When I hear the phrase "Scandinavian minimalist watch", I think of overpriced quartz watches that emphasize the Scandinavian minimalist aesthetic to justify their high prices but are actually produced at a low cost in China. Phrases like "affordable luxury" and "cutting out the middleman" come up a lot. Does that sound familiar to you?

*By the way, no shade against the Scandinavians and the Chinese! There are awesome Scandinavian watch brands and awesome Chinese watch brands.

So... About Vintage reached out and they described themselves as Scandinavian minimalist watch brand... and I was initially like "hmmmmm".

However, I decided to explore their website and I was pleasantly surprised with what I saw. I found that their watches weren't minimalist in the plain-looking, cheap sort of way. It looks like there was effort made in designing the watches (with some inspirations taken from luxury watch brands). They also have collaborations, most notably (for me as a watch enthusiast) the Frederique Constant Chronograph watch and Moonphase watch.

About Vintage currently has a score of 4.25/5 on Trustpilot, and so I thought, "You know what? Let's give it a go!"

Out of all the watches available, the 1926 At Sea Automatic was the one I liked the most. It's listed at $599 but during the last Black Friday sale, it was listed at $419 (30% off). After deciding on the 1926 At Sea Automatic in blue, About Vintage sent the watch immediately, all the way from Denmark.

Note that this watch was sent in for review. I don't have to send it back, hence, the sponsored tag at the beginning of this video. Having said that, I want to emphasize that I'll be as fair as I can be.

It came in a fancy wooden box, which I thought was unnecessarily nice for a watch at this price range, as it will just be added clutter for me. Mine came with a dark blue nylon strap but leather or metal bracelet options are also available with an additional price.


It came in this fancy wooden box, which I thought was a bit unnecessary because it's just added clutter. My watch came with a dark blue nylon strap but you can buy it with leather or metal straps from the website.

Dimensions:
  • Case Diameter: 39 millimeters
  • Lug to Lug: 46 millimeters
  • Case Thickness: 13 millimeters
  • Lug Width: 20 millimeters.
The stainless-steel case is brushed throughout, with the coin-edge bezel and the crown being the only polished parts that catch the light. It has a 120-click unidirectional aluminum bezel in dark blue with the numbers and lines in light gold.

Under the super-domed sapphire crystal, we have a sandwich dial with the dark blue upper layer slightly domed, and the lower layer lumed. It uses leaf-shaped hour and minute hands, which is something you don't see very often. The seconds hand has a reversed sword shape, which I think looks really elegant and I like how it catches the light. On the dial itself, there's the About Vintage logo on top and there's a bit of text at the lower part, which doesn't feel out of place.

This 1926 At Sea Automatic came with this nylon strap, which is the typical good quality nylon strap in terms of fabric, but with the brushed hardware featuring their logo. It also came with quick release spring bars which makes it easier to switch to other straps but just make sure your other straps also come with their own spring bars.

As for the movement it's powered by the Miyota 8215 which is a non-reliable automatic movement in the budget watch category. It doesn't hack, but it does hand wind. It has a power reserve of 40 hours so you'll be able to skip a day of not using it and it will still continuously run.

Lastly, I have to highlight that the water resistance is only 100 meters, which is good enough for swimming but not good enough for actual professional diving. Keep that in mind when you go to the beach with this.

Pros:
  1. Good-Looking Watch: I like the nice details such as the domed sandwich dial, the font and color choice of the text on the dial, the bezel, and the leaf shaped hands. I also like that it takes inspiration from old styles like the Vintage Blancpain Fifty Fathoms with a thicker bezel and the Rado Captain Cook with the domed dial (but without straight-up copying). The thicker bezel makes it look like the dial is smaller so it feels proportional on smaller wrists, while the overall size of 39 millimeters case diameter doesn't feel too small on bigger wrists.
  2. The Bezel: The experience of turning the bezel is quite satisfying with the crisp sound. There's very little to no back play. It doesn't hurt my fingers when I turn it around because the grooves aren't too deep and turning it wasn't that tough. (Note though that while the aluminum bezel on my unit is aligned, Miguel over at SoCal watch reviews experienced otherwise.)
  3. Good Quality: The stainless-steel case brushing looks very neat and the printing of the text looks crisp. The insides look clean as well with the polished parts of the hands looking really shiny. The signed crown and the signed buckle on the strap shows the brand going the extra mile.
  4. Good Cause: While I prefer to judge a product by its own merits as an individual product, I wanted to mention that a portion of the sales goes to The Ocean Cleanup Project. The Ocean Cleanup aims to rid the ocean of garbage. They've received a ton of awards, as they've removed 2,002,778 kg worth of trash since their beginning in 2013. I just wanted to include this in the list of pros in case this was something important to you.

Now, I did say I was going to be as fair as I can be, and this 1926 At Sea Automatic is not a perfect watch.

Cons:
  1. Not really a dive watch: For something that's called a dive watch, it lacks the expected functional requirements. The water resistance is only 100 meters which is sufficient only for swimming. The lume on the dial isn't particularly strong and there's no lume at all on the bezel.  I don't think you can use this as a dive watch... it's more like a swim watch!
  2. Too much flecto: The domed sapphire crystal is incredibly reflective. The website doesn't mention AR coating, so perhaps there is no (or very little) AR coating. Combined with the dark dial, I see my reflection first before I see the time on the watch, which is distracting. 
  3. Too expensive: Considering the use of the Miyota 8215 and all the cons I just mentioned, the price of $599 is too much. There are plenty of other brands with better specs at this price point. However, the Black Friday sale price of $419 is a more competitive price range, so better wait for the next sale!

Overall, the 1926 At Sea Automatic is certainly not perfect. It's more of a fashion piece for the beach rather than a tool watch for hardcore divers, as it is a stylish watch after all.

I hope this review was helpful! See links below for where to buy it and for the video review.