my most underrated brand
There are a myriad of watch manufacturers on the market today, from established well-known brands, to Kickstarter projects that seemingly pop-up daily. It got me to thinking about the watch brand that I feel is the most underrated, throughout my personal collecting experience. This exercise is purely subjective, and my opinion based on the different assortment of watch brands that I have owned over the past 25+ years or so.
The criteria that I applied to my title of most underrated brand, includes build quality, price, reliability, and seemingly flying under the radar, at least as it applies to watch forum fanboy or fangirl popularity.
My choice for most underrated brand is Tissot. I feel that the Tissot brand is fairly well respected within watch collecting circles, but if you were to poll most fans of the watch collecting hobby, the brand probably wouldn't end up on the majority of personal top-ten lists of brands. Most noted for their racing-inspired PRS 516 models, and Seastar models within their dive-watch sector, they have offered some extremely well-manufactured timepieces, in both quartz and mechanical automatic versions, with price points that are affordable to a large cross-section of the watch collecting public. I've personally never experienced any build quality issues or defects, with the four Tissot timepieces I have previously owned which included two 1st generation mechanical automatic Seastar 1000's, a quartz version of the PRS 516, and most recently a mechanical automatic Navigator.
Most recently Tissot has begun slashing the prices of their automatic timepieces, in an effort to capture a larger segment of the "affordable" watch market, and increased competition from the fitness watch segment. More info on Tissot's agressive price-cutting strategy can be found here -> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-23/tissot-slashes-costs-of-automatic-watches-as-price-war-brews.
Tissot, a solid brand which flies under the radar, but well worth every penny! For additional information on the specifications of the Tissot Navigator timepiece, please click on the photo for a direct link to the information.