Introducing Our New Two-Piece Shell Cordovan Strap

We'll get right to the point. This is the best leather watchstrap available. Period. Here's why: It's extremely thin, very comfortable, waterproof, looks great when new and gets better with age, won't rot or start to smell like gym shoes, and it will last for years.

First, it is a single layer of leather. This is unheard of in quality watch straps. The reason is that all hide leather has a skin side and a suede side. While all hide leather absorbs moisture, the suede side sucks it up like a sponge. Therefore, all quality leather hide straps have to use a double-layer construction so that the suede side(s) are concealed. The best straps also have the raw edges folded over and tucked in before sewing or gluing. This is called the art manuel method of construction. All this folding, gluing, stitching is done by hand and adds cost, thickness, and lateral stiffness.

Even when an ordinary hide leather strap is made using these proper techniques, it will absorb sweat and eventually rot or smell. A famous German manufacturer of high-quality hide leather watchstraps recommends that you replace your leather strap every six months. This is realistic. Think about those leather moccasins that you wear without socks in the summer. Ick.

SHELL CORDOVAN IS DIFFERENT FROM HIDE LEATHER

All of these problems go away with Shell Cordovan. Why? Because shell is not hide. It is a muscle that is located below the skin (hide) of horses, and only on their buttocks. (Yes, we've heard all the jokes!) Added to this, the Horween Company takes six months to tan the product by adding oils and waxes to enhance the natural waterproof nature of the shell. The result is miraculous. A waterproof, supple, and great-looking "leather" that is unlike anything else.

Shell Cordovan has traditionally been used for shoes, for obvious reasons. Shell Cordovan shoes and boots have been known to last for decades. When future general George S. Patton began to serve as an aide to General John Pershing during WWI, he immediately copied the General by ordering a pair of custom-made Shell Cordovan boots, a style he famously wore the rest of his life.

THEY KILL HORSES DON'T THEY?

No! Only mature animals that have died of natural causes are used by the Horween Leather Company for their shells. While Shell Cordovan was once made by a number of leather tanneries in the USA, for many years, Horween has been the only remaining maker of Shell Cordovan. They have made it in the same way since 1905. No other tannery in the world makes genuine Shell Cordovan.

A word here about Japanese "Shell Cordovan." There have been persistent rumours that a Japanese tannery has recently begun to make "shell cordovan." Here is the real story. In Japan, horse meat is a food product. It is considered a delicacy and often eaten raw, like sushi. As a result, horsehide is a by-product of feedlot slaughterhouses. Shell Cordovan is hugely popular in Japan, especially for shoes, and rightly so. We sell a lot of our watchstraps in Japan. But Japanese-made "shell cordovan" is not the same product as our genuine Horween Shell Cordovan!

Horses are livestock in Japan. They are specially bred for food, slaughtered when young, and are raised under very different conditions than riding horses in the USA. The musculature in the horses hind-quarters never develops to anywhere near the extent of American horses. While these animals' hides make excellent reproduction WWII flight jackets, the shells cannot be used to product top-quality Shell Cordovan.


Beware of products that falsely claim to be made of Shell Cordovan. The word "Cordovan" is often used to describe a certain reddish-brown color of any kind of leather. (This color is available in our Horween Shell Cordovan as "Oxblood.") It does not by itself indicate Shell Cordovan. Unless you see the Horween Shell Cordovan Stamp on the back of the leather, it is NOT genuine Shell Cordovan.

OUR NEW TWO-PIECE, UNSTITCHED SINGLE-LAYER WATCHSTRAP

Available in 18, 19 or 20 mm widths, with a slight taper. 19 and 20 mm tapers to 18 mm at the buckle end; the 18 mm tapers to 16 mm. The shell is so thin (less than 1 mm) that we cannot produce these two-piece straps in larger widths. (For watches with 22 and 24 mm lug widths, we recommend our Shell Cordovan NATO straps.) All genuine, and incomparable.

$115 with free Priority Mail Shipping world-wide.

Cordovan NATO on a Seadweller

We are delighted to share some wonderful photos taken by one of our customers (Thanks R.N.!!) of our 20mm Shell Cordovan NATO strap on his Rolex Sea Dweller. This is the natural with white stitching.  We emailed back and forth several times, discussing which strap would work best on this watch, and we must say that the results are as cool as it gets. The new Sea Dweller is really a serious tool and the Shell Cordovan is a great match.

Our New Shell Cordvan Postcard!

We've just created a new oversized postcard that will be included with your Corvus order. Similar in concept to our popular Real Bond NATO postcard that is included in all Bond strap orders, this one documents the production of the Horween Shell Cordovan used in our leather NATO and Bund-style straps. Watch for our introduction of NEW styles of Shell Cordovan watchstraps in the next few weeks!

The strange code on the bottom right is called a "QRCode," and allows you to scan it with a smartphone like an Android or an iPhone and get a link to our website!

This text is from a Horween Tannery 1950's document. We couldn't have said it better ourselves!

New Corvus Products Review in Japanese

We were very pleased to learn that a popular movie Blog in Japan posted a detailed review of our products, focusing on our new Movie-Style Bond Strap and our King Kong Company Vietnam T-Shirt from theDeNiro movie, Taxi Driver. If you can read Kanji, please enjoy. Otherwise, it's worth a look for some great Blu-Ray screen captures from Thunderball and Goldfinger. Very otaku.

