Today, I have the latest from Maryland’s own Towson Watch Company, a pair of field watches collectively billed as Recruit vs. Cadet. This new line comes at an important time in the company’s history, as founders George Thomas and Hartwig Balke pass the torch to its new owners, Spencer Shattuck and Taylor Classen. That’s a lot of responsibility to lay on a watch — or even two watches. I tried both to see if they were up to the task.
I won’t rehash the whole Towson story here, but the relevant part of my previous article (read it later, you’ll like it) is that Thomas and Balke had already retired from successful watchmaking careers when they established the company 22 years ago. Through a refined creative vision and meticulous craftsmanship, they built a highly respected boutique brand with a loyal customer base. Now, they are working with the new owners, Shattuck and Classen, to set it on course for the next twenty. The Recruit vs. Cadet is a part of this effort. Got it? Good. Let’s get to the watches.
At $1,250, the Towson Recruit vs. Cadet CR250 is the lowest-priced offering in the brand’s line-up. That puts it in the challenging position of maintaining the brand’s image at a price that is lower than the rest of the offerings but still represents a significant purchase, especially for the younger watch buyers at which it is aimed.
Towson’s previous collections have always been, for lack of a better word, fancier. Even the sporting models had plenty of bright polish and lavish dials. This watch, with its field watch layout and Spartan sans-serif typeface, seemed a bit plain in comparison, and I think that was a smart move. Had Towson released a watch that looked like a decontented version of one of their more intricate offerings, say, a Cockpit Moon with half the complications and a Seiko MechaQuartz inside, it just would have been sad. By launching a military watch, they changed the expectation of what a Towson watch might be. I’d say their bold Martin M-130 and NORTH.er aircraft watches were the bridge from the brand’s older, often Baroque offerings to this new and more utilitarian aesthetic branch of the Towson family tree.
I will confess that I was skeptical when I first saw the renderings for this series as I did not understand some of the design choices, but if I have learned anything in 9 years of watch reviews, it’s that renderings, photos, and specs really just give you the most general idea of what a watch may be like. You just can’t judge until you have it on your wrist. After wearing these two on and off for a couple of weeks, I now see them in a very different light.
The Towson Recruit vs. Cadet CR250 is a field watch collection in two color variants that play upon the Army/Navy rivalry (nearby Annapolis, Maryland, is home to the U.S. Naval Academy). In true mil-spec fashion, it employs a straightforward layout with lumed bars and large Arabic numbers for the 12 hours, along with an inner hour track to take it to the full 24. Its long, lumed, post-style hands are functional and businesslike, with the second and minute hands grazing their markers.
The case is satin-finished and features a large, push-pull crown flanked by smoothly integrated guards. The fine coin texture on that sliver of a bezel edge is a pleasant touch, imparting a dash of refinement in a manner entirely in keeping with the Recruit vs. Cadet’s field watch design brief. It measures 40mm across the bezel (42mm if you include the crown guards), and 48mm long, with a 20mm lug box. Best of all, it’s just 10.5mm thick. These taut dimensions, coupled with long and gently arched lugs, make for a comfortable fit. Its overall proportions remind me of the not-too-distant past when most military and sports watches kept their size in check. On my smallish 6.75″ wrist, the watch fit quite well, thanks in large part to that reasonable lug-to-lug and outstandingly slim profile.
You will find anti-reflective coated sapphire crystals front and rear. Through the latter, you can appreciate the 28.8k bph ETA 2824 or virtually identical Sellita SW200-1 automatic movement. Whichever unit you get, it will have been modified, assembled, and regulated in the Towson workshop to within +/- 10 seconds per day. Decoration includes rhodium-plated Geneva stripes, a signed and enameled rotor, gold-plated wheels, blued screws, perlage, and guilloche, making it one of the few displayed movements on an affordable watch that is actually worth looking at.
While you are back there. you will also notice the serial number and the 5 ATM (50m) water resistance rating, which seems light compared to most of the tool watches that pass through Time Bum Headquarters, but is likely more than enough for general outdoor use and is, in fact, on par with many field watches. I think most recruits would have no complaint, but I do wonder if seafaring cadets might have preferred a little more protection.
By design, the watch had to be clean and direct. It’s the military way. We expect a field watch to follow a fairly strict and simple formula. Towson delivered, which is not to say they didn’t sweat the details, you just need to take a moment to appreciate them. Notice the shimmer on the inner dial? That’s the light playing off a concentric texture, made more apparent by the contrast of the blasted matte surface of the outer section. There are no applied elements on the dial, but it does not appear flat or featureless because of the way the ink has built up in the printing process. You can see it in the 16 and the lumed markers in the macro shot below.
