Lima Meca 02

03.15.2021
Fratello

Lima Meca 02

Get ready to smile. Honestly, this one lit up not just my day, my week, or month. No, when I first laid eyes on the Lima Automatic Meca02, I felt that perhaps 2021 wasn’t going to be so bad after all. I laughed. Genuinely, I laughed out loud. Not derisively, but rather in disbelief that something so cute, so cool, and so totally off my radar could exist. Even after spending the entirety of my adult life in the watch business, I’m glad there are surprises left to discover.

I was contacted out of the blue by Herman Tantriady about possibly reviewing his irreverent creations. I’d never heard of Lima watches before so I checked out the site. The Meca02 offered here for one of you lucky readers to win is such an exceptionally well-realized concept I just had to accept. Given the approachable retail of this piece (coming in at just $275) I felt pretty comfortable asking Herman if he fancied donating this model to one of the Fratelli. He immediately agreed (smart guy). And now I have the opportunity to share with you this grin-inducing slice of fun.

What’s not to like?

I get a bit tired of concepts that take themselves a bit too seriously. Watchmaking is a varied discipline and just as varied a hobby. There can be loads of angles from which to come at the craft. Do you collect based on technical prowess or artful aesthetics? Is it rarity or trendiness that attracts you more? Is this all very serious to you or do you prefer to have a giggle?

When it comes to unusual ideas, I think it is probably best to keep them affordable. Brands like Mr. Jones, Unimatic, and Undone do this really well. They produce cutesy curios that provide a lot of laughs for your lolly (my humorous take on “bang for your buck”). I like a lot of the watches from those aforementioned brands, but I like none of them as much as I like the Meca02 from Lima.

This watch costs basically nothing in comparison to the kind of timepieces we normally write about. Heck, I spent more on a new bracelet for my Laventure Marine recently (and that’s another micro/small independent brand to boot!). But that doesn’t mean it is of poor quality. In fact, the opposite is true. This has been achieved by smart design decisions. Tantriady has designed this watch within its own limitations and he has succeeded largely because of his own restraint and because the concept itself is very pure.

A simple idea, very well done

I like this model so much because it is a perfect manifestation of my central watch design philosophy: don’t do anything if you can’t do it well. Tantriady has fixed the remit early on in the design phase. This watch needs to be key-wound. That’s it. Everything else has followed in line with that simple goal. He picked an era of design that is contemporaneous with the advent of key-wound toys and his sympathetic design followed suit.

He hasn’t been tempted to overegg it. A tasteful, quaint colorway provides a characterful base, allowing the key-wound concept to take center stage. And to round-out the proposition, the watch comes in a box that looks like it is straight out of Al of Al’s Toy Barn’s personal collection of vintage playthings. For less than 300 bucks, you get a fully-realized, satisfyingly executed concept watch that could happily sit next to your Sub or Speedy or, perhaps even better, be gifted to a young watch lover whose mind is just waiting to be bewitched by the mechanic mechanism within.