So what made me buy a Farer Cobb Monopusher?

I wanted to feel like I had “made it” when I bought my first mechanical watch and social influences dictated the criteria of “made it” being a Swiss watch first and foremost, and I wanted my first to be new.

All the brands out there such as Rolex, Omega, Breitling and Heuer are, I suppose within my reach. When it comes to placing an order, my mind tells me the thousands of pounds these would cost could be better spent elsewhere. Not to mention my wife who reiterates this point with vigor!

After days of research into mechanical movements, watch brands and their origins, and lots of reading and watching reviews, I realised that even the second-hand market could be a minefield for a beginner seeking these brands so I started looking at microbrands and one that stood out to me for good quality movements, with a unique blend of classic and modern style was Farer and in particular; the Cobb Monopusher.

I have had this watch for 5 months and it has become my regular watch. I bought a few other swiss made watches which I like before this one but this gives me the most joy to look at daily, feels the most comfortable and has a beautiful movement on display via a mineral glass case back.

Farer is a British company designing their own watches and having them made in Switzerland and each range comes with a historical nod to British history. This watch is named after John Cobb, a British racing motorist who broke the world land speed record in 1939 and then raised it again in 1947 to 394.19 mph and who died in 1952, attempting to break the world water speed record at Loch Ness.

The movement is an automatic Sellita SW510 MP Elaboré, a purpose-built single pusher chronograph movement that powers an enhanced power reserve said on Farers website to be up to 62 hours. The “up to” claim is correct because in reality, my time with this watch has been more like 48-50hrs

It has a beautiful sunburst blue dial. The ink-blue raised numerals are bordered with blue super-LumiNova which during the day and at certain angles, gives the numerals a sort of floating/3D effect. At night they are really bright set against green luminous minute and hour hands.

I’m quite a large chap with 8-8.5 inch wrists so the case dimensions of 40.5mm diameter were a concern that the watch may look too small, especially with quite a compact lug-to-lug dimension of 44mm. However, the sloping case combined with the raised sapphire glass means it fits quite well and I think would like fine on smaller wrists. The glass also gives the watch the classic distortion of the dial at certain angles.

The rotary mechanism isn’t too noisy. I can only hear it in a silent room when I move my wrist and even then, it’s quite pleasant, the sound of clicks from a well machined ratchet as opposed to the sound criticised by many with Miyota 2824 movements which are described as almost rattly.

The watch colours make it a strap monster. Here is the original blue leather strap I ordered the watch with, but it goes great with orange, black, any shades of brown, mid grey and even yellow.

In fact, it’s costing me in straps! But each one gives the watch a different persona.