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About Mk II...
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| The
Company: |
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The
first company of our kind we have been building custom tool-watches since
2002. We began by customizing other brands with solid reputations, earning
our own reputation for quality, craftsmanship and design excellence in
the process. Mk II now offers an exclusive line of customizable and Swiss
Made watches that embody our philosophy of utility and vintage styling.
Inspired
by a small group of watch collector's that modified otherwise unserviceable
vintage watches into their own custom creations, Mk II was born with the
goal to offer custom watches at a mass produced price. The word "custom"
normally carries with it two concepts 1) premium pricing and 2) uniqueness
(i.e. irreplaceable). Our difference is that our custom watches, while
unique, are affordable and replaceable. We want our watches to be affordable
and replaceable in order to give our customers the freedom to use Mk II
timepieces for the purposes for which they were designed.
Our Swiss
Made Mk II watches offer the same quality found in our custom collection
but without the long lead times. This collection is made available to
those that prefer the traditional interpretation of our designs. These
Swiss Made watches are featured at a growing but select number of dealers
around the world.
"Mk
II/Mk 2/Mark 2" has been used by military organizations to designate
the second generation or iteration of a tool, piece of equipment, or weapons
platform. Our trademark, Mk II, embodies our dedication to utilitarianism,
reliability, and re-styling/reviving vintage tool watch designs for modern
applications (a second generation of that design, if you will). The name
Mk II also summarizes our endeavor to bring the ultimate design of a personal
timepiece closer to the end-user than has ever been possible. Each person
relates to time differently and in those critical situations where clear/concise
timekeeping is paramount we believe a timepiece should be adapted to the
user, just like a quality tool is tailored to a craftsman, artisan, or
marksman.
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| Philosophy: |
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Our collection of vintage styled products pay tribute to some of the
most distinguished tool-watch designs manufactured. Each design centers
around four factors:
• Utility: This has always been a key foundation
for our work because the one thing that vintage watches don't offer any
more is utility. Vintage watches usually have several issues centering
around materials, design, and their age. The materials used in watches
have either seen great advancements over the years or several key materials
have been replaced where experience demonstrated that they were not ideally
suited to the task. A notable example is the usage of brass and Bakelite
as case materials in the past. The screw-down crown was not always seen
as a necessary design feature for water resistance and in many vintage
dive watches it is notably absent. Now it is regarded as a required feature
for a dive watch. We apply current manufacturing methods and materials
with the goal in mind of producing a watch the way it might have been
done if the original manufacturer had access to modern technology and
the benefit of hindsight.
• Cross compatibility: Our watches, dial and hand
designs have been manufactured to offer cross compatibility to maximize
customization. The only limitation we place on ourselves in this regard
is that the final design still must be true to the spirit of the orignal
design. Our current collection of custom timepieces can be configured
anywhere from several hundred to several thousand different iterations
depending upon how fully developed the collection of parts currently is.
• Vintage styling: Vintage design is at the core
of our collection because that is what I have always been drawn to in
my own collecting and as a personal style. The word "styling"
is important to note because we interpret vintage designs. Each of our
pieces are created with respect for and to pay tribute to the original.
We always add our own signature to vintage designs so that our products
will not find a place in the black market for counterfeits.
• Swiss and Swiss Made quality: Each of our products
undergoes an exhaustive inspection regimen before delivery to our customers.
Where most of our competition inspects a small sample of each batch, relying
on statistics to give them an acceptable probability of failure, Mk II
checks each and every watch and component individually. Each of our watch
cases is test no less than 3 times for water resistance. At each stage
of the assembly process the watch is checked and re-checked. Our Swiss
Made watches are assembled by one of the leading companies in Switzerland
using the same quality components found in our custom watches. Whether
the watch is a custom piece assembled in the US or a Swiss Made piece
the assembly is done entire by hand and each piece is tested individually
for water resistance and timed in 6 positions. A reputation built on an
unrelenting commitment to quality is why our work is favored by LEOs,
soldiers, diplomatic security agents, divers, exacting collectors and
others that require hard-use tool watches. It is also why our watches
have been to Afghanistan, Iraq, and other equally pleasant locales.
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