In the world of cushion case watches, especially the Panerai style, you don’t see many chronographs. So it was exciting to see the Meister Racer Chronograph, which brings these two elements together.
Housed in the 45mm Stainless Steel case is a Seiko VD53 Quartz Chronograph Movement, a carbon fiber dial, and it uses a mineral crystal. This version has a 3 link oyster style stainless bracelet and retails on the Meister Website for $320.
The full specifications are as follows.
Case: Brushed Stainless Steel (316L)
Case size: 45mm x 14.5mm Thick
Crown: Stainless Crown
Bezel: Stainless Steel
Water Resistant: 100 Meters
Movement: Seiko VD53 Quartz Chronograph Movement
Crystal: Scratch Resistant Mineral Crystal Lens
Band: Stainless Steel
Buckle: Push Button, Quick Release
Meister does a pretty decent job with the presentation, as it comes in a nice cardboard box with a cardboard sleeve and inside houses the watch, warranty card and instruction manual.
The case is all brushed stainless steel, and measures at 45mm with a lug to lug of 53.5mm and a 24mm lug width. With it being 14.5 thick, its not overly chunky, but its not svelte either. The full weight with all links is just about 190 grams, which is actually a little lightweight for a watch of these dimensions. I attribute that to the just over 3.5mm bracelet, which we will discuss more later. The non screw down crown is unsigned, but is pretty solid when pulling it out and setting the time and date, chrono pushers function smoothly as well. As I said, the case is Panerai inspired, with its very similar cushion case design, but I’m not going to knock it for that, since Meister is far from the first company to replicate this style of case. The lugs do utilize one sided screw bars, which I found to be a nice touch, that is , until I unscrewed them once. After that, they would not unscrew all the way when I went to attach a leather strap, I had to use a pin tool and a jewelers hammer to tap the screw bar out. They also do not screw in and tighten completely either. That said, I changed the bracelet and strap out a few times, and while the screws don’t really function as they should, I had not had one bit of an issue of the screws sliding out at all. And this could have been just an isolated incident on my model, and the rest could very well be perfect.
1 comment
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Cheers