Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

Article on WatchPro from yesterday about the Holton Professional

Looking forward to getting mine.

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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by Dancematt »

The company says its new Holton Professional is the first watch from a British company in over 10 years to be approved by NATO and given its own NATO stock number that means armed forces can be issued with it as part of their military kit alongside weapons and protective gear.
Is this true? Havent Smith's been doing this for a while? Plus the cwc g10 sapphire has a stock number?
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by StrapMeister »

Dancematt wrote: Fri Nov 23, 2018 7:44 pm
The company says its new Holton Professional is the first watch from a British company in over 10 years to be approved by NATO and given its own NATO stock number that means armed forces can be issued with it as part of their military kit alongside weapons and protective gear.
Is this true? Havent Smith's been doing this for a while? Plus the cwc g10 sapphire has a stock number?
I question that statement as well...there was a recent Kickstarter project (Newmark 6BB) that was a resurrection of one of the "fab-five" watches that had a NATO stock number.
In addition, you'll see the NATO Stock Number (NSN) issued to the Newmark 6BB by the British Ministry of Defence: 6645-99-870-5073.
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by nbg »

^^^ Yep the Smiths that I bought about a month ago had a NATO stock number allocated, although completely irrelevant from my perspective.
4648B9E2-6118-41F2-B4DD-1EF0C4C2F745.jpeg
The EB looks a nice enough watch for anyone influenced to buy the watch just because it may or may not have been tested by the special regiment based down the road.

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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

There is clearly a debate here of what constitutes 'Military Issue' and the relevance of NATO Stock Numbers (NSNs) in this context.

With regard to the 'Military Issue' status of the Holton Professional I contacted Elliot Brown to see if I could get clarification from them. This is the response I received from Alex Brown;-

"To clarify: when we say “Issued”, we mean a watch that is (and has been) purchased by the MoD (directly or indirectly), delivered to the military stores from the supplier (not from EB), and available to (and provided to) military personnel from the stores on the base/camp/etc.

Imagine a twin circle Venn diagram, with Issued watches (as described above) in one circle, and NSN’d watches in the other.

In our experience, not all watches worn by military personnel are NSN’d, and not all watches that are NSN’d are Issued.
We’ve seen all sorts of watches issued from stores, and plenty aren’t NSN’d.

For example, Eddie’s ’Smiths’ are NSN’d but not Issued. Same with the reissued Newmark watch.

(To clarify - we’ve absolutely nothing against Timefactors or Newmark - I mention them only because they were mentioned in that thread - we're not, absolutely not, singling them out for criticism. Just using them to illustrate the point of NSN’d but not Issued.)

I’m not sure if these watches use newly created NSNs or if they just reused the NSNs that were originally created for the original watches that theirs are based on. But either way, they aren’t Issued watches, they’re watches with an NSN on the caseback.

This is where the confusion comes from in this thread; most people think NSN=Issued, and that’s not the case.

The Holton is different because it’s in the area where the two circles intersect: it is NSN’d and Issued, and that’s rare. As we’ve said, we’re not aware of another British brand doing that in a decade.

It's available to buy on the NATO system, and has been purchased from MoD budget by specialist military suppliers, not from EB directly, and will be issued from stores.*

This is pretty unusual, which is why we’re appropriately proud of it.

Best regards,

Alex"


* my emphasis - Guy

I trust this clarifies the issue (pardon the pun) for those who appear sceptical of the 'Military Issue' status of the Holton Professional.

Guy
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by cincfleet »

I'm totally impressed with EB and their ethos. They pull no punches and tell it how it is. They are supporting both military and civilian emergency services as well as extreme sports. Their lines of communication is "Outstanding" and personal. I think this response from Alex has explained this issue with aplomb. :thumbup:
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by Dancematt »

Thanks for the update guy (although like most here i know the difference between properly issued military watches and ones with just nsn numbers.

From previous chat would it be right to assume these are going to the sbs or something?

They have been issued with CWC SBS divers for decades now and i wonder if cwcs ever rising rrps has much to do with it? Although i know they were issued to the sbs last year and perhaps this year as cwc has stated (watch sold out due to military issue requirements coming first) . The standard RN diver mk 1 is now £49 more expensive than it was last year and the mk 2 version is a whopping £180 more expensive than that at £679.....for what?? A Sapphire crystal upgrade? 🙄🙄 , maybe CWC has started to price itself out of thereal military issued watch market (but its easy to imagine they give some discount to the mod) although its really hard for me to fathom the mod still going down the all but abandoned issued watch idea.

