There Are Pandas, and Then There Are Pandas.
And this isn't either of them! The Pandas we're talking about here, are watches, not bears. And what got me thinking about them (again) was a link posted this morning by @cm.rook who pointed a few of us to the very attractive (and not terribly priced) Yema "Rallygraph" Panda which, in it's most traditional arrangement, looks like the one on the left, but can also be had in the version on the right: The model on the left is a true Panda, while the model on the right is called a reverse Panda. The reason for that distinction is clear--Panda bears, only come in the first arrangement. Now at this point, everyone should be thinking about the most well-know Panda, The Rolex Panda, which is actually a Daytona, and among Rolex Daytonas, the most famous of which is the Paul Newman Daytona, which was famous first, because it was Paul's, and second because it sold at auction for $17.8 million (US Dollars). The story of that auction is well-known so I'll only...
Nov 8, 2019
There is no easy answer to this question, especially if you don't want to go into the whole story of the watch industry, debate over manufacturing location, material origins, and trade law.
The real question I'm being asked, is what watch is convincingly "American" enough?
Is this the case where Shinola is the answer? Or is a mil-spec watch? Or is it a legacy brand like Timex, Hamilton?
Are American watches...
- US based brands
- US founded brands
- Brands once associated with the US
- Assembled in the US partially or completely
- Marketed only in the US
- Marketed as American-inspired
- Watches having an "American identity" or strong association with the US
- Watches that are exceedingly popular in the US
- Watches that are exceedingly difficult to find outside the US
Here are a few brands that strike me as "American" in one way or another:RGM, Weiss, Detroit Watch, Luminox, Timex, Shinola/Fossil/Filson, Marathon