I recently discovered the haphazardly named Ralf Tech line of watches (I’m sorry, but the name “Ralf Tech” inspires no horological confidence). Ralf Tech is a pretty well known diving equipment maker, who now has a few nice lines of diving watches. The French company makes some really nice watches at good prices starting at a few hundred bucks to about three grand for the top of the line limited edition automatic chronograph watches.
Oddly enough, you need to go to Ralf Tech’s dedicated watch site, because their regular site has no mention of their watches. Oh, and their watch site is only in French. Honestly, a lot of their watches are really cool, but I am going to focus on just one right now from their WRX line (Subaru is gonna be pissed about that one) of watches. The main pictured watch is awesome because it has a perlage polished aluminum face. There is also a matte polished (is that an oxymoron?) aluminum face version. Perlage polish creates that pattern of overlapping polished circles that is highly reminiscent of high grade machinery. I’ve never see this type of polish applied to such an affordable watch, and never to a diving watch yet. If we are lucky, this trend will take root and slowly move in on the reign of carbon fiber faced watch that have absolutely saturated the market.
The Ralf Tech WRX comes with three possible movements. First is a movement that is probably licensed from Seiko called E-Matic. It is the same as a Seiko Kinetic movement, having a rotor that recharges a battery that powered an quartz movement. It has a power reserve of 60 days. There are also two limited editions that have true automatic mechanical movements with an ETA 2824-2 or ETA Valjoux 7750 chronograph version. These are of course the picks of the litter, but are going to be more expensive and harder to come by. By the way the ETA 2824-2 movement based WRX watch is about 1500 Euros.
See Ralf Tech items on eBay here.
See Ralf Tech items on Amazon here.
RALF TECH WRX A Hybrid II O Steel Brand New $1,837.66 Time Remaining: 11h 58m Buy It Now for only: $1,837.66 Buy It Now |
RALF TECH WRV V Automatic 1977 Riviera 438mm case Brand New Automatic $2,598.07 Time Remaining: 1d 1h 42m Buy It Now for only: $2,598.07 Buy It Now |
RALF TECH WRV S Hybrid Black Pirates 438mm case Brand New Automatic $1,970.73 Time Remaining: 1d 2h 19m Buy It Now for only: $1,970.73 Buy It Now |
RALF TECH WRV S Hybrid Black Red Pirates 438mm case Brand New Automatic $1,970.73 Time Remaining: 1d 2h 28m Buy It Now for only: $1,970.73 Buy It Now |
RALF TECH WRV S Hybrid Black Pirates Shadow 438mm case Brand New Automatic $1,970.73 Time Remaining: 1d 3h 45m Buy It Now for only: $1,970.73 Buy It Now |
RALF TECH SCUBA DIVING MASK NEW WITH CASE $19.99 Time Remaining: 1d 13h 59m Buy It Now for only: $19.99 Buy It Now |
SOURCE:http://www.ablogtowatch.com/ralf-tech-wrx-perlage-dial-diving-watch/