The Herald Automatic i00403 by Ingersoll
History of Ingersoll
Before we get on to our review of The Herald Automatic a little history on the American brand. Based in New York brothers Robert and Charles founded the Ingersoll watch Company in 1892. Pioneers of their era they went from making hand crafted precision instruments of time to state of the art production line in 1896. They followed the lead of Henry Ford and have even been mentioned by President Theodore Roosevelt. He said ‘the man from the country where Ingersoll watches are made’. This made the company famous. So with such rich history we expect a lot from todays timepiece for review, The Herald Automatic!
Available Options
Dial
Personally I’m not a fan of the old skeleton look design on a watch. They have been around since the 1760’s when Jean-Antoine Lépine a french watchmaker decided to make a thinner pocket watch. He did this by removing some of the components hence the name Lepine calibre. It was Lepine’s farther in law and master watchmaker André-Charles Caron realised that by going further they could save time money and increase profitability.
Along comes the Quartz crisis of the 1970 /1980’s. During this period lot of manufactures of mechanical timepieces went bust. Even big names of the day struggled to survive the apocalypse of Quartz.
1980’s a new wave of Skeleton watches was born. Amongst these manufactures was Ingersoll the creators of todays review watch The Herald Automatic. With many variations of skeleton watch available today let’s have a look at what Ingersoll has to offer!
Indersoll’s The Herald Automatic offers a simplistic yet beautiful take on the skeleton watch. A outer ring with a dark grey guilloche pattern. Applied indices in rose gold infilled with superluminova. Directly above the 6 o’clock is the small seconds hand in rose gold. Again with grey ring and further rose gold highlights to indicate the seconds in dots and batons at five second intervals. All spear shaped hands are rose gold with a dot of lume applied. At 3 oclock is the Ingersoll logo in white on applied grey fixture that appears slate like. Secured together by a grey gun mental decorative frame to the exposed movement. Finished off with a beautiful onion shaped crown.
It really is a joy the see the tensioning of the mainspring as you wind the watch. And equally enjoyable to watch in the small seconds, balance wheel and the gears in motion.
Case / Strap
Rose gold coated 361L Stainless steel case. At 40mm this is a perfect size for a gents dress watch. To the rear is s stainless steel caseback with mineral glass display, Ref:100403, Stainless steel 361L and 5ATM Water Resistance all engraved on the outer steel case.
Black leather 20mm watch strap embossed with the Ingersoll logo and folding rose gold push button clasp. Due to it’s 20mm it easy to replace in the future.
Watch Gallery
I Bought A Beautiful Box
SPECIFICATION
- Movement: Automatic
- Depth: 13 MM
- Height: 40 MM
- Width: 40 MM
- Open Skeleton Dial
- Glass: Mineral
- TYPE : Leather
- COLOUR : Black
- BUCKLE : Push button clasp
- WIDTH (mm) : 20mm
WATER RESISTANCE : 5 ATM/ 50M
WARRANTY : Lifetime International
- Colours on the dial are fantastic
- Fun to watch the mechanical movement
- The applied indices look stunning against the guilloche pattern
- Small seconds is always a winner when picking watch complications.
- Price at RRP
- Low light could present legibility problems for those with poor eye sight.
- The leather watch strap should be better given it’s RRP/
Final Thoughts
I agree with Liam Pierce it’s a nice box ‘but not the reason to buy one’ as his mother said. I agree with Jain I think the watch is the important part here! Luckily I think he ended up with a fine dress watch in The Herald Automatic. A very interesting timepiece to look at and a great talking point while out as people like to see how things work. Prices for the watch is £430 – £455 on the Ingersoll website. Considering Liam paid £257 from Very so look around as I’m sure there is a saving to be had if you like this watch.