Damasko DK200 GMT Review
The Damasko DK200 is the brand's first in-house GMT watch. Like its predecessors, it brings with it cutting edge material science for the case, but unlike virtually all other watches in its price range, it also comes with an extremely advanced in-house movement. Read on to learn more.
Damasko is a great example of a brand punching well above its weight. Like most extant German brands, they're relatively new, but Damasko, beyond any other small brand, is obsessed with innovation. They began with cases, using hardened steel, highly resistant gaskets and seals, and super tough proprietary coatings.
But in 2010, Damasko was able to make their own movements. This is something of a right of passage for watch brands, but this often results in what is merely a clone of some existing ETA movement. Damasko, however, went a radically different path, a path that requires me to compare them to companies like Omega and Patek when I explained the design of their movements. The DK200 we're looking at today debuts a new movement, the A35-2, the first GMT movement from the German manufacturer.
But the DK200 is more than just the vessel for a new movement. It is, by far, the most complex case that Damasko has ever attempted, which is no doubt complicated by the hardness of their steel. It's also a very new design in general. The case is highly reminiscent of the great Gerald Genta, particularly the bezel. The dial has an unusual degree of symmetry for a Damasko, which tend to offset dates and logos. Except for perhaps the DK100/DK101, this is also likely the most complex dial they've ever attempted.
The DK200's dial is all-new, but it doesn't entirely break with tradition. Stylistically, it most resembles the DA34 with a solid black dial and no numerals, but even here it differs quite a bit.
Of course, one of the big differences are the bright green accents found on GMT related areas and on the 12:00 marker, but also the simple existence of a GMT ring, which, before now, was not required.
Like virtually all Damaskos the dial is matte, maximizing contrast between its white or colorful hands and markers. A single sided anti-reflective coating helps keep the glare low in what is basically a worst case scenario for glare in watches. This is atypical for Damasko, which generally uses double sided AR (except on request), but I prefer it this way. It eliminates the threat of scratches in the coating. I suspect the reason they made an exception for the DK200 is because of the slightly domed crystal which makes it a touch more vulnerable than a flat sapphire.
The hands are somewhat novel for Damasko and not merely due to the addition of a green GMT indicator. The hands are now simple batons, although they remain almost fully coated in lume, as is Damasko tradition. The hands aren't entirely unique, however, as a similar shape is used in the DK100 and DK101, although in that instance the hands have a thinner strip of lume down the middle.
The GMT complication has a nice 24 hour ring on the inside of the dial. I appreciate that it is color coded to the GMT hand, which makes it relatively easy to isolate from the normal time telling functions of the watch.
The markers are the area of the watch that probably stays closest to the existing Damasko line. They're very similar to the DA35 except that the cardinal markers, sans 12:00, are not dissimilar to the other markers.
The date is also a bit interesting for Damasko, if only because it is totally normal for most other watches. Unlike virtually all Damasko models, the date is centered right on the x-axis of the dial. This isn't entirely new for the brand, however, as the DK100 and DK101 use this design as well.
The writing once again reinforces Damasko's new found interest in symmetry. At 6:00 you have quite a bit of text, namely it lists off its special properties. I'm not sure any of these were needed, strictly speaking, but I'd say that it's quite balanced. I like that the words increase in size as you move down the dial, but I wish the spacing between lines was smaller. In general, when it comes to writing on dials, I find less is more, but it's not like Damasko was aiming for an elegant dress watch in the first place.
The lume is very good for this class of watches. It's very bright and easy to read. I wouldn't have minded a lumed GMT hand, but I understand Damasko's approach to keep it simple and easy to read. Notice the unusual decision not to make the 12:00 marker luminescent. I would have loved to see the 12:00 glow a different color, but on the plus side, it makes the dial very easy to orient. As usual, the color and intensity of the photo have not been digitally altered or affected by any camera tricks. This represents something that is very close to what your eyes will see in real life.
I think the dial is going to work for any fan of Damasko. It's new, of course, but it has Damasko DNA through and through. It's almost precisely what you'd expect from a Damasko. Hopefully we'll see some new colors, perhaps a red and blue version, in the future, but the green certainly works.
Far greater a departure is the case which is, by a substantial margin, the most complex Damasko has ever created.
The first, and most important difference, is this bezel, which to my eyes is clearly inspired by Gerald Genta. Genta designs, and those that emulate them, never really went away, with great hits like the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and IWC Ingeniuer still very popular, but there is nonetheless something of a resurgence in new watches. The new Tudor North Flag, which I recently reviewed, seems to take a lot of design cues from Genta, for instance. The DK200 is not quite as dedicated to the Gerald Genta influence as I think all his touches are to be found on the bezel alone, but then, the bezel really has always been the signature of his designs, so comparisons are inevitable.
Substantively, the new bezel combines a polished top level with recessed brushed areas, divided by 6 separate star screws. The recessed areas have the appearance of being bead blasted but it's not quite as "flat" or dull as that typically looks.
The DK200 is also one of the only Damaskos that alternates between brushed and polished surfaces. This is actually a fairly easy feat for most watchmakers, but this is complicated by Damasko's love of hardened steel. Here we see the polished lugs adjacent to the brushed sides.
