On Kickstarter: The Boldr Journey

Just about a year ago, we introduced you to the Boldr Voyage, a “clever” watch that mixed pilot style with some interesting “smart” technology. Now, Boldr are back with a more classic time piece that lives up to their name.

The new Journey is a curvaceous meca-quartz chronograph that draws on the vintage aviator aesthetic seen in the Voyage, but pushes it into much more aggressive territory. The 43mm case comes in a satin/matte finish and features wire lugs and a big dome mineral crystal. The wire lugs clearly reference the early days of the military watch, when pocket watches had lugs soldered on to them to strap to the wrist. The giant domed crystal then gives the watch a sculptural feel, adding distortion when viewed at an angle.

The dial design takes the theme of bold and runs with it. This sandwich style-dial features large numerals for the even hours and large rounded slots for the odd, all of which are cutouts, showing the color of the layer below. This adds a lot of texture to the dial, as well as an overall military-stencil feel. Around the edge of the dial, you will find a minute/chrono seconds index of contrasting lines. Because of the meca-quartz movement, they included fine 1/5th second marks, really adding to the precision and legibility of the design.

At 3 and 9 you have a 24-hr hand and 60-minute counter, respectively. The registers are deeply indented, and feature full indexes and high contrast hands. The bi-register design keeps the dial feeling very symmetrical and continue to speaks to the vintage roots of the design. Lastly, at 6 you have a date window positioned just above a cutout marker. The position works well with the design, reinforcing the symmetry from the two registers.

The Journey will be available in three colorways: the Wasp, the Warhawk and the Sopwith. The Wasp is all black, featuring a PVD case, matte black dial with gloss sub-dials. The layer under the top surface is then white, for high contrast, while the chrono second hand and sub-dial hands are bright yellow. Certainly an aggressive palette. The Warhawk takes the vintage story the furtherest with a matte steel case, soft black dial under tan brown under layer. The mix of black and brown has a tropical feel to it. The hands keep the soft tones going with silver for the hour and minutes, and beige for the chrono seconds and sub-dials.

The Sopwith takes things in a lighter direction with a pale silver panda dial. The under layer is black, creating high contrast numbers, as are the sub-dials in true Panda fashion. The accent color for the hands is a burnt orange that plays very well with its monochromatic surrounds. This is definitely the option that caught my eye the most.

The Boldr Journey is available now for preorder through their already successful kickstarter campaign. Pledges start at about $159 US for a single watch, a great deal, and go up to $479 to get all three, for you and your friends. To check them out and pick one up, follow this link: BOLDR Watches – Every Journey Begins With a Single Tick