Win It: The Techne Harrier Automatic

Techne Harrier 363 Automatic – $480 – $490

How much? Nice watch. Not quite sure why someone would drop $500 on it, unless they’re a gear-head that’s really into the specifics of the movement. You can easily get a Hamilton at that price point. But, maybe it really is all about the movement?

Three months ago, clear back in February, a press release from the not extremely well known watch brand Techne landed in the inbox about the upcoming debut of the Harrier. It would be an automatic, it looked great, and they were offering a few “press samples” for review. No mention of price, but since other Techne automatics (Miyota even) and mechanicals (Seagull chrono) run in the mid $300s, I threw Dappered’s hat in the ring for a review/giveaway. Techne quickly responded kindly affirming that they’d send one along. Annnnnnnnd it then slipped off the ol’ personal radar.

Last week a box showed up from Switzerland. This was inside.

It’s a sturdy mid-size 41mm in diameter with 20 mm lugs. An Aviator style that avoids the “I’m wearing instrumentation on my wrist” issue. Maybe it’s the slim 20mm band, but it looks and wears a bit smaller than the diameter. All Harriers come with a sapphire crystal and exhibition caseback, and for an extra $10 you get the black PVD coating. Screw down crown, water resistance is 50m, and the altimeter styling is right on. Gotta hand it to Techne (sorry, Techn©). Their sweeping logo is one of the best in the business, and that red “Opus Manufactum” right underneath is a nice bit of color.

So what’s that “Opus Manufactum” bit mean? The movement inside is the new Miyota 9015, which hacks and can be hand wound. Techne has also done some tweaking to try and get a higher level of performance out of it. From Techne:

“All 9015 movements used by Techn© are manually fine-tuned in three positions to run within COSC rates (-4 to +6 seconds per day), which entitles the watches to bear the “Opus Manufactum” label (Latin for “hand-worked”).”

Okay. COSC is the Swiss Institute in charge of certifying the accuracy of Swiss watches. Lots of hoops to jump through to get that certification, and Techne seems to be saying the Harrier is accurate enough that they could pass the COSC test.

But how important is all that to you? If your answer is: “not really, I’m even plenty fine with Quartz“… then know they’ve dropped the prices on their terrific looking Merlin collection, starting now at $84.

Enter here to win this Harrier from Techne. One entry per person. Deadline for entering the random drawing is 11:59 pm ET 5/30/13. Good luck!

UPDATE: Congrats to Kurt M. who won the drawing for the Techne Harrier.