A Tale of Two "Datejusts"

I've made no secret of the fact that I really want a Rolex Datejust but can't commit the purchase. Psychologically, the number of variations of the Datejust is too overwhelming, which is bizarre for such an iconic and oddly boring dress watch. Also the increasing price, the AD games, the watchdealers/scalpers, the douche celebrities, and just plain vileness of a lot of rich Rolex owners, keep the thought in the back of my mind of "Do I really need this?"

To "scratch the itch" in some ways, I've bought fluted bezel watches a few times (as you will see in my gallery) over the years, but they haven't done it for me. So I went a step further and bought the two most popular homages from AliExpress.

To deinfluence as many of you as I can, both these watches are a bit crap. They tell the time and look the part, mostly, but the case and bracelet quality is kind of nasty even by AliExpress standards. I have no idea why some YouTubers have rated them highly (with various caveats), because they are a waste of money.

The solid end links in both cases nearly fit the watch head, but they are also badly made and actually don't. The bracelets are surprisingly "nice enough" on their own, but they don't work together with the watches they are attached to. Clasps in both cases, whether butterfly or the "Rolex style" are pretty bad. But "they're milled not pressed," the YouTubers will say. So what? They are loose and sharp, and ironically I had to get a file to the "easy link extension" on the Pagani to get it to open.

The sizes are different on these to any real Rolex, of course. The Cadisen is 38mm and the Pagani is 41mm (more or less). The Pagani's lug-to-lug (at nearly 49mm) is more Datejust II than the Datejust 41, so it's really a Datejust II with a jubilee clone than it is a straight up clone of the new version. The YouTubers don't tell you that because they have no idea what they are talking about half the time anyway.

The Cadisen wears better on me than the Pagani, but either way, they both slip around or feel awkward to the point where I can't bear wearing them for very long.

The good points of these watches are that they come with all the usual things you'd expect such as sapphire crystals, cyclops (that don't do much but do magnify), and 316L stainless steel (woohoo, it's the new gold!). They tell the time accurately enough for mechanical automatic watches, and so they get a pass there.

I doubt the claims of the water resistance of either, but the Cadisen claims 50m and the Pagani claims 100m with a screw down crown which is supposed to inspire confidence (even though water is more likely to get in through the display backs). Why they think anyone wants to see a standard Miyota 8215 or Seiko NH35A except to check that the watch is actually working beats the hell out of me. Plain casebacks would have been much better.

How disappointed am I really though? Well, not that much. I didn't expect much and I didn't get much. I also didn't pay very much for either of them. They arrived well packed and without blemish, and even came with free useless watch tools for resizing the bracelets. I was amused by Cadisen's instantly breaking pin pusher and how Pagani included a mini screwdriver which was not only made of the softest metal possible but had a head too big to fit the screws in the first place.

Have they put me off a real Rolex Datejust more than the thoughts in the back of my head already have? No, not at all. They've put me off certain YouTubers even more (and I wasn't that into them to begin with), and it's put me off Cadisen and Pagani Design "homages" (or let's be real here, "clones" and "lookalikes" with cheaper movements in them) for life.

Right now, I'm happier with my Steeldive SD1970 "Willard" than I would be with a real Seiko one, and so it's always swings and roundabouts with these things.