INVICTA - Reserve Subaqua Men's Specialty Valjoux Chronograph Watch

The Invicta Watches Reserve Collection is essentially the flagship of the company’s entire brand.

WORLDTEMPUS - 2 April 2010

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Reserve Subaqua Men's Specialty Valjoux Chronograph Watch  © Invicta

All of the watches that are labeled as part of the Reserve Collection are meant to stand at the apex of everything that Invicta offers. These elite timepieces all have limited production numbers and are constructed with the utmost patience and care.

One look at the Invicta Reserve Subaqua Men's Specialty Valjoux Chronograph Watch and you will immediately see why it is a part of such an elite collection. For starters, at 52mm across, the case of this watch is pretty hard to miss. And it needs to be that big, not just in order to get noticed, but to show off all of the features and intricate details.

Some of the first details to burst to the forefront are the four sub-dials that revolve around the very center of the dial of this watch. There is a minute counter at 12:00, a second counter at 9:00, and an hour counter at 6:00. The fourth sub-dial, located at 3:00, features the “Invicta Reserve” logo, a day of the week window, and a day of the month window.

Six hexagonal screws attach the bezel to the top of this watch. © Invicta

Instead of numeric hour markers, the Specialty Valjoux features luminous silver-tone markers at all the hour positions. The hour, minute, and second hands are also in a matching silver-tone. The hour and second hands are wider and have a cutout window so that they don’t get in the way of your viewing the sub-dials. The second hand is characteristically long and thin but with a “z” shaped accent on the far end.

Six hexagonal screws attach the bezel to the top of this watch. The crown, function pushers, and inner bracelet links come in a variety of matching accent colors. Invicta offers them in rose-tone, gold-tone, or black.

The back of this watch is, in fact, an exhibition case, which was constructed in order to show off the real star of this timepiece. That is, of course, the Swiss Valjoux 7750 automatic chronograph 25-jewel movement.

Automatic movement is an exciting feature in any watch and it deserves a moment to be fully explained and appreciated. Mechanical watches run off of a mainspring that, for most of their history, had to be wound by the user in order to keep the watch ticking away. Automatic movement essentially eliminates the need to do that.

Watches that are run by automatic movement have a weight in them called a rotor. The rotor turns on a pivot inside the case of the watch. As you walk around wearing the watch your arm will naturally swing back and forth, moving the rotor and winding the mainspring.

If you can imagine how a ratchet set works, where turning the tool one way screws in the bolt but turning it back the other way does nothing, then you can understand the basic concept of the ratcheting action of the rotor in an automatic movement watch. Of course it is slightly more complicated than that.

The rotor actually turns a whole series of reducing and reverser gears before they wind the mainspring, There are also, in fact, two ratcheting rotors in the watch so that the spring is wound from counterclockwise and clockwise rotor motion. This is like riding a bike that has foot straps so that you can pull up as well as push down. There is a slipping clutch to prevent the mainspring from being over-wound.

When fully wound this watch will hold enough kinetic energy to run for two days if it is sitting completely still. This means that if you let it sit on the shelf for a week you are going to have to either wind it by hand or just wear it around for a while until the rotors start winding it again. This happens with every watch that features automatic movement and it is a minor tradeoff for the fantastic results and timekeeping precision.

The Valjoux 7750 is easily the most popular Swiss Chronograph movement that is in production today. The 25 Jewels make it a durable workhorse. The more jewels a watch has mean less friction. And this movement needs to reduce all the friction it can when the balance wheel is vibrating at a whopping 28,800 vibrations per hour.

The extremely comfortable bracelet of the Specialty Valjoux is made of stainless steel. The outer links are silver-tone and the inner links are available in the colors that were mentioned before. A deployant clasp firmly attaches the watch to your wrist. The bracelet measures 9” long by 26mm wide. This powerhouse of a watch is also water resistant at up to a whopping 500 meters.

With so many features and such a large face you might think this watch would be heavy and bulky. But in fact the weight is distributed so cleverly throughout that you don’t even notice it.

The Invicta Watch Group has been making quality timepieces since all the way back in 1837. They have a long and storied history of producing painstakingly crafted watches and the Reserve Collection is supposed to be the best of the best. With all its technical innovations and aesthetic glory, the Invicta Reserve Subaqua Men's Specialty Valjoux Chronograph Watch has more than earned its place amongst Invicta’s top watches.