Anyone buy a Merkur Watch?

@AlbertaTime and @Aurelian have both posted about Merkur in the past. There was also a recent post from someone who bought a Salmon dial from them. Once I find the post I will link to it here.

This is the official website. I wore mine yesterday. It took a solid six weeks to get to me from China, but I have no complaints. I did have to email them at some point. I don't know that they employ any English speakers. Here is my old review.

I have three Merkur watches all bought from the official site. Two 1963-based chronographs and a Seizenn branded Willard homage. All arrived very fast via fedex with no duty to pay. The quality has been good and all have been well regulated and included a timegrapher print out.

However, I ordered a fourth 1963-based chronograph and it wasn't a great experience. I ordered it in 38mm with acrylic and they sent the 40mm with sapphire which looked and wore very differently from the 38mm. I requested a return and after days with no response they said "but sapphire is better".

Eventually I had to raise a dispute with PayPal and a return address was provided by Merkur but this was a different address from the one registered with PayPal. Took a while to clarify what to do with Paypal and they said return to the registered address. The watch then sat at customs for weeks in China and I finally escalated with PayPal for a refund. After providing all the evidence PayPal refunded me.

So thankfully I didn't lose out financially but it was very poor communication and customer service from Merkur, a hassle and a waste of time. I won't be buying from them again which is a shame as I like their designs. I was pleasantly surprised that Paypal came through with the refund, but I had to keep an eye on the deadlines for raising and escalating claims.

@nichtvondiesemjahrhundert wow, that’s insane man.

I love their watches, but to not even have an interference that lets you see the color / combination you select is so insane to me. I have no clue why they have the website setup that way. But good to know it can be disputed if there’s issues!

I have a chronograph that I purchased from merkurwatch.com. It's a Sea-Gull ST1901 based chronograph. It's well built works fine. It took about a week to get to me in Texas. I would buy again from that site.

I bought my "MERKUR Handwinding Mechanical Retro Dress Watch" on AliExpress.

https://www.aliexpress.com/store/912658242

@Adam6498 how do you like that Timex Marlin? I literally ordered that same one for $99 on Amazon. When it came in it was in the cheap timex carboard box, which didn’t seem right. And the watch literally seems microscopic, I’m like there’s no way this is actually 34mm. It looks much larger in your photo next to the 38mm salmon dial

@Adam6498 yeah I really want it, but this one I got didn’t “feel right”. I wonder if it was a fake to be honest, but I’d have to try on a real one to see how I feel about it. I have a small wrist, so it should be fine

I had a pretty good experience getting my Seizenn Dirty Dozen from Merkur's official website (Ignore the spelling and grammar mistakes on their site).

I Used PayPal & It showed up in 3 weeks mostly as described. It came with a completely different leather strap instead of the canvas/fabric strap that was shown on their site. The included hard case, cloth, tool and warranty card were actually pretty nice quality.

It's still one of my favorite everyday watches and I would buy from them again.

@AshKetchup I have that exact one!

I got it from their website, but the photo in my post is a “different” merkur website 😂

I agree though, it’s a phenomenal daily piece. I wear it all the time, I love the wind up mechanical watches.

Should be able to find it on AliExpress or Even eBay remember with eBay at least you can dispute Incase of fraud and they usually refund if any issues

They are great. I would recommend Baltany as well. There are a ton of very cool Chinese watches.

I posted about mine here! - https://www.watchcrunch.com/sagebrush/posts/how-far-does-100-go-33161

My impression in brief: it's perhaps the only reputable mechanical watch with an original design in this price range. The stock canvas band and free spring bar tool are surprisingly not terrible (especially by AliExpress standards, I just ordered a 3x more expensive Seagull and wow those straps are garbage).

It's not gonna be my favourite dressy three-hander that I intend to wear more than my Seikos, but Merkur makes some great dials in unusual colours for very little money, so I see it as kind of like a better Swatch. I ordered from AliExpress because it had the lowest prices. "Fanzhi" is the same company as Merkur.

Also note that "rose" and "salmon" are different.

Late to the conversation, but I like my Merkur/Seizenn etc watches.

I haven't had any need for customer support, but I have noticed correspondence is slow.

@sagebrush makes a great point when he says "I see it as kind of like a better Swatch."

I see them as more casual watches than tool watches, too. They bring good wrist candy fun for not much money.

And, practically speaking, barring misfortune, poor assembly or poor alloys there's no good reason a tongji variant can't run for at least a decade or more. I have many tongji watches that are decades old and still running.

Thank you to everyone who has commented. I really appreciate the insight!

I think I’m going to go with an AliBaba purchase. I sold my old Watch collection (all junk Mvmt’s and wholesale brands) for $120 which allows me to justify spending that on a new one for the collection