I really like the vertical brush on the side of the case. More companies should use this technique. You can also see engraved rings on the bezel, another nice artistic flourish.
The screw down crown, good for 100 meters of water resistance, is extremely smooth to operate. That's thanks to a lubrication cell inside the case, as well as the fact that the crown actually decouples when being screwed down. This means that you're not hand winding the movement while screwing it in and that substantially reduces the amount of effort involved.
This DK200 has all sorts of cool features to help separate it from the crowd, but it was Damasko's ultra-tough cases that separate them as a brand. The DK200 retains all of the great features that you get from every Damasko watch, like a super hard case that is highly scratch resistant and chemically resistant Viton gaskets.
In terms of size, the DK200 is in line with their other in-house watches at 42mm and 14.2mm thick. Those looking for a thinner in-house Damasko should look towards the dressier DK100 and DK101, but for an unapologetic tool watch, I don't find these dimensions objectionable.
Here's the new movement that makes it all possible: the in-house Damasko A35-2, the brand's first GMT movement and one of the most advanced in the world.
For most small, independent brands an in-house movement is a dream. The few that accomplish it are generally producing a fairly conventional movement, sometimes extremely similar to the ETA calibres they're attempting to separate themselves from. Damasko is one of the only small brands that not only produces an in-house movement, but one that is of a very radical design.
What makes it so special? Well, as is the case for most good movements, it starts with the escapement. The first thing to look at is the balance wheel. Generally speaking, at least with regard to contemporary watches, there are two competing designs: the far more common smooth balance, which is used by companies like ETA/SG, Grand Seiko, Nomos, Vacheron Constantin, most Glashutte Originals, and most A. Lange & Sohnes and the free sprung variable inertia balance, which is used by Omega, Rolex, Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, FP Journe and Armin Strom, just to give some examples. While the smooth balance has found wide adoption all the way from the humble Seiko 5 to elite Vacheron Constantins, the free sprung balance lives nearly exclusively on the high end of watchmaking. Damasko has gone with the free sprung variety.
There are adherents to both designs, and there is no right answer, but merely a weighing of pros and cons. The smooth balance is accompanied by a device called a regulator, a mechanism for changing the effective (but not actual) length of the hairspring to control the rate. This makes it far easier to speed up or slow down a watch to increase precision, so easy, in fact, that some watch collectors even attempt this in their own home. However, the regulator has a disruptive influence on the hairspring, slightly harming stability, and it's an additional component to be knocked around over months and years of impacts and to "deregulate". The variable inertia balance is a simpler design that contributes to greater stability, but it is considerably more difficult to adjust. For what it's worth, I personally prefer the free sprung balance. I think it's a simpler, more elegant design, and so from an engineering perspective it is very attractive to me.
Virtually all free sprung balances are of the variable inertia type. These use tiny adjustable weights to move mass either closer or farther away from the axis of the balance. Even within variable inertia balances, however, there is still quite a bit of diversity. The traditional form is to use tiny gold screws on the outside of the balance wheel while rebels Rolex and Omega put the screws on the inside for various technical reasons you can find detailed in my Omega reviews. Damasko takes the third approach, using very small gold weights on top of the balance wheel. These weights have a "heavy" and a "light" side. When you rotate an opposing pair of weights to move mass closer or farther away from the axis you change the rate. The poise of the balance can be adjusted by moving a weight in isolation.
Essentially, while a watchmaker can't change the actual dimensions of the balance wheel, it allows them to change many of its other properties directly. Damasko's approach is associated almost exclusively with the very high end of watchmaking and is fairly synonymous with Patek Philippe's Gyromax system. Other brands have adopted this as well, like Audemars Piguet, FP Journe, and very recently, A. Lange & Sohne. It is extremely impressive that Damasko is not only offering a free sprung balance at this price, but one of this style.
The balance tends to be a glory hog in movements, but the hairspring is at least as important. In this case, Damasko is one of only a handful of brands, like Omega, Breguet, and more recently Tudor and Rolex (and in the latter, only for ladies’ watches), to use a silicon hairspring. Silicon offers a variety of advantages over metallic hairsprings, like immunity to magnetism and superior dimensional stability, as well as a lower weight, which contributes to stability in the face of vibration or impacts.
The use of silicon extends even further than that with the inclusion of a silicon escape wheel, which I've highlighted in pink/purple (the actual color of the part, but made much more intense to make it easier to see). The low weight, hardness and "self-lubricating" nature of silicon makes it ideal for one of the hardest working, and quickest wearing, parts of a movement, the escape wheel. The pallet fork remains conventional, but due to this part's use of ultra-hard ruby as an interface material, it was already situated fairly well with regard to wear resistance. Even fewer brands have attempted this design, some examples being Ulysse Nardin, Patek Philippe, Maurice Lacroix and Zenith.
