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Mini Review: Aoede Sea Venture

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Mini Review: Aoede Sea Venture

Post by MoT »

[mention]aoedebrian[/mention] from Aoede Watch Company (pronounced "Eighty" in your best New England accent) was kind enough to lend me a Sea Venture No. 2 recently, and I'd like to share a mini-review and my thoughts.

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Sea Venture, now fully funded on Kickstarter, is a series of vintage-styled dive watches designed and created by Aoede Watch Company in Massachusetts. They describe the watch as follows:
A fully-functional dive watch capable of 100M / 330FT water resistance, the Sea Venture has a 40mm case size, marine-grade 316L stainless steel case, sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on the inside, a super-cool and colorful K1 hardened crystal uni-directional bezel, bright BGW9 lume on hand-placed indices, numbers, and pip, and a screwed-down signed crowned. Powering the Sea Venture is the Seiko TMI powered NH35A Automatic Movement -- a 24 jewel, 21,600 bph, self-winding movement with a 42-hour power reserve. This is a rock-solid, time-tested movement that will last many years.
I received the watch in a nice padded case featuring the Aoede logo.

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Sea Venture is a very comfortable 40mm size. It's nice to see this size, as I believe it is accessible to more collectors, especially since it seems 42mm and up gets all the attention. It also follows their vintage styling philosophy.

The watch came on a black slip-through style strap with brushed hardware. This was the only negative for me personally, and it is a minor one; The strap looks and feels quite basic and it is too short for my 8" wrist. This is easy enough to change though for those who might have the same opinion. Just slip it off and attach one of the many straps that most collectors have laying around.

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Sea Venture is a very attractive watch with a fun use of color and materials. An AR-coated sapphire crystal, K1 hardened crystal bezel, and BGW9 lume at this price point ($259! is a treat. The bezel is a stand-out. It's lovely to look at and the action is crisp and accurate. Some big-name brands could take lessons from Aoede on alignment.

Te crown is signed with the Aoede logo and is a good size. Screwing and unscrewing had a very positive feeling with no perceptible1 grit and the NH35 wound just as smoothly as all the others I own. Case finishing is overall very good, and the nautilus on the case back is pretty cool. Drilled lugs would have been a nice bonus, but definitely not a deal-breaker.

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The night time party piece of Sea Venture is definitely the two-color BGW9 lume. It is a liberally applied to the hands, markers and bezel pip, and is bright and long-lasting. Time telling was extremely easy at 7:00am without my reading glasses after charging it under a lamp for roughly one minute at 11:00pm. Impressive!

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Sea Venture is already fully funded on Kickstarter, and I have little doubt that those who backed it will be happy. It's a fun, comfortable, quality watch that would be a great addition to any collector's box.

Thank you, [mention]aoedebrian[/mention], and congratulations on your Kickstarter success!

Sea Venture can still be backed at the following link:

Visit Aoede Watch Company's brand showcase right here on our very own forum: viewforum.php?f=31
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Re: Mini Review: Aoede Sea Venture

Post by SeaborneBrian »

Thanks [mention]ManOnTime[/mention] for taking the time to review the Sea Venture! Some quick notes -- I'll look into drilled lugs on the final manufacturing - while not a deal breaker, it has been a consistent request. We'll also have some larger straps for those that need them! We'll be adding a coupon code for those that missed the Kickstarter in the next week or so. Again, thanks for taking the time, much appreciated!
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Re: Mini Review: Aoede Sea Venture

Post by MoT »

aoedebrian wrote: Tue Nov 12, 2019 3:49 pm Thanks @ManOnTime for taking the time to review the Sea Venture! Some quick notes -- I'll look into drilled lugs on the final manufacturing - while not a deal breaker, it has been a consistent request. We'll also have some larger straps for those that need them! We'll be adding a coupon code for those that missed the Kickstarter in the next week or so. Again, thanks for taking the time, much appreciated!
Thank you for allowing me the chance to review it, and for being a part of this site! I think I can safely say most of us here are very interested in what Aoede comes up with next.

Drilled lugs; In my opinion, they are a "nice-to-have", not a "must-have". I don't think not having them is a detriment at all.

A longer strap option would be great, especially for those of us with wrist robustness. :lol:
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Re: Mini Review: Aoede Sea Venture

Post by SeaborneBrian »

Hi All --

$50 off the Sea Venture for Forum members activated -- use SEAVENTURE50 or just click -- https://aoedewatches.com/discount/SEAVENTURE50

This is a pre-order and will be delivered approx. May 2020 with Kickstarter deliveries. Thanks!
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Re: Mini Review: Aoede Sea Venture

Post by username »

Cool watch, and thanks for the review. Not in the market myself (too many divers already), but this looks like a great option for those looking for an inexpensive buy that checks a whole lot of boxes and looks great doing it (especially in the dark!).

Also a generous offer for MoT forum members, which is always cool to see.

One note to [mention]aoedebrian[/mention] , I know someone is going to be asking you for a bracelet for it, probably a lot of someones, so be prepared. :D
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