I got this watch just before the world went into Covid lockdown. Over the years, I’ve met and chatted with Simon Freese, and he’s worked on quite a few of my watches. As well as being a watch repairer and restorer (who has particular expertise in vintage Omega Speedmasters, given his association with Speedmaster101‘s William Roberts), Simon has also done some proper “watch making” in releasing several of his own creations.
The “Freese 101” was his first watch, built in semi-homage to the Rolex Submariner 5513 with sword hands. Simon had the case manufactured, then took an ETA 2824 movement and removed the date functions (since there’s no day or date on this watch) and he hand-finished the dial, hands and bezel.
When he first released this watch, I said to Simon I’d like number 21 – so he produced a variety of watches in different colours and finishes, and when he was getting ready to do “mine”, I asked if he could finish the bezel in blue, the dial in dark brown and the lume in a custardy yellow. He said that this was the first one he did specifically to an owner’s request, I like that…
I went to his workshop to collect the watch in January 2020; here was me waiting at the train station on the way home:
It came originally in a hand-finished steel box, with a nice leather strap. Later, when he started making bracelets for the 101, I got one of those and it feels really good – nice and vintage light & a bit rattly, but solid and secure.
If there are any critiques about the Freese 101, it’s not rated water resistant to any depth (not a problem for me, but some people said it looks like a submariner so it should at least be 50m resistant or something), and maybe the “rehaut” is a bit on the large size so the dial looks set quite far into the case.
Still, I like it a lot.
Simon evolved the dial of the 101 somewhat…
… then came out with a “Mark II“.
He’s been planning on releasing other watch variants too – follow his travels on Instagram or Youtube.