Limes Pharo Automatic first Impressions

Purchased from www.watchbuys.com. They don't have this model on the website but do stock it.

It ships in a plain wooden box. If this was a present I might like something a little better, but no real complaints.

One small sheet of instructions providing basic instructions for the ETA 2892-2 movement and the guarantee card are also provided. No money wasted on fancy booklets, etc.

The strap is nice padded black leather stamped LIMES with a signed deployment buckle. Not a big fan of deployment buckles so replaced with a nice plain stainless buckle. Seems to fit my wrist better. Overall I think the strap is well matched to the watch, not too thick or too thin. I think a nice tan alligator would look great with it. The quality of the watch justifies a $100.00 strap if first impressions count.

It has a screw down sapphire crystal display back. The engineer in me says this is unneed feature that just provides another entry for dust and water, but it is growing on me. The movement is very nice to look at and after all watches of this type are not just instruments, they are art. But I wouldn't mind a standard back. The rotor is signed "LIMES Twenty One Jewels Adjusted".

The case back is also signed and marked water resistant 50m and Made in Germany. The back is higly polished and well matched to the rest of the watch.

The winding crown is unsigned and of a good size for a thin watch. I can set the time/date easily with it. The sides and lugs are the same near mirror finish as the back. Really a great highly polished finish. Very nice for a thin dress watch. All sides of the lugs have the same finish. The lugs are quite curved, the tips just break the plane of the case back. The curved lugs and 37mm case size fit my smallish wrist. the curve of the lugs match the curve of my wrist. The bezel has a fine brushed finish that contrasts with the other polished surfaces. The bezel is very thin. Much thinner than my seamaster 120. This makes the watch look larger than it is.

The watch has silvered dial and hands. The hands need a little more contrast with the dial. Maybe blued hands? A minor issue, I can read the watch fine in normal lighting. I think the hands would look nicer if they were a little wider overall and the hour hand should be longer. Limes makes up for this with a very nice sweep second hand with a skeleton tip. The face is very clean and remindes me of 1960's era models.
The crystal is very slightly convex. Does not magnify at all even at extreme viewing angles.

So far the watch has kept very good time. I set it 2 days ago and now it's about 5s fast.

Overall I am very satisfied.