Parnis watches - quality and where to buy?

[Sa Calobra]

They look stunning but how does this transfer to on the wrist? 80$ seems silly cheap for the looks so I'm thinking... What's wrong. What's the catch..

I like the look of Seiko for instance but in the flesh they feel and look low rent (sorry) to me.

I've noticed a HK based seller on eBay, any recommended sellers?

[andyman_2006]

They are cheap, because quality is generally low.

Buy a Tissot or Christopher ward in fact there are plenty of other better watches without breaking the bank, so dont waste your hard earned on this sort of watch.

I'm sure some on here have had a reasonable experience with one, but they are cheap Asian/Chinese movements, however they do look good on first glance from a distance.

Andy

[Barchettaman]

I can recommend Watchery2016 on eBay.

I have bought three from him, a friend one, all have arrived safely and promptly from PRC.

They are packed in styrofoam boxes. Don’t expect fancy packaging!

There is also the option to go for a sterile dual Parnis. My Batman homage is unbranded.

Parnis isn’t just one factory - it’s an umbrella name given to many products from various places. Quality can vary.

All mine keep excellent time. Photos below, apologies to this who have seen them before.

I have no complaints about the quality of the finishing. The deployant strap on the 300m diver was not to my taste and was swapped out for a NATO, and now a nicer leather strap.

The Batman has a glidelock style micro adjustment at the clasp. The movement hacks.

I haven’t taken any of them in water and don’t plan to.

Hope this helps. Any questions just ask.

Edited by Barchettaman on Friday 7th June 10:31

[Barchettaman]

I also have a Seiko Prospex dive watch, which I love, but the Parnis diver beats it for accuracy.

Quality wise there’s nothing in it, to my untrained eye at least. Functionality-wise the Prospex beats it hands down of course.

[AmosMoses]

Quality is great for the price, i had a Panerai homage and it ran faultless for 2 years, never had any issues and it was reasonably well made.

[mikeveal]

andyman_2006 said:

They are cheap, because quality is generally low.

Buy a Tissot or Christopher ward in fact there are plenty of other better watches without breaking the bank, so dont waste your hard earned on this sort of watch.

I'm sure some on here have had a reasonable experience with one, but they are cheap Asian/Chinese movements, however they do look good on first glance from a distance.

Andy

What utter twaddle.
They are cheap movements from the far east. But nothing else written is accurate. My Parnis has a low grade Seagul. The finish is good but not magnificent. The dial is excellent.Sure, the "leather" straps resemble cardboard and will need to be replaced.

Mine is around five years old, keeps good time and is one of the cheapest yet most worn watches I own.

This is an £80 watch. You won't get a Tissot for a CW for twice that. If you wanted to point to a better quality mechanical at that price, the correct answer is Seiko, not Tissot or CW. The Parnis compares very well against many fashion watches at this price point.

Parnis watches are built by the vendor. Choose a good vendor and the chances are you'll get a good watch.

[Juicetin1]

www.getatwatch.com

Very good quality actually and the leather straps are excellent.

[grumbledoak]

Parnis are great for the price. The quality depends on who actually made it. Manbushijie, now manbushijie.com I think, have a good rep. I bought mine from him.

[Barchettaman]

I should add, if you’re looking to dip a toe in the waters of haute Chinese horology, have a look at the offerings from Corgeut too.

Along with the usual sub replicas they do a rather tasty looking Tudor BB Bronze lookalike, complete with leather strap. Apparently it’s not real bronze, just a coating, but a couple of guys on here have them and are well pleased.

Just go for it, buy something cheap, report back, what could possibly go wrong etc etc.

[Barchettaman]

Also Parnis have their own website, but there’s no real reason to buy at their inflated prices. Loads of sellers out there.

The quartz Daytona lookalike is on my ‘must not buy, don’t need it’ list.

[grumbledoak]

Barchettaman said:

The quartz Daytona lookalike is on my ‘must not buy, don’t need it’ list.

Yeah. Mine too.