What makes the A35-2 different from the A35? Well, to put it simply, the complications. There are actually two versions of the A35 out there other than the A35-2, a central seconds and a sub seconds variety, but in both instances Damasko uses a day/date complication, which they use in almost all of their watches. The H35, or the hand wound variant, uses only a date in addition to a seconds subdial. The A35-2, however, goes with central seconds, drops the day complication, but most importantly, adds a GMT complication. Basically, the GMT complication allows the owner to track a second time zone on a 24 hour scale. That allows them to easily see whether it's AM or PM. There are two main approaches to GMT movement design. One has an independent hour hand, and this is the design used by Rolex, Omega, Grand Seiko and a few others.
The other is the design popularized by ETA, where it's not the hour hand that's independent but the GMT hand. Damasko has chosen the latter, and while it does mean it's relatively inconvenient for travelers to change the time, it does come with a nice advantage: the A35-2 has a quickset date. In traditional GMT watches, the date is changed by rotating the independent hour hand twice around the dial for each day. That's no problem to change it one day on a 30 day month, but if your watch has been sitting dead for 15 days, it can be quite annoying to correct it. With this system, you can do that in seconds.
Damasko's rotor has a deep etching in addition to a subtly excavated D logo. I really like the black finishing to it.
It rotates with the help of tiny ceramic ball bearings which should substantially reduce the wear of this component. Damasko A35s began life with this design, long before this A35-2, but Jaeger LeCoultre is owed a lot of credit for popularizing this approach, as well as Omega. Ceramics are great for this application because of the material's incredible hardness and it's impressive to see this design in such an affordable watch.
Stepping away, for a moment, we can really appreciate how good looking a movement the A35-2 is. There are virtually no undecorated areas to be seen.
Although I wouldn't call Damasko, or their movements, traditionally German in most understandings of the term, they seem to be a fan of the 3/4 plate that is so closely associated with the country. I do miss the black balance wheels of the older Damasko in-house movements, although that's merely for aesthetic reasons. I also appreciate the blued screws throughout, another nice Germanic touch.
The A35-2 puts up some good numbers too. Although it's not chronometer rated, it is adjusted in the COSC-standard 5 positions and it has an excellent 52 hour power reserve, or about 12 more than the industry average. It really is a remarkable achievement for the small company and easily the highest tech movement you can get for under $4,000. It really stands to go a few rounds with other great new advanced movements like Tudor's MT-5612 or perhaps even the great Omega 8500.
Check out our video of the DK200 here.
As I've said in a few other reviews recently, I love it when a watch is delivering on every level. There's a lot to talk about with the dial, the case and the movement of this watch. Before I give my thoughts on each I'd like to take a rare moment out to discuss value. Damasko has always been a brand that has appealed to value-conscious collectors, but the DK200 is somewhat perplexing. The other in-house Damaskos were quite impressive at around $4,000, but this new DK200, with a far more complex case and somewhat more complicated movement is...more affordable? Yes, Damasko has oddly chosen to price the DK200 for almost $200 less than something like the DK11. Why? Beats me, but it does make for a very attractive deal.
As cool as the A35-2 and new dial are, the real standout feature of the DK200 is probably the case. The DK200 is still just as tough (well, perhaps a little tougher thanks to the single sided AR coating) as any other Damasko, but the case really presents just a whole new level of polish (meant figuratively) for the brand. It's not that the cases were ever low quality on Damasko, but they were very simple. The DK200 is not at all a simple case. It's got brushed and polished surfaces running into each other and a much more complex shape. The case feels more and more like a so-called "luxury". It's not a dressy watch by any stretch of the imagination and it gives up no tool watch credentials, but I can't help but feel this is something more like I'd get from a higher priced competitor, albeit in that instance it wouldn't have Damasko's excellent technology. It's a step forward in what the brand can do from a manufacturing standpoint.
Aesthetically, at least with the dial, it stays very true to Damasko principles. It's got excellent legibility in any level of light and it remains extremely utilitarian in design. The case has a lot more flourishes, of course, but no one is going to confuse this design with something flowery or delicate. If anything, we're looking at a Gerald Genta-esque design. Here his influence is largely devoted to the bezel, which does look very cool, and leaves the rest of the case, mainly the lugs and crown guards, relatively modern, which I like. While I admit I've never been as obsessed with Genta designs as many of my colleagues, I find myself ever more drawn to modern watches that are influenced by his style, like the North Flag and this DK200.
The A35-2 is quite an amazing movement, particularly for the price point and relative youth of the brand behind it. It incorporates traditional watchmaking elements associated with Patek Philippe, namely the free sprung variable inertia balance with a Gyromax-esque design, with ultra-high tech approaches associated with the Omega 8500, like the silicon hairspring, or even the more exotic silicon escape wheel. It is truly remarkable that Damasko has come so far in so little time. The DK200 really puts it all together: by far the most sophisticated watch the brand has ever produced.
The DK200 is the fourth all-new model of their in-house models, although unlike the other three, it lives in isolation, lacking dial and coating options, although that might be down the road. I'd love to see this with red or perhaps yellow accents as well. It's a really significant addition to the brand and really shows us what they can do, so I suspect we have a lot of impressive models awaiting us in the future.
Don't think have ever seen this one
