ERA Prometheus Tourbillon Watch Review

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What is a Tourbillon? Aren’t they really expensive?

The tourbillon mechanism was introduced by Louis Breguet in 1795 and later patented on June 26, 1801. Inside this movement resides a cage where the escapement and balance wheel are housed in order to negate the effects of gravity on a watches performance. This leads to a more consistent, and accurate movement. Tourbillons range from $300 all the way to hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are Swiss Made tourbillons from large houses, as well as very good Asian produced Tourbillons.

ERA LEATHER TRAVEL POUCH - VERY NICE!

Case

The Prometheus is housed in a solid polished 316L Stainless steel case with nice proportions that allow for some wrist presence, to show off your tourbillon. The lug to lug width comes in at 50MM while the thickness isn’t too bad at 12.5MM. In terms of lug widths we are looking at 24MM. The case itself features a pull/push onion styled crown along with 50 metres of water resistance. However, I, Myself would not take this watch Swimming or submerge it in water. You should be okay whilst washing your hands or getting caught in the rain. The finishing seems good enough for their asking pricepoint of $1500 - without any blemishes or sharp surfaces. If we flip the watch over, a nice screwed in caseback which is Sapphire allows the end user for a really nice look into the inner mechanics of this manual wound Tourbillon. I think, they got it down just right to match the pricepoint they are asking.

Dial

The blue dial which is covered by a flat AR coated Sapphire crystal is rather captivating at first glance, with a good ammount of decoration and a few useful features. If we look at the 3:00 position - a nice sun/moon indicator with gold accents really adds a luxurious and classy look in my opinion. Now at 9:00 we get a second time zone if you wish to keep track of two time zones on your Prometheus. The real star of the show is the tourbillon above 6:00 which is an absolutely beautiful sight to gaze at. Another nice feature is that there is actually lume on this watch, and it’s Good! The long blued Sword style hands are lume filled as well as the hour markers on the outer rim. Overall, it gives me a good and warm feeling taking a glance at this finely decorated movement when I am wearing it.

Tourbillon Movement

The Tourbillon movement itself is an Asian built
HZ3360A manual wound caliber. This tourbillon has around a 42 hour power reserve when fully wound - certainly good enough for myself. It also contains 20 jewels and beats at 28.8K / 4 HZ. The stated accuracy of this movement is + / - 25 seconds per day. Now, the cage itself at 6:00 will rotate completely every 60 seconds - which can be used for a seconds subdial
if you really wanted it to..Overall, the bridges and hears and finely decorated in a delightful manner - much better than many Swiss brands I must say at this pricepoint.

Supplied Leather Band

The 24MM Leather band straight out of the box conformed to my wrist and was a breeze to adjust with the butterfly extendable clasp. I like the small details such as the blue stitching, which really pops. It is comfortable, features quick release pins, and gets the job done - So I do not really see any issues here.

Conclusion

Furthermore, expensive Tourbillons are out of reach for most of us Watch collectors and enthusiasts. However, this is living proof that you indeed can own a real Tourbillon for under 2 grand. It is something many small brands are simply not doing - and that is where ERA came in to solve this issue. Sure, there are many cheaper Chinese tourbillons on various outlets - But can you really be sure of what your getting when ordering overseas? I like the overall original design, features, and the complete package. I think it is a Win - and they did an outstanding job funding and producing this model.