This year marked the moment I purchased one of my absolute dream watches. The Straum Jan Mayen wasn’t it. It is what followed my dream watch, the dream watch now being worn by someone somewhere in Dubai.
I owned my dream watch for a month and during that time I wore it 3 or 4 times, while at home or at most visiting my parents, never anywhere near strangers or even to the office. Why? Because I felt most uncomfortable with a nice car’s worth of cash strapped to my wrist. What was that watch?
Let’s just say it was so special it transcended time – Jules Verne named his imaginary submarine after it, not the other way around…
So am I telling you, I replaced a Nautilus 5712 with a Jan Mayen because it’s so much better? Hell no, it doesn’t get anywhere near to it. But I am very comfortable wearing it in public, so in the month I owned it so far, I wore it almost daily.
What does it look like?
I guess you can figure out, where I got the idea to get that one…
But let’s back up, what even is a Straum Jan Mayen?
Origins
Straum is a Norwegian watch company (here is something you almost never hear) founded in 2017 by two designers. What kind of designers? Industrial Designers. They worked for a couple of companies and then decided to build a watch company. Their first watch was called Opphav, which I completely missed. But looking at their archive section, you can tell, they already had an idea about their design language and featuring a solid Sellita movement, the brand was off to a good start.
The second iteration
Opphav apparently is Norwegian for origin and if you look at images of that watch next to the Jan Mayen, you can see, that the newer one is an evolution of the first one. You would actually be hard pressed to distinguish them at one glance if both were on the bracelet. But the Jan Mayen is a different kind of beast.
So according to their story the inspiration for this watch was found by sailing to the island of Jan Mayen and climbing its mountain, the Beerenberg which stands at 2,227m over sea level, given you start at sea level is more comparable to climbing something in the 3,000m range in the Alps. The inspiration they found there was for the new dials. However given how similar these dials look to the old ones, I’d say we look at it as a marketing stunt. Not that this is a bad thing, Omega is still milking being the watch on the moon and Rolex still claims to be the first watch on Everest, at least the founders of Straum actually did something…
Anyway, what do you get out of that stunt?
The watch
Well, you order it online, so what you get is a brown package, once you open it, it looks like this:
I ordered it with the optional on the fly adjustable clasp, which you need to fit yourself btw, as well as of course size the bracelet yourself, they seriously don’t ship a sales rep to fit the watch, can you imagine???
Anyway, couple of pictures of the included stuff:
So as I mentioned, you need to fit the watch on your own, but to their credit, they provide all the tools you need, however I would describe these tools as Ali-Express quality to be honest and I ended up using my own in the end, particularly the small hammer to get the pins back into the bracelet, which Straum doesn’t ship, but does help a lot.
Anyway, on to the main event, the watch. This comes packaged in the vacuum sealed bag you saw in the first picture and once you open it, you are presented with this:
Shall we call it a tub, a barrel or a sarcophagus? But whatever you call it, it is well made and by the amount of upholstery on the inside, it will protect the watch very well while in transit. So let’s unscrew it, the side with the writing on must be the upside, right?
Guess again…
Okay, here we go, looks much better
After fitting the adjustable clasp and fitting the bracelet I finally got to properly wear it and I have to say, it looks stunning.
On this picture I might seem a bit oversized for my wrist, but be assured that isn’t the case, because due to the case design it wraps pretty well around the wrist, see next pictures:
Thoughts
First up, I really like this watch, otherwise I wouldn’t have worn it as much as I did, but then again why wouldn’t I? Here are some other watches I really like: the Rolex Explorer 1 & 2, the Patek Philippe Nautilus, the IWC Ingenieur, the Grand Seiko Snowflake.
And if you take a closer look at the Jan Mayen, you can find a little of all of them in it.
Looking at it, from a certain angle it is very reminiscent of the Rolex Maxi case.
The bracelet with its h-links in combination with the oval center links is very Gerald Genta and 2 out of his 3 most famous designs (Nautilus and Ingenieur)
The intricate dial is more than reminiscent of a Grand Seiko.
And come to think of it, that slight bend the bezel makes inwards before meeting the bottom case does remind me a bit of an Omega Speedmaster from the side and if they put some screws in the bezel from the top, it would finish the Ingenieur vibes.
So, is it a “Kitbash ripoff all the brands watch”?
I would argue: No.
How many ways are there left to make a unique watch design?
And to be honest, the bracelet design in my opinion is better than the one of the Patek and the IWC, because the center links are brushed, not polished and don’t scratch as easily.
Speaking of which, not sure what they did to the metal, but after a month, this is the least scratched bracelet I ever owned, nice job!
The links are held together by friction, which helps keep the bracelet slim, but isn’t as elegant as screwed in systems or the pusher system of the IWC. Keeping that in mind, the IWC is about 10,000€ more expensive, so…
But they are very fond of the on the fly adjustment system and on their homepage praise it as way better than friction based ones. Which I disagree with.
The little pushers on the side not withstanding, their original bracelet did not have that big plain square part at the end, it terminated in the same distance as the other links and finished in a prober, even style. This clasp doesn’t. Then you also get these pushers. and when extended – yeah, I have seen better.
Patek Philippe does this with hidden buttons within the bracelet but that isn’t really the competition…
But Christopher Ward and Yema both have watches in that price range, CW with “The Twelve” which is a grand cheaper, comes with the clasp preinstalled and looks like this:
Image Credit: https://www.christopherward.com
Which is much cleaner.
And the Yema Wristmaster Slim which is about as expensive as the Straum but features a inhouse movement and a nicer clasp:
Image Credit: yema.com
Speaking of it:
The Movement
This is where this watch shines. They went for a custom decorated La Joux-Perret G101, sadly no blued screws, but still a very good looking movement.
This is a 4Hz movement which is a big step up from your usual NH-35s and such mostly found in micro brands, has a power reserve of 68 hours, which isn’t too bad, has a tungsten rotor on ball bearings and mine currently runs at an accuracy of -2 seconds a day, which is at chronometer levels and much more accurate than the claimed 7 to 15 seconds a day on their homepage.
My thoughts
As I said, I really like this watch, they market it as an explorers and adventures watch and given it’s robust design, 100m of water resistance (Outperforming the Patek by about 50 meters here) and brilliant movement, I’d say yeah, that fits. I would be comfortable wearing this hiking and falling into pools, ahem I mean freezing cold mountain lakes of course.
There are some flaws however.
The domed crystal makes it look classic, but the curve is right over the minute track and often I have to adjust the watch so I avoid reflections and can actually read the time. Also with the crystal sticking out, there is a bigger risk of scratching or breaking it. The anti reflective coating also isn’t the best I have ever seen. They only applied it on the inside, which given how easily the coating scratches and the watch being intended to be worn while exploring volcanos and such, probably was intentional, still gives it a less premium feel. There is no nice way to say this, but they applied the lume on the wrong side of the second hand. Why would you put that on the backside? At night time you always are 30 seconds behind until, or if, you remember that the actual time is on the other side of the lume. Also, the movement only winds in one direction, paired with the heavy rotor a flip of the wrist can send it spinning, which gets noisy.
All told, it’s a pretty exceptional package for the price: a unique (if inspired) design, a well‑made case, and a movement that’s far better than it has any right to be. I don’t regret buying it — I’m actually quite happy with it. And I can wear it in public without feeling like I need a security detail.