Tsao Baltimore Watch Company Natty Boh Purple Review

This new watch is a tribute to the Land of Pleasant Living. The Natty Boh Moon watch is a quartz moonphase with many tropes to Maryland and Baltimore. This is well made an finished with a thin (10mm) steel case with a bit of detailing on the sides.

The Moon phase dial features the Natty Boh guy, the logo of a beer brand that originally brewed in Maryland ‘on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay’. The ‘stars’ in the little dial are crabs. They all glow with lume, as does the crown, which has a Maryland flag design.

The watch came with four dial colors, mine is ‘Raven’ purple; there’s also white, orange and black, which with the orange moon phase dials are versions of Orioles uniforms. The dial has sharp applied numbers and very well done printing of the brand logo (taken from the Maryland Flag design), minute track and ‘Baltimore Maryland’ at the base. It’s very legible and symmetrical. The date window at the base has a trapezoidal opening which is more interesting than a square and the date track has a purple background that matches the dial.

The original band was a fairly thin and stiff leather, the only real quality mark I’d give against the watch. I swapped it out with a thick and supple band from another local company, the Towson Watch Company, albeit one made with German leather. This band is soft, comfortable and nicely padded. However its width and thickness made it a tough fit with regular buckles, even the one from TWC. The Tsao butterfly clasp, which also has a Natty Boh mustache logo, worked well here. It fit the thicker band well and with butterfly clasp, once the band is set to your wrist you are done.

One caution, the clasp uses very tiny screws to secure it to the strap and they are recessed inside the strap, so you need your smallest screwdriver, good light and magnification to even try. I’m good at strap changes, but this one was a 30+ minute job for my local watchmaker (Karl at Jewelers of Distinction) who is a saint!

All told, this a nicely done watch. The movement is a “Swiss quartz” which has been quite accurate so far (0 to +1second in three days). This model had a limited run of 160 watches, now sold out, but there are a number of other models on their site, including automatics with Maryland-assembled movements. They are worth a look