[8Ace]

grumbledoak said:

Barchettaman said:

The quartz Daytona lookalike is on my ‘must not buy, don’t need it’ list.

Yeah. Mine too.

Mine too

It has the Seiko Mecaquartz VK63 IIRC.

[mickyc79]

I absolutely love this on the brown leather... Matches the dial to a tee! Where did you get the strap? I'm watching one on ebay with the bracelet just now!

[mickyc79]

I'll throw another name in there that I just discovered yesterday and have become obsessed by! Aragon...i apologise now for emptying all of your wallets! Check the Mother of pearl dial on this one in the attached video... Stunning! Think they use Seiko movements as far as I can tell? They also do a new anti gravity model with a really cool dome crystal....i need to stop looking. I've had a few in my basket then realised I couldn't afford to spend any more money on "another bloody watch" without having my balls kicked of swmbo! Lol

https://www.google.com/search?q=Aragon+divemaster+...

[Barchettaman]

mickyc79 said:

I absolutely love this on the brown leather... Matches the dial to a tee! Where did you get the strap? I'm watching one on ebay with the bracelet just now!

Yeah, I got lucky with the colour match, and it doesn't stink like some of the other leather watchstraps I have bought online.

It was from the eBay seller fashion-club, item no. 153251182348, colour yelow brown, 23mm.

[Two-part-epoxy]

Barchettaman said:

Also Parnis have their own website, but there’s no real reason to buy at their inflated prices. Loads of sellers out there.

The quartz Daytona lookalike is on my ‘must not buy, don’t need it’ list.

I bought a parnis yacht from the parnis 'shop' on aliexpress. It came to about £80 and there's small things wrong with half the parts.
The seconds hand hits 12 while the minute hand is midway between the minute marks (or the dial is not set accurately upon the mechanism) and it has something else going on I just can't explain in a sensible way. When the minute hand hits it's mark, the seconds hand has about 10 secs to go before it hits 12. Now this 10 secs varies, it is currently 20 secs, and it seems to alter depending on where in the dial the minute hand is pointing. If the M hand is pointing towards the 6, it is 30 secs out. At 8 or 9 is is 20, at 10 it is 10 secs.

Once I found that I stopped looking.

The bracelet links by the clsdp have a kink between them and they like to kink inwards.

The crown came with a mishapen blue dot upon it. I thought this must be a protection layer, as opposed to decoration, as it had areas within sans blue. But what makes me think it was decoration is it was a bxxxxxd to get out of the crevices on the crown design.

What else? It's about 20 secws a day slow.

It came in a cream coloured cardboard box, nice, inexpensive, but better than nothing. At some point on the 20 day journey it came second in a crush between bigger objects so the box had a kink to match the bracelet links.

The rotor cogs makes suitably mechanical noises,but they work as I don't wind it.

Speaking of noise, shouldn't I hear a tick-tock from a mechanical watch?

Ever since I got it I've thought the best watches go thru the parnis.org site [the shop] while the seconds go out via the aliexpress [a market stall]. I'd have been happier spending the extra £35-40.

I'm not knocking Parnis but I wish I'd bought a sterile dial from the shop.

P. S. The text on the website makes great claims about being open, fair and straight with the customer... and then they photograph each watch from the front 8x in a dim, coloured light. You get one photo in broad daylight.

The aliEx page I bought from simply omitted mention the colour of the dial. Very soviet where unwelcome facts get forgotten. :-)

[Fallingup]

I'm surprised at these faults on a brand renowned for its quality. You must have bought a fake.

[Two-part-epoxy]

Mine must've been a Friday afternoon watch.

[seadragon]

You get what you pay for. I have a few Seiko and love the quality, ie Presage and Grand Seiko.

[Barchettaman]

I’ve sold all my Parnis watches on.

I think the cheaper microbrands are a more interestingly proposition, although you’re looking at an outlay of £300+ rather than £60 and upwards.

Jodie on the JustOneMoreWatch YT channel is the guy for microbrand reviews.