Introducing Eza Sealander
Last week the new owners of Eza came down to the Fratello Watches HQ in The Hague and showed us their Eza Sealander. Needless to say that we always like to have watch people over in our office to ramble about watches over a coffee, we love it when we get to see a new watch or new collection that has not been launched yet.
If you are into vintage watch collecting, you might recognize Eza as the brand from Pforzheim, Germany. That’s correct. Pforzheim was long time one of those cities that was associated with watchmaking, and even today you will find a couple of brands and suppliers in this German city. Eza has roots that go back to 1921, founded by Hermann Becker and specialized in manufacturing stainless steel cases for watches. Later on, Eza produced complete watches with in-house developed movements (calibers HB312, 313 and 414) and water-resistant cases (1950’s).
Today it is in the hands of two Dutch guys: Diederik van Golen en Adriaan Trampe, based in Rotterdam. These two watch aficionados (Adriaan is a trained watchmaker and Diederik holds a Master in Entrepreneurship) met each other in a bar of the Erasmus University campus in Rotterdam. Discussing watches and the watch industry for quite some time, they decided – many espressos (read: beers) later – to bring a long-gone watch brand back to life together. They could have picked a name from many watch brands that were discontinued thanks to the quartz revolution that Seiko started, but their eye fell on the Pforzheim company called Eza. The fact that Eza created water resistant cases and had funky designs, made their horological heart tick faster and was in line with their ideas to come up with a “desk diver” watch.
Yes, a “desk diver” watch. Even though the Eza Sealander is water proof to 300 meters, there is no crown guard (the crown has three seals and is screw-down) and the watch comes on a leather strap. So, in theory, you could dive with this watch without problems. But as we all know, it is often more about the style of a divers watch than people actually taking the watch out for a dive. The classic look of the Eza Sealander makes it a very elegant timepiece, only available in 41mm, that can be worn during any type of occasion. The straps have this vintage look & feel to it, and the lack of crown guards make it remind us of those Rolex Submariners and Omega Seamaster 300s before crown guards were added. The Eza Sealander does have a ceramic uni-directional bezel that gives a solid click when rotating it. The bezel has a C3 Super-LumiNova filled 60 minutes marker.
Inside, there is a Miyota based automatic movement (caliber 9015) that’s used in a number of microbrands these days. However, Eza told us that they are regulating these movements in six positions in their workshop in Rotterdam before the cases are sealed. The Eza Sealander has a power reserve of 42 hours and a hack second-hand.
Update September 7th 2016: Eza decided to move on and use ETA 2824-2 for all of their watches. The price remains the same.
As written above, the stainless steel (316L) case has a 41mm diameter (14.25mm thick) and a polished case band. The top of the lugs have a brushed finish, between the lugs it measures 22mm. The lapped dial has high gloss applied indexes filled with C3 Super-Luminova, for proper readability during low-light conditions. The double domed sapphire crystal has AR coating. Attached is a 22mm leather strap with vintage look but in the package you will also find a NATO strap.
The Eza Sealander will be delivered in a high gloss watch box and inside you’ll find a high quality leather watch roll with the watch, additional straps and a changing tool. Later on this month there will be an official launch of the Eza Sealander and orders will be taken from that moment on.
Eza’s Sealander will have a price of € 849 Euro, including (21%) VAT.
More information on the Eza Sealander via the official website.
