I was really intrigued by their design and really liked the murakumo but after looking through their website I got quite "weary".
To start with their lead times are currently 132 to 144 months, with a 45% deposit. That seemed a bit insane to me but I thought it might be understandable since their a small operation and if everything is done by hand.
However, reading along, literally every single part of their watches are made by outside companies, case, movement, hands, dial. They only seem to do the assembly and finishing, along with design I'd presume. And the watch has a closed caseback, so the movement finishing doesn't even matter.
I don't mind a company not using in-house movements. And I expect a microbrand that costs a couple hundred, maybe a few thousand, to only do assembly and finish. But for 20k+, I'd expect at least some manufacturing actually being done by them. I also don't really understand the ridiculous lead times, in that case. I'll give them credit though, as their extremely transparent on their website about everything.
I was really excited by their watches but the more I read, the more disappointed and turned off I got. Am I completely wrong here? Would love to hear if anything actually has one of their watches. Or just some opinions.
Blame Ed Sheeran. He loves them, and they’ve seen a huge spike in demand since mentioning them on Hodinkee a year or so ago, and again recently. I like the look of them, but not enough to even think about their purchase process.
Ahh ok, didn't know that thanks. I was looking at brands like dornblüth and hentschel when I found them. They also can have longer lead times but with them it's a year or so. I also really liked their designs and looking at the specs, I thought they'd be in a similar range, as those other two.
However, as you said with that kind of purchase process, it's just not an option. I think they stopped taking orders anyway but was still curious about the brand.
Reminds me of the lymph node disease, kikuchi.