Review of the Kemmner Turtle

School commitments have been keeping me pretty busy lately, hence the lack of updates. Finally I have some time for one now, so let's start with the long promised review of the Kemmner Turtle.

I've owned the Kemmner Turtle for a little over a month now, and over the course of the month, the overall impression has been excellent. Let's start with the origin of the watch case itself; the Kemmner Turtle case is manufactured by Fullswing Industrial, which is based in Hong Kong. Roland Kemmner then sources these cases from Fullswing and sells them on eBay under the moniker 'erkahund'.

The Turtle is quite the substantial watch. The watch case is very solidly built and the entire thing weighs in at in at 198g with an unsized bracelet; quite a hefty piece to say the least. The watch case has a brushed finishing all over, and the overall finishing of the case qualitywise is very good. I wouldn't say it is fantastic, but it is very good indeed, especially at the price level we are talking about.

There is however, something which is fantastic about this watch; the crown action. The crown tube has really chunky threads which minimizes the chances of cross-threading. The crown itself is really solid and instills a real sense of confidence.

It is signed with a deep engraving of an attractively stylized 'K', in the same font as the one printed on the dial. Not your usual puny laser engraving, the engraving is really deep and adds to the quality of the watch.

 

Bezel action is really good too, if a bit loud. Very precise clicks with nearly no bezel play at all. One of the best bezels I've ever came across actually. It did start out a little stiff, but over the month loosened up slightly and is the tension now is just perfect.

 

The signed crown

It features a flat sapphire crystal with underside AR coating, which I hope its scratch resistance never needs to be tested. After a month of daily wear, the crystal is still flawless, which is the norm for most of my watches as I don't really bang them around.

Unfortunately, my example of the Kemmner Turtle (which is powered by an ETA 2824-2 movement) fared rather poorly in timekeeping (sometimes us WIS get so distracted that we care more about features such as whether the crystal is sapphire or mineral than whether it performs its primary function well). I believe the watch somehow got magnetized which is causing poor performance, leading it to gain one second every hour.

I will comment on this further when I have solved the magnetism issue (or whatever else it may be), but right now at least it's gaining the same amount daily, which indicates some measure of precision.

 

Shine Bright Like a Diamond

The lume on this watch is quite good. I would have preferred Super-LumiNova C3 lume as I'm a bit of a lume fanatic and I prefer my watches to shine as brightly as possible. I'm not really disappointed though as this watch has performed admirably in the lume department considering it's Super-LumiNova C1 and I'm really quite pleased. The indices, while they aren't applied, do give the impression that they are because the lume is applied quite thickly and gives the dial a textured feel.

 

Beautifully engraved turtle on the caseback

The watch feels great on the wrist, thanks to the solidly built bracelet. It is composed of solid end links and solid links, which are held together by screws. It comes with half links and four micro adjustment holes on the clasp; no trouble sizing no matter your wrist size. Completely brushed finished, which I always prefer over polished links of any sort, so that gets big points with me.

 

The caseback engraving is beautifully done. Once again, very deep engraving which adds to the quality.

Overall, I am thoroughly impressed with this watch. What I'm really impressed with is the quality of the products that Hong Kong case manufacturers such as Fullswing Industrial and Longio are capable of.

I haven't actually came across a German case manufacturer's watch such as Fricker but I did read on certain issues such as considerable amounts of play in the bezel from Fricker cases. Do consider that Fricker cased watches are easily in the $1000+ range and still issues like those exist; I think I'll be sticking to Fullswing for now.

 

The Kemmner Turtle is available every now and then from Kemmner's eBay web store and will set you back by about US$500, excellent value in my opinion.

 

 

To end it off, here's my favourite picture of the watch. Sorry for the recycled pictures! I've been a bit too busy to take new photos. So that's it, hope this review was a good read for you!