up this morning wanting to write about overrated watch brands, you know, the type that we see advertised excessively on Hodinkee with sponsored posts. But then I thought to myself, instead of doing that why don’t we expose some brands that aren’t getting the attention that they deserve, how about a few brands that are underrated? Surely there’s some watch brands that are providing incredible watches with high quality craftsmanship, interesting mechanical movements, and perhaps even cool brand heritage at reasonable prices – after a quick pondering I came up with a few that matched this criteria.
Since you found this article you won’t even have to ask other collectors on Reddit anymore, and actually you could probably just share this article with them. They might not agree with the choices anyways due to the Reddit hive mind. Actually, it’s completely OK to no approve of our below choices since the watch world is such a personal hobby, but nonetheless let’s discover below what I think are some of the most underrated watch brands in 2024 – and what makes them underrated.
Farer
Farer was even unknown to me up until a few years ago when our previous contributor Michael reviewed the Markham World Timer, and then I subsequently reviewed their Resolute Three Hands in 2023. I had probably seen a few of their watches pop up on instagram but didn’t think too much of it, that is until I began to dig a little deeper and discovered the tight spec tolerances they’re working with and some of the cool movements they’re using in their watches like the Swiss Made La Joux-Perret G101.
Farer is a new British watch brand that was founded in 2015 so they don’t have a ton of experience in the market. When I think of British watches I think of Bremont, and Christopher Ward. Bremont is in another price league, but Christopher Ward is targeting a similar market segment as Farer. There’s a huge difference between Farer and CW though, Farer makes colorful and original watches – while CW makes somewhat bland and boring watches. A few years back I really used to think that Christopher Ward was a hidden gem in the British watch industry, but due to some of their recent releases I feel they’ve gone redundant concentrating on profit margin instead of catering to what us enthusiasts are looking for in a watch.
Farer has really stollen the spotlight for me, and if you mingle a little bit online with other collectors they also mimic this sentiment. Of course Farer is a business like all watch brands who need to generate profit, but they’ve turned their focus to the desires of collectors. Farer’s watches are sized incredibly well, and they tend to also offer multiple size options within the same collection. This gives the opportunity for almost anyone to find a watch that fits them really well.
Not only does Farer implement some gorgeous pastel and bright color-tones on their dials, but they also design totally unique looking watches that are not just clones of other established brands. This in my opinion the key to success, and essentially the opposite of what a brand like Baltic Watches is doing by creating “homage” watches with small design shifts.
Yema
Here’s another somewhat new brand on the scene out of France and founded in 1948. I say somewhat new because the brand has been dormant for sometime until it was recently acquired by French watchmaker Montres Ambre de Morteau in 2009.
I really love Yema watches, I think they’re incredible at their price points. They hit the mark with the aspects I was aiming for in our intro, which is high quality craftsmanship, unique designs, and interesting movements. Yema let’s me down in one category though, and that’s their sales model which works on an odd tier based system. The system seems to be another way to create artificial demand, and coming from a new relatively unknown watch brand it makes me cringe inside. I think their watches are good enough to speak for themselves, and a traditional sales model would have been less pretentious and more welcoming.
Politics out of the way, the watches themselves are outstanding and a very important feature on all of their watches is the strict use of in-house movements. While some brands have been leaning away from in-house and moving to mass produced movements like Swiss ETA, Yema has decided to stay true to form and heritage by creating their own unique mechanics to run their line of watches.
They have both a standard grade which they coin as a more generic line of movements produced by them, and a manufacture grade which is reserved for their more premium line of watches and boasts higher accuracy and higher quality materials as well as a more detailed finishing process.
Doxa
Here’s a brand that’s been around awhile, founded in 1889 and originally focusing on dress watches – they eventually became known for creating some of the most iconic dive watches in the world. Although they’ve been around for quite some time, and have launched some notable divers like the Sub 300 they’re a relatively under the radar brand. Doxa is a favorite among watch enthusiasts and collectors due to the brands deep heritage and cool retro looking watches, but they’re rarely seen worn by those outside of this tight circle of connoisseurs.
Doxa is essentially now known solely for their dive watches, having shifted from dress watches to dive watches in the 1960s with the launch of the original Sub 300 in 1967. The Sub 300 is the watch that put the brand on the map due to its patented rotating bezel and iconic bright orange dial, both improving the function and legibility of the watch when deep sea diving. In the 1960s they even collaborated with renowned diver Jacques Cousteau who brought the brand some serious exposure from many forms of media and news like magazines and various commercials.
Doxa then dove into a rather low point and nearly disappeared as a brand, but recently they’ve bounced back and are now offering some really amazing sports watches. Many of their current modern offerings are very high quality reissues of their watches from the past including the iconic Sub 300, and even a more robust version called the Sub 300T that we reviewed here.
Nomos
Nomos is one of my personal favorite brands for a variety of reasons, the main one being the sheer value to price point they provide, but also because they’re quite a niche hidden brand. Nomos also happens to be somewhat new in the watchmaking world having been founded in 1990, you can read all about the brands history here. This is a brand that’s been flying under the radar for quite some time now, but recently they’ve had a nice surge of popularity having been featured on some fairly prominent social media accounts and online watch magazines – so they might not be underrated for much longer.
Our brand choices above really focus on sports watches, and some mid-tier innovation, Nomos is our step into the world of somewhat affordable high-horology with their stunning in-house designs and movements, with every little part manufactured, hand finished, and assembled at their headquarters in Glashutte Germany.
Nomos is known for their sleek minimalist bauhaus designs, somewhat comparable to Junkers watches but at a much higher tier of watchmaking – and with a much more elegant brand name I might add. the watch that really started it all for them was the Tangent that was launched in 1992, and it remains to this day one of their most recognizable watches. They went on to create some of the most incredible watches such as the Metro Date Power Reserve designed by Mark Braun which I proudly own and love, as well as the Orion line of watches that are very simple but make excellent dress watches, or smart casual weekend watches.
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