Independents

I like the case and crown but the seconds hand is kind of weird to me. Seems like their version of the Kurono Tokyo brand.  This message has been edited by cazalea on 2024-11-05 17:10:10

than any Kurono, Ming or any other budget brand.  I was pleasantly surprised when I saw the price.

I believe the Gronefeld Brothers could have priced this new watch at least twice as much and still sell the 388 pieces within minutes.

The price is low, but I see nothing appealing.

Why don't they try of offer a basic, less finished in house time only at € 9,999 instead?

NT

But have the time and resources to do this?? Don’t get them.

The training curve for this is likely shorter. So you can hire staff faster and scale ops.

They have a hard time producing their current order list so it is impossible to do this 388 in house too . This new brand is like the Kurono etc to give new (younger) collectors a nice and attractive watch with the dna of the Gronefeld .

The question of course remains how much attention it takes away from the main brand. It will not be the same people making it (I doubt there will be any Groenefeld in there), the likely success and relatively easy money (much simpler than trying to grow the main business) is a hard to resist siren song - even if they are just ‘managing’ it, attention will need to be split. I have heard from Hajime Asaoka collectors that their orders (of HA) since the launch of Kurono have not been delivered or postponed drastically.
It doesn’t have to be the same here but the risk is there…

The movement isn't very impressively finished despite the adjectives on their site. Curious to see real life reviews of these and just how much of a hit they take on resale.

the elaborately designed caseback they hide the Sellita movement with. If the dial colors (and the seconds hand) were more to my liking, I'd be seriously interested. 

The dial seems unbalanced and the blued hands don’t fit the overall esthetic imho. I do like the case and caseback though. And I do applaud Groenefeld for venturing into a more affordable direction, which is opposite of what everyone else does. But I think their offering is not up to where it should be. If it was branded Tissot, I don’t think this watch would have many fans.

I also like the idea to attract new (younger) customers who cannot or don’t have the budget to order one of the Gronefeld collection.
I ordered a Kurono back then because i couldn’t get a Hajime but wanted something that had his dna and style design. And in that kurono i saw a similarity. In the later designs i didn’t saw any resemblance anymore so they weren’t on my list anymore.
I understand if you think its a cheap version or wanted something different but i think it a great move and applaud it .

Comment on the quality without looking at it live, visually it doesn’t seem to gel for me - the individual components might be spot on but the dial, case and hands don’t look like a coherent whole for me 🤷🏻‍♂️

Everyone obsesses about small stuff, in my case I love this crown, they’ve always had good taste there. I have a Grönefeld (One Hertz) and every time I post about it on Insta I get the whole Grönefeld family as well as their main brand account engaging with the post, including their adult kids. My adult sons love my watches, I’ll be more likely to let them borrow a Grøn than my Grönefeld.