Imagine if you could go buy an exceptionally well finished watch, with a great movement, a really modern-if-classic design, and do that all for under $1,000? That’s what the Traska Venturer GMT offers, and in a lot of ways it represents the best value for dollar on the watch market.
But labeling it as a value buy, is a disservice to what this watch is. The finishing is at least on par with Tudor. In fact, I think it might be a better watch than my Tudor GMT — at a fraction of the price. None of this was expected, or really apparent from the website marketing. So, I’ll do my best to explain how it accomplishes this feat.
Specs, Movement & Materials
Slight rant: watch specs are incredibly annoying to include in reviews like this as they bloat the fuck out of them. And yet there’s no way to talk through this without it. Ugh.
Details:
- True GMT complication via Miyota’s 9075 movement (very good)
- Box crystal with AR on the underside (very good)
- 316L Stainless steel (whatever)
- BGW9 Lume (good)
- Fully articulating links (very good)
- Tool-less micro-adjust clasp — on newer models, this one has it added by me later (overrated)
- Solid end links (par for the course)
- Scratch resistant coating (ok)
- Drilled lugs (overrated)
- Signed screw down crown (good, because they look odd otherwise)
- 150M water resistance (great)
- Inner rotating bezel via 10 o’clock crown (poor)
- Date at 6 o’clock (actually like this)
- 38.5mm diameter, 46mm lug to lug (fantastic)
- 20mm bracelet/strap size (perfect)
- 9.75mm thick, but only without the crystal, as it’s 12.5mm with the crystal (oof)
A few notes on these more mechanical aspects of the watch:
- The 9075 movement is excellent. I have no issues with it, and that’s coming from a Tudor GMT, Grand Seiko Automatic GMT, and a Grand Seiko Spring Drive GMT — it’s right there with those. It lacks the power reserve and overall accuracy of the others, but it functions day to day the same.
- The power reserve is mediocre, but at this price that’s the tradeoff. The literal one of three tradeoffs with this watch.
- The bracelet is really fucking impressive to me. It’s well made, Rolex levels, and very comfortable. I’ll circle back to that clasp later, but the fit, finish, construction of the bracelet are all excellent. It’s the first thing I noticed about the watch.
- The finishing over all is really good. Far better than I expected, to the point where I don’t see any need to quibble with it.
For $720 MSRP, the specs are fantastic.
Wearing Experience
First things first, the design. The case design tones down the sportiness of the watch, while the specs back up a sports watch performance. It’s like a 1960s skin diver meets Explorer II kind of thing. What I really like is the handset, keeping those very simple and straight means that there’s no loudness screaming at people when they see your watch, it looks a little non-standard, but your eye moves right along.
I was exceedingly worried that the contrast between the white dial and the polished hands would not be enough and thus make the watch hard to use for time telling. This is one area where Traska’s product images don’t do the watch justice. In person the watch is extremely legible and easy to read. Even the lume is well applied and not over the top — all creating a really nice package which keeps a nicely balanced dial design cohesive with the smaller stature of the watch (smaller for sports watches at least).
Couple this with a near perfect case size, and you have a watch that flies under the radar quite well, but punches way above where it should be at this price, from a non-big-name-brand. Very impressive. (Prediction: Traska is going to keep growing if they keep producing like this.)
There are two big things we need to talk about with this watch, both which stand out more because of how good the rest of the watch is than an actual ‘issue’ with the watch.
The first is the inner bezel.
From a design perspective, this inner bezel looks great. It’s all you need. I don’t even mind that the crown isn’t a screw down, as I think that fits the ethos of what a GMT is. The issue is that the watch doesn’t offer any lockup on this bezel (at least on the model I have). Thus the inner bezel never stays aligned where I want it to be. That’s not uncommon with a GMT, my Tudor GMT would often find itself out of sorts as well. But the Venturer is almost always out of position.
