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Review - Vacheron Constantin Traditionnelle Small Seconds - Gray dial

jm_brc_7057

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Vacheron Constantin Patrimony Traditionnelle Small Seconds - Gray Dial


The gen
The gen is an elegant and simple, yet sophisticated dress watch, which was released in 2013 with a "opaline slate gray dial" and a platinum case. This was the first patrimony traditionnelle 38mm in a platinum dial. The watch is made within the long line of Patrimony Traditionnelle watches from Vacheron Constantin. Patrimony for giving from father to son - this is a traditional watch, yet it has a modern look as the crisp lines of the minute track and cuts of hands and the applied markers.
It has a polished case, the hands are mirror polished on one side and satin polished on the other side, which gives a very shiny appearance. The hands were made in 18k white gold. The subsidiary seconds has two glossy rings around and inside the seconds track, which gives balance and fits perfect with the highly polished bright platinum case.

ce90a56ce47ab92c6e5dac4f6a196219.jpg


Facts:
Released: 2013 priced at around 34k USD.
Casediameter: 38mm
Case thickness: 7.77mm
Case material: Platinum

Movement
Movement was an in-house caliber 4400 AS, which is manual wound and had a geneva seal on it, because of the - at the time of release - roughly speaking "fulfillment of requirements regarding movement quality and finishing". Later on the requirements for the Geneva seal where extended not only to the finishing and quality of the movement, but also that the whole watch is made in the Geneva canton, requirements of precision of the movement in-case, quality and finishing of the watch as a whole, that the watch has written "Geneva" or "Genéve" on the dial, water resistance, power reserve and overall functionality of the watch among most noteworthy.

The movement has a power reserve of 65h in the gen.

Vacheron-Constantin-Patrimony-Traditionelle-Gray-3.jpg


The rep
Before we go into details of the flaws, let's start with a nice shot, which shows how beautiful and well made this rep is. Here on a Jacobstraps burgundy vintage:

20190816-160434.jpg


And a customary wristshot
Sk-rmbillede-2019-08-16-kl-17-47-45.png'



The facts:

Casediameter: 39,5mm
Case thickness: approx. 8,5mm
Lug width: 21mm (although a 22mm fits nicely. I've tried with a 21mm strap mounted too, it fitted perfectly).
Buckle width: 18mm.
Price: 218 USD
Bought from: Toro Bravo

Case
The rep case is 1,5 mm larger and 1 mm thicker than the gen. The ratio is balanced and it seems thin on the wrist. Although i think the case size undoubtedly looks bigger than 38mm if you have a trained eye.

As you can see it is fairly thin:
20190816-160745.jpg


Case polishing is very nice and finishing is great. The watch looks expensive:

20190816-160725.jpg


Crystal
The crystal is AR coated although i think it could have reflected a little less, because the gen has flawless AR coating.

Sk-rmbillede-2019-08-16-kl-17-35-55.png


Hands
Hands are nicely polished and very shiny, there are no marks or anything on them. Correct shape and length.

Markers
The 6 o'clock marker is a little longer than in the gen. Other than that very nicely applied and of high quality.

Dial
Has a very similar colour to the gen. The VC cross is a little bit thicker than the gen, but not noticable. The "Genéve" has the punctuation on the "é" which shouldn't have been there.

Sk-rmbillede-2019-08-16-kl-17-37-00.png


20190816-160129.jpg


Subsidiary seconds dial:
Here one of the main flaws is present as highlighted in this thread:
https://forum.replica-watch.info/for...-small-seconds

The gen has two glossy rings respectively inside and around the seconds track. These are not present in the rep. This makes the watch look a little bit dull at a glance when looking at a picture of the gen, as the gen has a more balance to it as stated above and as you can see in the picture of the gen.

Rep movement
The rep movement is well decorated with a high level of finishing. It really looks expensive and has depth to it, as the deeper parts of the movement also has finishing on them. The engravings are correct too.

The movement has a frequency of 28800 vph, while the rep has a 21600 vph.

I hope the pictures show how well finished the movement of this rep really is:

20190816-160155.jpg
20190816-160200.jpg


Conclusion

This is a really well made high quality rep whit one of the best finished rep movements i've seen. It has the same whitishness of the movement as in the gen because of the fine lines placed rectangularlyof the Geneva striping.

Also it has a great dial colour and case finishing is great. It does many things right.'

The flaws are as above stated:
Major:
- The shiny rings inside and outside of the subsidiary seconds hand is lacking, which makes it look a bit more dull if you directly put it against a picture of the gen. It is a pretty stupid error though, as they could easily have applied a thin layer of cut high-gloss plastic there. It would have given roughly the same look and appearance.
- Case size is 39,5mm, the gen is 38mm. Although it isn't visible on the wrist.

Minor:
- Punctuation on the "é" in Geneve shouldn't have been there.
- The 6 o'clock marker is a little bit longer.
- If you look very close, the VC cross is a tiny bit thicker than the gen.

At the price the watch is truly a bargain!
 
Last edited:

csthe

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Thanks for this review mate!
I think that the cross is a major tell. Also I'm not sure about the dial color...
In any case, congrats on this one, it is a great and elegant watch.
 

jm_brc_7057

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slaughterer62

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Nice to be linked here and I enjoyed the review. Big fan of VC overall, but only gen so far. I did not know there were good quality reps of these.
 

jm_brc_7057

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Nice to be linked here and I enjoyed the review. Big fan of VC overall, but only gen so far. I did not know there were good quality reps of these.

Great to hear that you enjoyed it. Actually i went by the AD last week. I saw the Traditionnelle Small Seconds in WG and RG. Not the Platinum one with the grey dial though. But the others weren't far off this rep. Other than a few details, it wasn't much apart.
 

Radec

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Great review.

Why can't I see this exact model in trusty/puretime ?

Can someone link me to it?
 

jm_brc_7057

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Thanks. Pm'd them.

Hows the watch so far? Any movement issues?

Nothing so far. But off course i don't use my watches on a daily basis. Most of them I rotate a lot, so they aren't used that often. But there haven't been any issues. For the power reserve to last as specified you need to wind it minimum 50 times. It requires daily winding afterwards maybe 20-25 times to keep going. When the power is low the watch becomes unprecise.
But that's a known issue in watchmaking, not a fault in this watch. As the mainspring does not deliver torque evenly.