What would you pay? The Stuhrling Prestige Laurel

Stuhrling Prestige Laurel – $199.99* – $375

The $199.99 price is available through the discount flash sale site BeyondTheRack.  And that’s key, since returns there only net you credits instead of cash back.  That, and shipping times can take quite awhile.

Now’s not a bad time to examine what it means to be “Swiss Made”.   Because while these Stuhrling dress watches carry that stamp on their dial, they’re almost certainly more of a global effort.  There’s a law that sets minimum standards for a watch to carry the “Swiss Made” label:

The assembly work on the movement (the motor of the watch) and on the watch itself (fitting the movement with the dial, hands and the various parts of the case) should be carried out in Switzerland, along with the final testing of the movement. It also requires that at least 50% of the components of the movement should be manufactured in Switzerland.

– Federation of the Swiss Watch Industry

There are a LOT of loopholes there.  But to Stuhrling’s credit, they seem pretty honest about the true Swissyness level of their watches, as long as you ask.  A guy over at watchuseek sent them an email about a similar watch, and their response fully admitted that “the movement base is from China” while it still met the Swiss Made standards (assembly, testing, etc…).

So it’s fair to assume that with it’s “ST-8003” movement, these fall firmly into the “sorta-Swiss” category.

42mm case, Water resistance is 50m (even though Beyond the Rack claims 100), and the crystal is Stuhrling’s own hybrid “Kysterna”, which they claim is more scratch resistant than Mineral, and more shatter resistant than Sapphire.  Available with a black dial, silver dial, or black dial and rose-tone stainless case, and you can buy one through two places:

1. Amazon (direct… yay) for $375
2. Through the flash sale site Beyond the Rack for $199

But there’s a catch with Beyond the Rack.  Returns are for credit only.  That’s a big (unfortunate) deal.  And while the sale that these are a part of is supposed to expire today (2/19) at 1 ET, unsold items in Beyond the Rack sales seem to almost always reappear in other sales.  Especially when it comes to watches.

The proudly Japanese alternative.  Orient’s Bambino.