I’ve realised recently that the watches that interest me – really interest me – are likely to be a little left of centre. I don’t get excited any longer by mainstream watches; in fact, walking into a shop and buying something off the shelf has lost it’s appeal for me at the moment. With that dawning realisation spurring me on I decided that I would go for something a little different, and here it is… a Union Glashütte Klassik Gangreserve.

The Union Glashütte brand is slightly more “under the radar” than Glashüttes/GO’s generally, but even though the Swatch Group have influenced production such that Union now house ETA movements, this was a relatively recent development. Fortunately, the one that I’ve bought (below) houses instead the Union Basiskaliber 26-44 engine; I need to do a little more research on it, but it’s basically an un-elaborated version of GO’s GUB 10-30/39; and far superior to any ETA alternative.

The quality of these watches seems to rival that of brands costing two or three times as much, and I can see this being an absolute keeper.