Some watches are worth the wait

I bought my Safari from Lorier after watching TGV explain the how and why of its design. Back then I didn’t really buy into the story of making an alternative explorer, and now that I have it for close to a year I’m still not sold on this idea. I must however admit that TGV made a great sales pitch and I immediately tried to buy one from Lorier.

This is when I found that all I could do is place a pre-order as the production hasn’t started yet. Since I’m shallow and easily distracted I promptly forgot about it and went on with my life. A few months later I remembered that I still didn’t get my Safari and therefore I sent an email to Lorier inquiring about the status of my order. The reply came in the same evening, meaning early morning in the USA and it explained the delay due to having to wait for the production to finish and that the watch will be probably sent to the buyers in the next two weeks.

After sending a thank you in reply I did the next best thing which was to forget about it again, until a few weeks later I got an SMS from the carrier asking me to pay VAT for a shipment that is clearing custom. I think that I had to wait for six months or so from the day I saw the video on YouTube until I got the Safari in my hands. It’s really a long time to wait for a watch if you are not into the habit of getting your name on wait lists.

Was it worth it? The answer is that for me it was absolutely worth it. Everything that I loved about this Safari when I wrote my original review is still valid. It’s still manage to charm me whenever it’s back on my wrist and I still think that getting it on an Erika’s Originals strap was the best thing I did to fix the one major flaw it had, which was the truly terrible Perlon strap, which for inexplicable reasons found itself paired by Lorier with the Safari.

The interesting thing about this purchase is that it’s not the only time that I had to wait for more than half a year to get a watch. The other time was with the Smiths Everest, but everything else was different. Lorier created a stress free purchase and replied to my questions promptly, courteously and to the point. They are a very small brand too, but they still found the time to cater for their customers. If you are like me then you will reach the same conclusion: Some watches are more worthy of a wait than others, and it’s more related to the way that the brand does business rather than to the watch itself.