ReviewIn-depth Review: NOMOS Glashütte Club Datum

The drive from Dresden to Glashütte is inexplicably beautiful. I guess, most that undertake this journey must be travelling to a watch manufacturer- either NOMOS Glashütte or its hallowed neighbours, A. Lange & Söhne and Glashütte Original. Nomos doesn’t have the legacy of Lange or even GO, being a brand set up in 1990, but has been making delightfully well designed and technically efficient mechanical timepieces since then.

A Brief History of the Brand:

NOMOS Glashütte was founded by Roland Schwertner, an entrepreneur of varied interests and businesses just a few months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, 27 years ago. In 1990, Schwertner was keen on an opportunity to build a German watch brand and hence acquired Nomos – a German watchmaker in the early 1900s with its name meaning “law” in Greek.

The first important model from the house of NOMOS Glashütte is the Tangente- with thin, faceted lugs, a white dial and large hour markers at 2,4,8,10 and 12 o’clock, which Schwertner with the help of few watchmakers and designer, Susanne Günther designed and produced after a couple of years of R&D.

Initially, NOMOS sourced a majority of its parts from Switzerland. Using ETA and Peseux movements largely, NOMOS assembled and hand-crafted mechanical movements in Germany, continuing to establish its name as a strong German watchmaker. In 2005, NOMOS released its first fully in-house movement, the Epsilon, fitted in the Tangomat model.

The well-proportioned designs, in-house movements and honest pricing were the reasons NOMOS was growing rapidly and finally became the largest producer of mechanical watches in Germany, with a presence in almost fifty countries.

About the NOMOS Glashütte Club Datum:

Among the other famous lines from NOMOS are the distinctive looking and well-awarded Metro and Weltzeit lines. But the one I am talking about today is the Club Datum from the Club collection. More conventional in looks, sporty in nature and extremely well-priced, the Club is a great watch to buy. Within the Club collection, there are many variations with hand-wound and automatic options.

The Club Datum is one from the hand-wound category. The date models are larger in case diameter than the models without a date. The watch is particularly attractive and well balanced with a roomy 38.5mm diameter and a galvanised white silver-plated dial. Also for the ones, who don’t like to keep changing their watches, Club Datum is a great choice as it is sporty and elegant at the same time, which is very difficult to achieve.

What stands out, though in a subtle way, are the black hour and minute hands with red inlay and the Bauhaus-inspired Arabic numerals. The patented trapezoidal aperture for the date is symmetrically positioned and the date wheel’s background colour matches that of the dial exactly.

For watch connoisseurs who like a good leather strap, the watch comes with a brown Horween Genuine Shell Cordovan strap. Horween is a 1905 established, 5^th generation Chicago-based leather specialist and Genuine Shell Cordovan stands for the best in tanning- more than just the colour, it’s specific leather from a particular part of horsehide. Water resistance of 100m makes the watch very functional, though you will rarely dive with a watch like this.

At work in this watch—a function larger than the version without a date indicator—is the reliable DUW 4101, the in-house NOMOS calibre with manual winding and date indicator features the NOMOS swing system with tempered blue balance spring adjusted in six positions. The movement is 2.8mm in height and comes with a power reserve of 42 hours.

The main characteristics of DUW 4101 comprise decentralised seconds, date indicator, stop-seconds mechanism, Glashütte three-quarter plate, 23 jewels, Glashütte stopwork, Incabloc shock protection. Club Datum comes with a screwed sapphire crystal case back.

The NOMOS Glashütte Club Datum is exclusively available at Ethos Watch Boutiques.

What did you think of this watch? Anything that we missed about the NOMOS Glashütte Club Datum? Let us know in the comments section below.