In October of 2016, the monthly giveaway watch on aBlogtoWatch was a Tissot Heritage 1936 Mechanical watch. The winner was Dan T. from Springfield, Missouri, USA, and after enjoying his new Tissot Heritage 1936 timepiece (retail price $995), he has given a watch winner review for us to share with you —— the aBlogtoWatch audience. Thanks to Dan and all the other watch winners who share experiences with the world. Here is Dan’s review:
Hello, fellow aBlogtoWatch readers! I was super stoked to hear that I won one of the elegant Tissot Heritage replica watches giveaway. Tissot has been a brand I’ve had my eyes on for some time —– specifically, the vintage-inspired pieces with that fantastic retro Tissot logo on the dial. The watch arrived alongside some awesome Tissot swag, and an interesting, nearly 300-page book on the story of the company.
It even pictures a Tissot pocket watch circa 1923 that this design clearly draws some inspiration from. Seeing the connection between Tissot fake watches with brown leather straps and a model from nearly a century ago allows me to truly appreciate the history of Tissot whenever I put the Heritage 1936 on.
So for those who aren’t familiar with this watch, I’ll provide a quick primer. This design celebrates a historically significant point in timepiece history —— it’s modeled after some of the first wristwatches ever made. Trench watches, as they were called, gained popularity during WW1, and rapidly accelerated the shift from pocket watch to wristwatch. These trench watches were essentially pocket watches with wired lugs soldered on, and when you look up images of them you clearly see the resemblance in a lot of the design elements. This nod to the past is big for me —— I very much gravitate towards Tissot copy watches with Swiss mechanical movements with a story.
So now that the history lesson is over, let’s just get straight to the elephant in the room —- the size of the noble Tissot Heritage fake watches. It’s not only the width —– coming in at a modest 45mm —– but it’s also the thickness (13mm) that makes this a beast of a watch. These numbers would typically scare some away, but the watch really doesn’t feel (or really even look) that large, and I have a relatively small wrist. Something about the wire lugs and the narrow (18mm) band make the size of the case size look right and not feel over-the-top, which is important for a vintage-inspired piece.