Eterna KonTiki Date
Named after Thor Heyerdahl’s most famous raft, the KonTiki line represents the ‘sports’ branch in Eterna’s current collection of inexpensive mechanical watches. The new Eterna KonTiki Date model, which is coming in a stainless steel case, is essentially an affordable version of the last year’s red gold KonTiki Anniversary model.
Although much cheaper, the Eterna KonTiki Date with its stainless steel body and the elegantly styled white dial with blue indices and Arabic numerals, looks even more appealing than the Anniversary model.
The choice of color scheme not only makes the watch look more interesting, but also greatly increases its legibility thanks to an extremely high level of contrast and a generous amount of luminous substance.
The latter covers not only its hour and minute hands, as well as the dots above the stick-shaped hour markers, but also fills the four triangles at 3, 6, 9 and 12 o’clock, which makes the watch especially easy to read even in total darkness.
The timekeeper’s only problem is, perhaps, the date aperture. Placed between four and five hours, the simple calendar window looks very small, blending too much into the layout of the dial.
The differences, however, are not completely visual.
While the Anniversary edition was delivered with Eterna’s own 3010 in-house caliber, the new watch is powered by a run off the mill Sellita SW 200 automatic movement.
Being a slightly modified clone of the ever-popular ETA 2824 movement, this little engine has a good reputation for its reliability and accuracy and is used by such watch companies as the Swiss Oris, and the German Limes and MarcelloC.
Simply put, every third “Swiss Made” watch comes powered by a Sellita-made movement, so I wouldn’t worry about KonTiki Date’s inferiority to the gold model.
In fact, a watch with Sellita’s caliber may prove to be even more reliable than its more exclusive predecessor.
By the way, if the name of the company scares you away, you should take into account that the Swiss brand is owned by the German-based F.A. Porsche Beteiligungen GmbH, which is better known under its Porsche Design brand name.
Yes, the expensive (and daringly futuristic) Porsche Design watches are in fact manufactured by Eterna. That says something, right?
Photos: Eterna
Eterna KonTiki Date automatic watch specification
Price range: CHF 2250
Movement: Sellita SW 200, 26 jewels, automatic
Complications: Date
Power reserve: 38 hours
Case material: stainless steel
Case dimensions: 42 mm
Case height: 12 mm
Dial: White, with a guilloche pattern
Water resistance: 200 meters
Strap: Canvas / Bracelet / Leather strap
Crystal: Sapphire
Evgueni Matoussevitch in Swiss WatchesTags: 200 m, 42 mm, Automatic, date, Eterna, KonTiki, Sellita, SW 200
October 7th, 2009 at 12:39 am
I bought an Oris Big Crown last Friday (4 days ago) and it has gained around 10 seconds. I think that is very good. The rotor works beautifully and although not a ‘fancy’ looking movement it looks very well finished.
February 6th, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Founder of 5 ball bearing on rotor and used to produce great in-house movement, sad to see that Eterna battle the losing game in term of new product development.
April 5th, 2010 at 9:29 am
Is the back of this watch transparent, or “solid”?
September 14th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
This watch would look so much nicer in a “classic” size. 38 mm would be better than this oversized 42 mm “show off” watch. I will wait until the oversized-watch fad dies down, and Eterna makes this smaller.
September 15th, 2011 at 2:29 am
@ Liam,
Yes, it would be nice to see this model in a 38 or 39 millimeter case. Maybe, next year?