Visitor watch company is an independent mechanical watch brand focused on providing offbeat timekeepers of outstanding quality, with original design and sketch to steel development with minimal compromise.
Right off the bat, as soon as you open the box you are greeted with a lovely black travel box with room enough for 3 watches, not the highest of quality but a nice touch nonetheless and a really nice travel companion should you ever need it.
The Linden is the Goldilocks sized 39mm in diameter and 10.5mm thick, just right. It’s the second instalment in Visitor’s Calligraph collection, showing off the same wet-ink dial that the Duneshore proudly displayed.
The Linden is offered in 4 colour variations; black, blue, white and a pale mauve. My collection is already filled with black dialled watches but there is something about the deep black in a dial that draws me in and the Linden Midnight did just that.
Let’s talk about that dial, a deep and dark black that looks as if a drop of fresh ink has been dropped onto the dial and spread around, its captivating and really draws you in. The sandwich dial is printed with a black cross-hair that has become a signature of Visitor as a ‘family trait’ that ties each piece together whilst also slightly making each piece uniquely different from each other. The cross-hair gets lost in the black dial in certain lights and it’s only when you really study the dial that you realise it’s there. Not really an issue for me as it adds to the overall stealthier look of this model, using any other colour for the cross-hair on this model would look odd. The applied hour markers are filled with BGW9 lume that glows a bright and beautiful blue hue and the unique stainless steel hour and minute hands are filled with BGW9 lume at their tips that definitely helps with visibility when needed.
The aforementioned applied markers are rather oddly shaped but in an appealing way, it certainly helps to make The Linden stand out from similarly priced competitors in the micro brand scene. The hour markers are pear drop shaped almost looking like teeth in between the circular markers are 12, 3, 6 and 9. They are a beautiful bright white that makes them stand out against the deep black dial and it’s a perfect contrast. An extremely pleasing visual on this dial is the fact that the date wheel matches the dial colour, for nothing more than being aesthetically pleasing to the eye in my opinion. However, for me I think the dial feels slightly unbalanced due to the fact that the only writing that appears on the dial is the word ‘Visitor’ that sits off to the right just above the date window. It would be interesting to see how the dial would look with the wording positioned elsewhere.
The 316L stainless steel case measures at 48.5mm lug to lug and consists of a 3 piece construction with multiple chamfers and seven transitions between polished and brushed finishing. The finishing is undeniably excellent, especially at this price point. Both sides of the case are excellently brushed to a very high standard and the outside of the dial is highly polished and also excellently done, the two contrast each other but work together in perfect harmony. The ridged and amply sized crown is easy to grip and features the embossed Visitor logo that sits proudly and looks excellent here. The first position as you would expect is the date wheel that flips over perfectly and swiftly, pull the crown out again and the seconds hand stops due to the hacking Miyota 9015 used in The Linden and this is the position to change the hours and minutes.
Flipping the watch over the first thing you notice is that beautiful custom Visitor rotor that proudly bares the company logo and sits atop the workhorse movement that is found in many micro brands due to it being easily obtainable. The custom rotor is another sign that this is no ordinary micro brand, how often do you get a custom and a beautiful custom rotor at that on a micro brand? Not very often is the answer. Although you will find such a feature on higher-end established brands, just like on our recently reviewed Oris Chronoris Date.
The movement beats at 28,800 beats per hour which produces the wonderful sweeping seconds hand and has a power reserve of 42 hours. The movement is quoted as giving between -10 and +30 seconds of variation per day and my watch was well within these parameters and I had no need to adjust the time at any time whilst I had this watch.
The 20mm lug width strap provided with the watch is a beautiful brown that compliments the watch extremely well. The genuine leather strap had no wearing in period and was extremely comfortable to wear, I didn’t feel the need to change strap at any time wearing it, but I can imagine that this watch would be a bit of a strap monster.
The word ‘visitor’ to me suggests someone that visits for a brief period of time and leaves again and whilst The Linden was just visiting me socially for a short time Visitor watch company are certainly not going anywhere in the watch scene. They made their mark on me and they will certainly leave their mark on whichever wrist this beautiful wrist visits.
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