This watch is begging for an addition of a firm stop at 24hr aligned to 12 o’clock, and then maybe a soft click around from there. It needs more resistance (I do think the new models have some of this change, but from what I see with reviewers it still may not be enough).
The second issue is the clasp. I have both the current gen clasp with the tool-less micro adjust, and the original with the tooled micro-adjust. They are both very well made. However, there’s an issue with them both: they are too thick. They very chunky clasps and most of the time this doesn’t matter, but when you wear the watch to type at a desk, it will drive you batty. It’s a lump of milled steel under your wrist.
And I’ll just say this now: tool-less micro-adjust is a mostly annoying and unnecessary feature. I wore this watch moving, hiking, lounging, and sleeping. I did adjust it, but only because I wanted to try the adjustment. I found the clasp annoying to adjust, it always went further than I wanted (either direction) and it wasn’t intuitive to use. There are better quick adjusts, but you don’t need them. A bracelet should be loose when your wrists are cold, and snug when warm.
You can squeeze the bracelet in to tighten the adjustment pretty easily. But to release the bracelet, or loosen it, you need to open the clasp (and I found take the watch off) and then go ahead and slide out the adjustment. It was nearly impossible to slide this out one adjustment increment, instead I tended to have the entire adjustment allotment slide out, then needed to squeeze it back in. It’s not “on the fly” like a link extension type setup would be. It’s fiddly, but it does work.
If that is too bothersome for you, what you want is a strap, not a bracelet.
And on that note, putting this watch on a strap is the way to go. I am a huge fan of a bracelet, but this is a heavy bracelet with a chunky clasp. Dropping that and putting my Weiss Canvas strap on this made a huge positive difference in the wear of this watch. Suddenly it felt agile like a 38.5mm watch should feel.
There’s nothing wrong with the bracelet, it’s very well made and nice, but the clasp throws the watch out of balance. When you are being active you won’t notice this issue with the balance, but when you sit down at a desk to type, you’ll go mad. And as much as I love bracelets, some watches are better on them than others, and in my use, this watch is better on a strap.
Now, I don’t want to over dramatize those two things because they really only stand out due to how well done the rest of the watch is. They are both very minor, and not even worth being something that turns you away from buying.
My original plan with this watch was to wear it a couple of times to the office before I left, and then wear it moving to Colorado, on a hike, write it up, and be done. What I found was that I kept wearing it. I wore it a bunch to the office. I wore it all the time in fact. It’s very easy to wear. And through all of that, there’s only a few desk driving marks on the clasp.
The wearing experience of this watch is fantastic. It works well with most of what I wear on the more casual end, and is nearly perfect out on the hiking trial, or when doing some work around the house. It is a stellar watch to wear and own.
Overall
If you own a luxury watch, even a Tudor GMT I am giving grief too — it’s unlikely that this Traska is something you can add which steals wrist time from those. But if you are wanting to spend as little money as possible for the highest possible return on a watch, then yes, Traska nailed it with the Venturer GMT. Microbrands are in a tough spot, the people most excited by them are the same ones likely to own something significantly more expensive. So a good microbrand needs to compete on design and design alone.
A Mr. Jones, Lorier, or Farer — those are likely to steal wrist time from watches of multiples in value because you cannot get those designs from the staid luxury brands. What Traska has here is a really nice design, which isn’t that different from what most of the bigger brands have. Yes, it’s fairly unique in execution, but the similarity is what will hold back someone with a large collection from wearing this.
But on the other hand, if I didn’t have a light dial GMT already, this watch would get more wrist time than anything else in my entire collection. I didn’t need to wear this watch as much as I have been. But I have been wearing it that much because it hits so right on so many facets, that it’s stellar to wear. But it overlaps too, which makes it tricky for my collection.
Overall, this is among the easiest items I’ve ever reviewed to enthusiastically recommend to anyone. It’s executed well, it’s finished well, the movement is great, and the price is unreal. It’s a hard wearing watch, which you can likely wear for most any situation.
