Vincero Icon Automatic Review
The 1986 movie, Stand By Me, is a coming of age odyssey of self-discovery. In it, sensitive Gordie (Will Wheaton), tough guy Chris (River Phoenix) and friends embark on a two day trek to verify the truth about the rumors of a missing teenager’s body. Eventually, far down the train tracks, Gordie and his pals discover what they were searching for that forces them to come to grips with their own mortalities.
Like Gordie, I was sensitive to the prospect of buying a watch from a brand that seemed to be at the heart of rumors and controversy. But I took the trek anyway. What I found was a pretty darn nice watch! And that is the Vincero Icon!
In addition to the watch‘s clean lines, deep navy dial, and gleaming die cut silver hands and markers…it boasts a nicely-polished case, solid link bracelet with quick release spring bars, and sapphire front and back.
Its solid stats are as tough as Chris in the movie:
- 5 Year Warranty
- Case Diameter: 41mm
- Case Thickness: 11.5mm
- Strap Width: 20mm
- Movement: Seiko Automatic - NH35
- Power reserve lasts approximately 40 hours
- Date calendar window
- Hands: Die-Cut Skeleton
- Water Resistance: 10 ATM - 100 meters / 300 feet
- Glass: Sapphire Crystal (Scratch Resistant)
- Case: 316L Stainless Steel
- Caseback: Sapphire Exhibition
- Strap: Steel H-Shaped Bracelet (Alternating Brushed/Polished)
- Clasp: Push-Button Deployant Clasp
- Weight: 148 grams (with two links removed).
When Gordie walked down the hill from the train tracks into the thicket and found the deceased, all his fears of his decision to make this journey were justified in the fact he had now graduated into something more than just a timid boy. He had now become one step closer to being a man.
Like Gordie, I was timid to buy the Icon from a company that often uses its marketing like a battering ram…which has accumulated a fair bit of ire from the watch community.
But, after making the purchase, sizing the band, proudly-wearing the watch around and showing it off to packs of barking and howling watch nerds, I have said good bye to my watch timidity and welcomed a brave new world of the appreciation of all watches, great or small. Because after all…isn’t that what helps make this whole enterprise so damn fun?
Vincero Icon Automatic Review
Yes
No
- Beautiful handset and markers
- Excellent finishing for a sub $300 watch
- Sits flat on wrist and has a generous crown
- No lume
- date wheel could be tinted grey perhaps to better match the design theme
- Not a big fan of a butterfly clasp
Time dictates my linear path to its bitter end. My watches keep me one step ahead of time…and one foot out of the grave.
Vincero is a bit of a hot button brand given its origins as your typical “affordable luxury” brand. They at least seem to have outgrown this (and did upgrade the specs on a lot of their older models lately). I do have their Argo, it does have a higher heat movement in the form of the Miyota 9015, though the clasp is a bit finicky.