What do you think of Dartmouth watches?

IMHO

They are ok for the price, but not the best quality. Speaking solely from perspective of owning a Spinnaker Hull riviera and Bradner about 4 years back.

Perhaps they have improved since then, and I don’t want to sh*t on other brands (tho if anyone is curious, I’ll go into details on the 2 watches I owned).

TBH, I voted D, mainly since the majority of their watches are bigger (or were, haven't followed them in some time) than I'd prefer.

I'll either trend to the Casio Duro, a digital of some kind, or a more rugged tool style (Helm, Elliot Brown, Stirling, etc) before going with them.

This is mainly in reference to Spinnaker and Avi-8.

I think both make good looking watches, just usually too big in that style for me. And the Spinnaker 50 Phantoms is actually an awesome looking watch. I also think they did right by the community in fixing the issue had with peeps ordering them. YMMV.

I know AVI-8. That’s about it

I'm surprised no one mentioned the fact they bought the rights to Cortebert and brought them back to production... I guess technically not the same but I hope they stick to history and keep it as their luxury quality brand.

I generally see Earnshaw and AVI-8 being sold together (next to each other) in watch stores. So this common holding company explains it. I believe they’re all Chinese watches.

E

Watch Gang hands out Cortebert, Cadola, AVI-8, Spinnaker, and Dufa.

Overall the watches are decent, but usually 42mm or bigger, so too large for me.

If you are considering one, don't pay full price. Cadola has a DEEP sale going at the moment, and Watch Gang has "The Wheel" where you are almost guaranteed to get a "Level 1" spin, but these watches population that level for less than actual sticker cost. So if you see one pop up on Level 1, purchase a spin and grab it.

As shamelessly fun things I think they're all right.

I have a conspiracy theory for you to nibble on: considering they send free watches to channels that offer them virtually zero growth, I've humored the idea that their watch-business is just a facade/laundering scheme to something else.

a silly thought; mostly just to stir the pot. I just couldn't imagine why they'd waste their time and resources sending free watches to channels that have no influence outside of using it as some kind of administrative write-off.

There all ok all have some nice designs so ok I guess I'd have no problem buying any of them .

I own a couple of Spinnakers and an AV -8. I think they are ok watches. Like what was mentioned earlier you really should be able to get one at a good discount if you look around. I am not unhappy with them but I probably will lean away from this watch group for the most part in the future. An individual watch that may have or will come out from one of these brands may have me as a buyer. I don't think they are bad, I just feel overall there are a lot of other brands that are doing more and are either better value, design, or specifications that are more worthy of my attention.

Found out about the conglomerate when I had an issue with a Spinnaker Hull Chrono. Though they did eventually make everything right, I started to get the sense that they’re more a large Hong Kong conglomerate masquerading as several micro brands. I love my Hull but have had much better customer service from much smaller companies. My $0.02.

They look ok, I actually like some chronographs from those brands. If I didnt have around 20 watches already, I wold consider some of them.

There are several brands like this in the small watch space, I am okay with it. It is a means to scale operations and have a few offerings. There are also other popular brands that will sub-contract out the production for other start-up brands. It is a thing and we should not be surprised when we find these types of mini-conglomerates exist. In the grand scheme of production, they are pretty small relatively.

I have a few Spinnakers and I love them, fantastic for the money and very fun. I've never handled any of the other brands but I've heard of AVI-8 and then seem alright.

Younger I really loved the look of AVI-8 watches. I really loved the aviation vibes. I remember being at a jewellery store, looking & trying different watches, and with my budget, being indecisive between a Tissot Tradition and a AVI-8 Hawker Hurriane, decided to take the dress Tissot instead. While I was/still happy with the Tissot, my hunger for aviation watches simply grew up, and started looking at more well known aviation watches like IWC/Stowa/Breitling etc. Now I enjoy less and less AVI-8 as I want a real deal and not an hommage watch like AVI-8 is.

That being said, trying many AVI-8, they did not felt cheap for their price, it's their design(somewhat of a fashion brand?) That pulled me away.