Farer Carnegie Titanium - One Week Review

This will be my first new post on WatchCrunch; a one week review of the Farer Carnegie Titanium. I've always thought Farer made cool watches, but this was the first time one really called out to me. After a week on the wrist, I thought I'd share my thoughts since compared to other watch brands (and even other Farer models), there doesn't seem to be too much out there on this particular one.

Case/Dial

To me, the case and dial is the number 1 reason for my purchase. The case design harkens back to retro racing chronographs and I absolutely dig it. The case is relatively simplistic with a brushed finish but it's apparent that it's well made (plus I love the lightweight feel of titanium). The case diameter at 41mm is on the large side for my wrist, but the short lugs make the total lug-to-lug very wearable! The beau blue ceramic tachymeter bezel is beautiful and just pops. Ceramic at this price point is a huge plus, but I almost wouldn't have minded if they used aluminum to add to the retro vibe.

The bezel contrasts and compliments the bronze sunray dial very nicely. I don't see a lot of brown-ish dials out there, so this one felt more on the unique side to me. The dial has all sorts of details you wouldn't necessarily expect at this price point: sub-dial registers with concentric circles, applied logo and hour markers, etc but I'm impressed. The lume plots are a bit thin, but I don't actually care about lume on my watches to be honest (I'm used to Grand Seiko watches which don't have lume at all! haha). The only minor quibble I have with the dial is that I think they should have made the chronograph hands the same colors instead of having the center seconds and running seconds be the same (although maybe this gives the dial more balance).

Overall, I haven't been able to stop staring at this watch for the past week - it's just so beautiful, like a work of art!

Movement

The movement is a Sellita 510 BH. No complaints here; it's a solid movement and easily serviceable, plus I might be weird but I actually love manual wind movements (it gives me more of a chance to interact with my watch). The chronograph action feels solid and accuracy wise, I've been getting around +10 second a day, which is well within spec for the elabore grade of this particular movement.

Strap

The watch comes on a lovely chocolate brown leather strap that complements the color scheme beautifully. The strap is nicely padded and feels high quality with a nicely finished pin buckle with the Farer logo. The feel is a bit stiff out of the box but after a week, the strap is broken in and quite comfortable. I've ordered a grey leather nato strap from Bas and Lokes so I'm looking forward to trying that as well! I'm also planning to buy the titanium bracelet when Farer releases that later this year.

Overall,

This is one of my first microbrand watches and one week in I'm so happy with the purchase. Obviously, I'm still in the honeymoon period but the Carnegie has been quite successful in diverting my attention away from my other watches. The watch looks just as amazing as it does in pictures and I think the color scheme is relatively unique (somewhat reminiscent of the Platinum Daytona in reverse but the Farer blue is very different). Farer definitely provides a lot of watch for the money, and in this price range, I feel like it competes very well with more mainstream brands (e.g. Longines, Oris, Tag, etc.). Is it on the same level as a Speedmaster, El Primero, or Daytona? No obviously, but no one should expect it to (for a $2k watch). At the very least, when it comes time, my service bill will be cheaper 😛

Well done, Farer! At the time of this post, there is still quite a bit of inventory left on this and I'm surprised! I'd highly recommend to anyone considering. Looking forward to wearing this watch for years to come!