Kickstarter Project: Helgray Watches

helgray_skyfighter

The Helgray Skyfighter

Nadim contacted me and asked me if I could do a little write-up on his kickstarter project.

The watches are branded “Helgray”, and are all in vintage military style. Now there is a lot you could get wrong here design-wise, but in my book, Nadim and his colleagues have got it all right. The best detail are the lugs. They look like the old-style WW1 lugs, but they have a spring bar hidden under the strap – genial!

You can see the whole range at http://kickstarter.helgray.com/.

All the watches in the range have Ronda movements: 515 (classic 3-hander), 6004B (small second at 6H), 514.24H (GMT), 5021.D (2-registers chronograph). Now all I want is one of those with a proper mechanical movement!

12 thoughts on “Kickstarter Project: Helgray Watches

  1. The people below are right. Nadim and his watch companies: Helgray, Makara, Rossling&Co. are shysters. His quality control is laughable. How can you miss the obvious – like the watch hands don’t align. LOL. You see, once he takes you money, that’s it. You’re done. He will never answer your email or inquiry again. His customer service is non-existent. He’ll say email at support@helgray.com, etc. BUT HE WILL NEVER REPLY BACK. It will go into the trash bin. Just google his name and his various companies and identities and the word scam and fraud or no customer service. You will get the same horror stories. He usually dupe people via Kickstarter, and his websites will be all nice with $20 promo and sidebar popups saying so-and-so recently purchase X in the last 3 hours, etc. It’s all BS. Don’t fall for his trap. And it’s a very good chance he will send you a sub-par watch, and you will never be able to reach him again because he will now ignore you or block you on social media. He has no phone number or address. Save yourself the headache. #Nadim #Helgray #Makara #Rossling #watch are scammers.

  2. Beware! Helgray has NO customer service… it isn’t HORRIBLE as @Watchguy describes, it is apparently NON-EXISTENT! I have been waiting for 6 weeks now, for my watch being delivered, and Helgray haven’t responded to any of my messages. I feel I fell for a scam, do NOT TRUST this webshop, your money will be better spent by investing it into dark matter.

  3. Terrible – I mean HORRIBLE Customer Service, but great at taking your order and $$- Do NOT expect any response once they have your money. Watch is nice enough and seems to run well. My advice is consider buying one a lark and if something goes sideways don’t expect any response for HELGRAY. No I would never buy or refer them to anyone

  4. These are the same folks who did the Rossling & Co. watch. Read the comments there… a lot of disappointed buyers.

    Kickstarter emphasises launch but could care less what happens after that.

    You’re buying a fashion brand watch presented as something artisenal. These watches are as authentic as that little plastic palm trees on those little plastic turtle bowls.

    • Hmmm… at the price the watches are sold, you would expect some service. I don’t mind throwing a £50 watch into the bin, but in this price range, you don’t want to do that.

  5. Nice dials and I like the idea of WWI style soldered lugs on a modern case. But i’d have to see a reasonable quality mechanical movement in there before i’d consider one. I do like the GMT, nice and simple.

    Stick an ETA automatic in there and sign me up!

  6. I like the look of the GMT and the Field Officer. Though the crown is a little bit small for my liking, for a mechanical movement I’ve no doubt it would need to go up a size.

  7. Perhaps you could convert one to mechanical? Are there such things as Mechanical / Quartz equivalence tables?

    They are nice designs (California dial aside – I detest them things!) and the price certainly seems good 😉

Leave a Reply to Scott Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.