Then we get to the date; black-on-white and eating half of the 3. It is my least favorite part of the watch. A rookie mistake? Apparently not. When I asked about it, I learned that the most veteran watchmaker on the team was behind this decision, insisting on maintaining the truncated number in the interest of symmetry. I know scores of other watches have done the same thing, but I second-guess it every time. How do I think it should have been done? Well, I don’t have a great answer. A black or color-matched disc would have minimized the date, but that would only have made the partial 3 look even stranger while also sacrificing some legibility, which is never a good thing on a military watch. Eliminating the 3 entirely would have left a noticeable void given the distance from the disk to the edge. So, I accept that if you really want a date on this dial, the Recruit vs. Cadet’s makes sense the way it is. Personally, I will happily sacrifice a date for aesthetics, so my ideal solution would have been no date at all.
I was greatly disappointed when I first saw the choice of typeface for the dial text in the initial renderings. Many previous Towson dials have utilized far more attractive lettering and this plain sans-serif seemed soulless. I must now admit that it looks far better in person. The ornate script and tall serifed styles the brand has employed in the past would have looked entirely out of place on this watch and the simple, lightweight typeface employed here allows the text to be much smaller while remaining readable.
But there is one more thing. Have a look at the very bottom of the dial.
“Md/usa” is a very strange way of referencing the brand’s location. This too, was an effort to maintain symmetry — and I appreciate that. Pleasing symmetry is why love to see “Swiss (6) Made” on a watch when “Made In (6) Germany” makes me itch. Nothing for or against either nation, it’s just that the former is balanced and the latter has a gap and a second capitalization throwing the whole thing off. In the same vein, “Towson (6) Md/usa” works while “Towson (6) Md, USA” absolutely does not. I realize that I have just spent a full paragraph kvetching about a line of text so small it barely registers, but that is what we watch nerds do. I can see using the “Md” postal code, but lowercase for “usa” is only acceptable in an E.E. Cummings poem.
Moving on, I’ll address a design detail that love: the color. To my eye, the Cadet is the more striking of the pair. The Navy dial is dark, deep, and complex. As you can see in my photos, the blue varies with the light and always looks a treat, particularly with those white, cream, and golden yellow elements popping in contrast.
As uncommon at the Cadet’s Navy may be, the Recruit’s Olive is even more so. It is an almost unbelievably dark Olive, the sort of green you might experience while eating Nori Seaweed in a dimly-lit restaurant. A color that would spark a debate about whether it was “greenish-black” or a “blackish green.” Beige printing accompanies the cream and white on this one, for warm vintage look.
And then the light catches it and, voila! Green. Your mileage may vary, but my brain registered the green undertone more readily when I paired the Recruit with a black strap, whereas it defaulted to black when I saw it on brown. It’s a subtle effect. Perhaps too subtle, as I suspect many may initially miss the trick and go right for the Cadet instead.
Finally, we get to the straps. I will never understand brands that ship quality watches on mediocre straps. This is not a problem here. I know Towson has taken steps to raise their strap game, and it shows. The Recruit vs. Cadet series comes fitted with some fine ones handmade in Italy. They are Nappa leather, 20mm wide, lightly padded, taper to 16mm, and display an appealing pull-up effect when bent. A brushed buckle engraved with the Towson logo finishes it off.
I found the dark brown and black with white stitching worked best on the Recruit, while the dark brown with beige and black with blue complemented the Cadet.
My sample set also included a deployant clasp. While I have never been a deployant guy myself, I could see it was well made and nicely finished, although the bright polish does not tie to the Recruit vs. Cadet’s satin case, and the etched signature isn’t nearly as distinctive as the offset logo on the standard buckle.
In the end, I’d say the Towson Recruit vs. Cadet has hit its targets. It is a quality piece that brings a youthful air to the brand’s catalog, and with that, perhaps, a new crop of loyal customers. While it is less expensive than other Towson watches, it exhibits the same commitment to craftsmanship. The design certainly has its quirks — oh, how I wish there were a no-date option! Still, I think the case is perfect, and I love the way the design team took a very traditional, oft-repeated design and made it uniquely their own.
The Towson Watch Company Recruit vs. Cadet is available now at TowsonWatch.com for $1,295 and will be limited to 250 units.