Japanese Movie Blog Corvus Review

Really Vintage Military Diver

We found this photo of an antique cigarette card from the 1920's. I imagine that this is a fairly fanciful image, and I doubt that this diver needed a watch! (Although it looks like he might be wearing a small one on his left wrist!)

It is interesting to remember that until the 1950's, diving watches mostly used horsehide leather straps (for example, WWII Panerai watches). I am pretty sure they were Shell Cordovan, like our NATO straps. No other leather is even close to being as waterproof.

The Greatest Rolex That Never Was.

In April 2004, Antiquorum auctioned a strange watch. It was purported to be a Rolex prototype designed for the U.S. Military. Here is the catalog auction description:

This is the first watch known to be sold at auction, with dial marked "U.S.Marine". The case of this watch is perfectly engineered for heavy military use. Its large size ensures that the wrist will be completely covered, thereby preventing the injuries sometimes caused by violent impacts to smaller watches, the winding crown positioned at 4 o’clock, with its sloping crown guard, affords better protection than the standard configuration of crown and guard at 3. The rounded hoods covering the lugs reduce the possibility of the watch’s becoming caught in equipment and also act as locks for the bezel. The steel rotating 12-hour bezel effectively gives an hour and minute recorder which is invaluable in military exercises. Overall, this watch was designed for only one purpose, to tell time in some of the harshest environments and under the most extreme conditions, the types of activity that are synonymous with the U.S. Marine Corps. According to unofficial information from Rolex, two similar prototypes by Tudor were offered to the U.S. Navy. One of these Tudor prototypes was sold by Antiquorum NY in May 1998, lot 36. The present watch will be illustrated in the upcoming book on Rolex, soon to be published by Guido Mondani.

The sale of this watch caused a great deal of controversy. Some experts declared it an unequivocal fake. At first glance, it would seem to be a very fanciful creation. The citation to "unofficial information" and the laughable "U.S. Marine" (vs. U.S. Marines) inscription did not encourage much confidence either. Still, someone appears to have paid over $100,000 (114,000 Swiss francs) for this admittedly rare and unique object.

My own opinion is the same as what appears to be the consensus among advanced military watch collectors. Fake. Or is it? First, if this is a prototype U.S. Military watch, there would exist some documentation of a RFP or milspec that this watch would have been made to compete for. There is none. In addition, it would have been unprecedented that the Marines would have solicited a separate watch for their branch. Due to historical connections, the Dept. of the Navy's Bureau of Ships has always handled Marines procurement. In fact, the Tornek Rayville TR-900, although a Navy procurement, was ultimately issued to mostly (if not exclusively) Marine Recon personnel during the Vietnam war. We would be led to believe that this watch would have competed with the Benrus Type I. While the Benrus is well documented, no one has found a peep about any Rolex or Tudor competitor.

Finally, a well-regarded Hong Kong-based watch restorer took credit for this creation about four years ago. It was reported to be a fantasy piece put together with real Rolex parts and Vietnamese (some irony there) components, custom made for a wealthy Japanese collector to his specifications.

Real or not, the watch is a masterpiece of design. The Rolex Submariner is the most iconic watch design of the 20th Century. It has been knocked off and "homagde" to death. It is the watch design that has launched a thousand bastard children. Virtually none of these spawn have contributed anything new to this design idiom.

However, the best was yet to come. Enter Sato-san. "Ken" Sato invented the "homage" watch genre in the 1990's with his fanciful and parodic Rolex Submariner reinventions sold in Japan under the "Prolex" label, and then later, the "RXW" brand. (For a primer in Sato-san's work, see here .) These are not knock-offs or copies, and surely not "fakes." Ken Sato is an advanced collector of vintage Rolex watches who combines this with a deep love of the Rolex design vocabulary and a great eye for design.

After coming up with his uniquely Japanese take on the Milgauss, Comex, and Milsub, Ken Sato took on the design of the controversial U.S. Marine watch, calling his creation the "Subpromarine." I hope that he never believed that this U.S. Marine "prototype" was real. However, I am sure that he immediately recognized the beauty of the design. But, where the design of the Hong Kong fantasy piece was overblown, Ken Sato's take on it was subdued, and in so doing, achieved design perfection. To summarize, Ken Sato's watch was an homage to a fake, one that arguably surpassed the original. The ultimate irony was when Sato's Subpromarine began itself to be faked, and was being sold for 1/3 the price on Ebay. There was no comparison, however, the fake having a glass crystal, a cheap Chinese movement and a plastic retainer ring. A fake of a homage to a fake.

I have had my eye on this watch for some time. But when I saw that Ken Sato's Website showed that only a dozen were left in stock, at a clearance price, I couldn't resist.

The Corvus TimeSquare

We received this question through the website the other day:

I have a TimeSquare, Model:4000005 that has worked incredibly well for years, but the center two "lights" have stopped working. Can this be repaired? Thank you.

At first we thought it was spam, but then the gentleman sent the same message again and I realized what he might be getting at. A quick Google search later led to the following discovery, courtesy of something called Google Books:

We had previously learned about this "other Corvus" when a customer sent us a photo of a funky 1960's LED wristwatch made by them. It's good to know that the gentleman's Corvus TimeSquare gave him many years of good service. We are sure that our "new Corvus" timepieces will give equally good or better.

Sadly, we could not repair his TimeSquare for him.