Micro Tournament Round 2 Day 3: Vaer Vs. Vertex

Check Out The Lineups Here:

• Vaer

• Vertex

Get daily updates and see the updated bracket here.

Honestly tough here for me again...

Both do fantastic field watches.

Same look opposite ends of the spectrum.

I know the Vertex is high end and finished well, but Vaer is using some Ameriquartz.

Is the difference between the two worth the extra $K's?

@ChronoGuy you own one or both?

Incredibly tough. Going with Vertex but only because I have to choose one. I like the M100A, even if a little pricy.

I'm partial but I do really like vertex

Unfortunately, I own neither. Though if I were to purchase one, I'd probably go with the Vertex because of the heritage of the brand.

Yea, and not gonna lie, the lume looks spectacular.

I have seen the black PVD in person, and it does not disappoint.

Still absolutely love Vaer...more so that they have a Korean memorial edition. It's kinda the forgotten part of history, often overshadowed by newer stuff.

Vertex for me have the history and some lively current pieces. Plus they are British!

Both of these seem very derivative. Surprised they've made it this far.

Went with Vaer, good prices for the watches whereas Vertex is a little expensive and could be out of reach for many people

Hardest one for me so far. Voted for Vertex but it was painful to not vote for Vaer. Field watches are the best for me so both brands on my top list.

Tough one…don’t know either that well, but Vaer I think offers quite a bit more value for the $. Price hike for history seems a bit steep here.

576 votes and it's 50/50 😱 tough race

I think this shows best the heritage vs design part of watches really well. At this point I’m surprised its a dead heat! I voted for Vaer as I really love their catalogue. Funnily enough, I’ve been going between Vaer, Hamilton, Bulova, Vertex, and Vario for those vintage field watch vibes. Still havent decided yet but I’m for Vaer here.

I think that both #vaer and #vertex make great watches. My vote went to #vertex because of their heritage as a brand

Yeah this is a tough one. I like both of them. I voted Vertex because of their dial, those block numbers look great.I can’t wait for the 36mm.

Yea I saw it, was putting it out there in post form too, just in case...

Seeing as we already had some rage quits a few rounds ago 👀🤏🏻😉😂😬

I mean that was not even a close matchup. They clearly had others issues in their world if they quit a platform because the user base preferred one brand over another for a good spirited tournament.

I’ve owned both, the Solar Diver from Vaer let me down astonishingly.

Agreed.

I giggled a bit TBH.

But now at least it's in the feed too, so hopefully pauses some vitriolic ranting.

Or not.

🤣😂

There has been some rather heated debate on here and I’m not really sure why (some people) take so passionately against this brand (vertex) as something of cash grab. I have owned pretty much every possible field watch known to man and nobody has made anything that fits the bill so perfectly (not even Rolex with the pretty modern Explorer) as the m100. Up to and including negating the effects of quartz crisis in the 1970s to disparage the brand. Ok fine, for me the provenance of this piece is the fact the great grand son of Claude Lyon the original owner, was constantly instilled with a love of the Vertex brand as handed down by his family. Watches were always part of his life. Clearly the man (Don) is not poor but he put his passion where his mouth was re-mortgaged his house, risked a lot to create something imho that is very special. If nothing else this vote, and ensuing debate is something that shows the importance of holding and seeing time pieces in the metal to understand the workmanship and value in them. Every watch design know to man can be purchased premium or on ali express, most all and everything is derivative, but something made with passion is quite hard to fake.

You can only do so much, aesthetically, given the WWW requirements, so no real differentiation in terms of styling. So it comes down to x-factor: value for money for Vaer and finishing/heritage for Vertex. In my opinion, I give the edge to Vertex. Not to mention the heartwearming “reviving the family legacy” story.

I'm firmly on the Vaer side on this one.

I own two, and have had nothing but positive experiences with them.

I don't know man, in my experience passion in business is quite easy to fake. I have been doing it for the better part of the last decade and people to this day believe that I like my job.

Whether the passion behind Vertex is real, the company background is true or the watches are any good I do not know. They better be good quality for what they are charging and they very well might be. But it wouldn't surprise me one iota if it was all made to cash in on the enthusiast market who's just waiting for a good heritage story. It's a clear conflict of interest and part of the game, whoever tells the most believable story and has the best marketing wins. If the watch is good, whatever. But I also totally get why someone who's passionate about military style field watches might not be so chill about this in case they feel "cheated".

Passion is something one can see in the metal of a design, get the piece in hand and under macro is all I can suggest, I think your confusing Vertex for Bremont

Poll closed for this matchup. Congratulations to Vaer!

Because this one was so darn close, the final at poll close was 757 to 734.

Oh cobblers! No horse in the race now.

Time to find a new horse!

WOW - we’re incredibly honored to have won this one - thank you to all of the voters.

Vertex is an amazing brand and the story of bringing the business back to life is inspiring.We really didn’t expect to be put up against two brands with $3,000+ watches in a microbrand tournament 😂, but that just shows the breadth of the microbrand world!

Wanted to mention a couple of different notes regarding our brand:

We know it was covered quite a bit above here, but just wanted to reiterate / add some more color about the Dirty Dozen design. Of all watch designs out there, modern iterations of it should not be called “derivative”, given that the design is from military specification. Our design follows the original mil-spec just as much as Vertex, Buren, Cyma, Timor, IWC, Longines, etc.

Our A12 Dirty Dozen is one of about 40 SKUs in our lineup - our aim is to offer a broad array of watches from $159 to upwards of $1,000 to allow watch lovers dive into horology at near any price point.

We have a pretty awesome Ameriquartz Dirty Dozen in the works that will allow folks to pick up this design aesthetic at closer to the $300 mark.

Happy to answer any questions!

Ryan

As I said, I don't doubt the watches are good and I am not saying they aren't passionate about the product. There wouldn't be such a following if the watches are crap, so I can believe that they are good enough for the money.

What I am saying is that they most certainly have a motive to make you believe their passion story even if it wasn't true. I have no reason to doubt your judgement but the conflict of interest (which isn't exclusive to Vertex of course) is non-negotiable 😉 and that can trigger people.

What I tried to indicate is that if you are going for a market that is filled with enthusiastic individuals then there will be heated arguments. Think about it, they'd be doing a terrible job if nobody had an issue with it because it would more likely than not mean that it left everyone cold. And that's not what you want. I think I saw Max Büsser talk about this once after he got blasted online for one of their HM models. It's just part of it and not really surprising I would say. That's really why I wrote my comment, because you seemed surprised.

Facts are facts.

The history is there.

The family would know more why they closed than some arrogant random on the internet.

No WWWs were issued to the Germans. Germans had similar looking watches, but they were not WWWs, and there are black-dialled ATPs that were issued to the Germans in an act of Swiss neutrality. German watchmakers also made their own watches for the German army as instructed, to their specifications; all of these are mutually exclusive.

Military watches were always made to specifications or you didn’t win the contract. To call them derivative is to completely fail to understand why they were created in the first place. Wristwatch development, and popularisation amongst men in fashion, is actually largely down to warfare, so to downplay this is to ignore a fundamental aspect of their history. Most centre-second movements were indirect before 1950, so sub-second dials were the usual default, hence many watches have the layout people have come to despise.

But no… this is WC. WWWs are derivative, anything before 1970 didn’t happen, Vertex aren’t real, and AliExpress has better military watches of note.