Comparing the 2, only the movement stands in the cwcs favour (other thn the 300m wr but thats probably overkill in nearly all situations), the eta 955.122 is far superior to the Rhonda 715 in my experience, the 715 hand wobbles like santas belly around the dial and it only has a three year battery life to the eta's 5 and is usually less accurate but then again cheaper to replace perhaps?

I would bet the CWC has superior lume and wears better on the wrist in most cases but thats hard to prove, the EB has the shock absorption and better customer service on its side.
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

Dancematt wrote: Tue Nov 27, 2018 2:26 pm Thanks for the update guy (although like most here i know the difference between properly issued military watches and ones with just nsn numbers.

From previous chat would it be right to assume these are going to the sbs or something?

They have been issued with CWC SBS divers for decades now and i wonder if cwcs ever rising rrps has much to do with it? Although i know they were issued to the sbs last year and perhaps this year as cwc has stated (watch sold out due to military issue requirements coming first) . The standard RN diver mk 1 is now £49 more expensive than it was last year and the mk 2 version is a whopping £180 more expensive than that at £679.....for what?? A Sapphire crystal upgrade? 🙄🙄 , maybe CWC has started to price itself out of thereal military issued watch market (but its easy to imagine they give some discount to the mod) although its really hard for me to fathom the mod still going down the all but abandoned issued watch idea.

Comparing the 2, only the movement stands in the cwcs favour (other thn the 300m wr but thats probably overkill in nearly all situations), the eta 955.122 is far superior to the Rhonda 715 in my experience, the 715 hand wobbles like santas belly around the dial and it only has a three year battery life to the eta's 5 and is usually less accurate but then again cheaper to replace perhaps?

I would bet the CWC has superior lume and wears better on the wrist in most cases but thats hard to prove, the EB has the shock absorption and better customer service on its side.
Cheers Peter.

Interesting to compare the Holton Professional with the CWC SBS Diver Issue - bit like Top Trumps. Pros and cons for each. Would it be fair to say that the CWC suffers for being of a 'classic' design, its been around since 1987 after all, whereas the Holton has some fresh ideas (turn and push on the bezel, knurled top face on the bezel too)?

I'm intrigued by your analogy of "the 715 hand wobbles like santas belly around the dial". :lol: Not heard that before so had to investigate. Think I've found out what you mean; seems to be an interesting quirk of the Ronda 715 (albeit most of the posts I found were at least 5 years old; maybe Ronda have fixed the issue).

As to the recipients of the Military Issued pieces; your guess is as good as mine. :wink:

Guy
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by gaf1958 »

Dancematt wrote:... like most here i know the difference between properly issued military watches and ones with just nsn numbers...
I must admit that I for one didn’t know the differences, so I found it interesting to get a bit of insight into it. I will also admit that it’s probably due to a bit of, maybe, indifference on my part to the whole military watch concept, which I possibly should have paid more attention to. There are many I like, and have owned, but I’ve never really been into the genre as such, as a whole.

I do however like the Holton...
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by StrapMeister »

A very interesting response and informative read :thumbup: - I've learnt something :)
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by robert75 »

Been looking more and more at Elliot Brown watches some of them look quite decent, I may be inclined to add one to my collection soon.
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by kyoto »

Have only just discovered this brand, so thank you for posting about it.
I live in the area and have visited the RN Cordite Factory at Holton Heath, so given the watches bear names of this local establishment as well as the sequestered village of Tyneham (now a weekend tourist location) prior to WW2, I will be looking at them in detail.
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

@kyoto - Elliot Brown's premises are in Poole and, whilst they do not have a shop, they are always willing to see visiting enthusiasts (by appointment).

Guy

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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by kyoto »

Bahnstormer_vRS wrote: Tue Dec 04, 2018 8:07 pm @kyoto - Elliot Brown's premises are in Poole and, whilst they do not have a shop, they are always willing to see visiting enthusiasts (by appointment).

Guy

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Thanks, I will follow this up and hopefully report back when I have been, in case of use to others.
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Re: Elliot Brown Holton Professional - new British Military Issue watch

Post by Bahnstormer_vRS »

Watch this space.....

Image

Guy

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