Back to the Future Part 2 - Wrapping Up the Nomos Club Campus

So picking up where we left off, let's have a look under the hood.  The Club Campus utilizes the in-house Alpha movement -

Courtesy of Nomos Glashutte

Hours, minutes and the seconds at 6 o'clock.  The time keeping was just what you'd expect - bang on.  The greatest deviation I experienced was +5 seconds.  Wendy's mileage may have varied, but overall it was quite impressive.

The crown was tactile and secure, the winding smooth and pleasant.

For those of you spec oriented folks, here are the specifics on the Alpha movement, straight from Nomos -
 Data
α (Alpha)—in-house built NOMOS caliber with manual winding
Diameter10 ½ lines (23.3 mm)
Movement height2.6 mm
Power reserveapprox. 43 hours
Characteristics
Decentralized seconds, stop-seconds mechanism, Glashütte three-quarter plate, 17 jewels, Glashütte stopwork, Incabloc shock protection, balance spring from Nivarox 1A, adjusted in six positions, tempered blue screws, rhodium-plated movement surfaces with Glashütte ribbing and NOMOS perlage, ratchet and crown wheel with Glashütte sunburst


Now unlike the majority of Nomos watches, this one does not come with a display back.  And that was very intentional.

Marked with the bare minimum of information, leaving a large blank canvas to engrave a name, a birthday or anniversary date, or even a special message.  

Courtesy of Nomos Glashutte

Now I'm a bit old fashioned, but this is something that I think has been missing for some time in the watches being offered.  I appreciate the desire to display the movement, and from a cost perspective it is sometimes less expensive for the manufacturing process (believe it or not), but what I like about this particular touch is that Nomos is encouraging people to think about this watch not just as part of a bigger collection, but rather as that one special watch that you have no intention of selling or trading.  And if you buy one of these directly from Nomos, you can take advantage of free engraving.  

I like that.

The last little flourish that caught my eye was the use of lume.  While this is a somewhat dressy watch, it is also meant for every day use.  And to that end the folks at Nomos provided a cheerfully subtle mix of lume -

But for me, the appeal of the Club Campus is not entirely quantifiable.  Sure, I could throw numbers, stats and graphs demonstrating why it is a great watch.  But as with so many things in the watch world, for me the appeal is truly visceral.  It just speaks to me on a level that is hard to articulate.  And it took me back to that Omega that I found in the flea market in Turku, Finland back the 90s -

Smaller, hand winding, classic in design, and it just speaks to you.  I haven't had that same feeling too often until recently -

So ultimately, the Club Campus asks you a pretty simple question - do you want a bunch of watches knocking around your collection, each one easily cast aside, replaced, and forgotten?  Or do you want that one special time keeper that not only marks that special occasion, but makes you smile every day thereafter as you wear and enjoy it.  After all, isn't that the point of that one special watch?