I’ve done a few watch reviews for but this time I decided to do something a bit different. The last few watch posts I’ve made I’ve gotten feedback that the watches that I review are still a bit pricey being that the upper limit I always set on affordable watches is $250. This time around I am going to make it $75 which, honestly, took a bit more work than I thought to find something I like. However, I’ve found a few options that I think are good quality (particularly for the price) and good looking.



The Jet Age: The Rolex GMT Master and Affordable GMT Watches



Have a little mood music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK-FL-JxLio&spfreload=10&ab_channel=EPOJAZZFAN

It’s 1958. The Jet Age. The world is forever changed by the splitting of the atom. The Grand Old Dames of the Atlantic crossing are on their deathbeds. You can travel from New York to London in less than 10 hours. Why spend a week dodging icebergs when you can be in Paris by breakfast?

Despite the marvels of the age there are drawbacks. You are absolutely exhausted from this new thing called jet lag. When you make it to Paris you have to call the family back home before passing out. Let them know you made it okay. But who in the hell can keep track of all the time zone changes? Last week you were in San Francisco. This week it’s Paris and West Berlin. You look down at your watch, at it’s red and blue bezel (the color of a Pepsi label) and it tells you the local time AND the time back home. This really is the future.





It’s almost a cliche now but the jet engine really did change everything. It made the world a much smaller place in a way that it never was before. For the pilots, crews and frequent traveler keeping track of the local time became harder than ever. You could cross 3 time zones in a matter of hours. It became imperative that these flight crews have a timepiece that was not only accurate but could help them manage the time zone changes. The development of the Rolex GMT Master and the watches it inspired made that a little easier.



A quick explanation of what GMT is and how it relates to time before we get started. GMT stands for Greenwich Mean Time, and like the name says, it’s based around the position of the sun over Greenwich, England. So how did an observatory in England became the base time from which all other time is measured? Three words: The British Empire. During the time that GMT was being standardized Britain was an Imperial power with holdings all over the world. They needed a standard time to help manage that empire. And so GMT was born. With the advent of steam ships and the railroad in the 19th century keeping good time became imperative to running an orderly operation. These days we use Coordinated Universal Time to keep track of these things (of which GMT is a major part.)

By the mid-1950s the jet age was in full swing. The largest airline in the United States, and the vanguard of international air travel, Pan Am, had put in an order for 20 Boeing 707’s and 25 Douglas DC-8’s. To service these huge new airliners Pan Am was planning a masterpiece of Modern design, the Worldport at New York’s Idlewild (now JFK) Airport. In typical fashion the Worldport has since been torn down since the company collapsed in the early 90s.

To keep up with the increased traffic and flight times Pan Am needed a watch that was not only accurate but could keep track of multiple timezones. Pan Am turned to Rolex and the GMT Master was born. In previous posts we’ve talked before how Rolex was not always a luxury brand. They had their dress watches of course but they also made highly accurate tool watches for professionals. The GMT Master was one such watch.

Rolex Turn-O-Graph

Like the Submariner the GMT Master was based on the Turn-O-Graph with a water resistant case and spinning bezel.





The GMT Master incorporated a 4th hand in addition to the standard hours, minutes, and seconds. Here is a quick rundown of the way a GMT hand operates from the Watch-U-Seek forums explaining the concept in a much more succinct fashion than I can:



“First type has an independently adjustable 24 hour, or GMT, hand. Most of this type of GMT watches are powered by the ETA 2893. The GMT hand is adjustable in one direction (and does not hack the second hand while being adjusted, hence “independently adjustable”), and it does not change the date as you adjust the GMT hand. The hour and minute hands are adjusted like a normal 3 hand watch. The GMT hand would move with the hour and minute hand as they are adjusted.



Second type has an independently adjustable hour hand (again, does not hack the second hand while being adjusted) that adjusts both direction and changes the date forward or backward with it. The GMT hand is adjusted with the minute hand, and the hour hand moves with the GMT hand as the GMT and minute hands are adjusted. Most watches that function this way seems to be manufacture movements. Seiko, Rolex, and Panerai (P9001) have GMT watches that work this way.”



Owen Wilson and the GMT Master in The Life Aquatic

The GMT Master quickly became synonymous with pilots and the jet set. When the fourth Bond film Goldfinger was made in 1965, Pussy Galore was said to be an expert pilot and she wore a GMT Master. In The Life Aquatic Owen Wilson’s character Ned, an airline pilot from Air Kentucky, also wears a GMT Master. A GMT Master is production shorthand for jet pilot.



Like most Rolex products the GMT has gone upmarket to the luxury realm and are a bit pricey for some. So let’s take a look at a few watches that might scratch that Jet Age itch for less than $100.

SO&CO New York Yacht Club 5021.2 ($68 on Amazon) on a leather NATO from Cheapest NATO Straps.

Right off the bat we have a pretty straightforward homage to the Rolex GMT Master from SO&CO New York. I’ve been looking for a Pepsi GMT Master homage for a little while now and nothing I’ve found has really been able to satisfy that need until this one. I’ve never heard of SO&CO before and, even though I review three of their watches in this post, I still don’t know much about them. I stumbled upon them while pouring through pages of watches on Amazon looking for something that caught my eye.

This model of SO&CO does not copy any specific model of GMT Master or Master II but overall captures the look and feel. It comes in three color options; Red and Blue “Pepsi” bezel, Black and Green bezel, Black and Blue bezel. The biggest differentiator between with the 5021.2 (these fucking names…) and the original is in the hour hand. Rather than copy Rolex’s Mercedes they chose to go with an arrow for the hour hand. I like this change as it keeps a bit of design coherence between the hour hand and the GMT hand and goes to show you aren’t trying to fool anyone. I don’t think anyone will mistake this for an authentic Rolex.



Overall quality is high for a watch at this price. The crown is a very solid feeling screw-down which makes me inclined to trust the 100m water resistance. I would have no problem skiing, swimming or snorkeling with this one.

From what I’ve been able to find online the movements in most SO&CO watches are either Japanese-made Miyota movements or Swiss Made with no other specifics.. I’m not sure which one is in this particular model but I’m leaning towards a Miyota. Either way I’ve never seen a quartz movement that really had any issues. This watch keeps perfect time and I’ve no reason to doubt the movement’s reliability.

That’s not to say that the watch is perfect. Rather than using a clicking unidirectional bezel (like most Rolex homages) it has a friction bezel that is VERY tight. So tight that it’s honestly impossible to change on the fly. You really have to put some work into moving the bezel. I usually just leave the bezel at 12 o’clock and adjust the GMT hand independently to show the second time zone.

The bracelet is also about what you would expect on a watch at this price point. I find that most affordable watches tend to cut the most corners on the bracelet so I usually remove them first thing. For those who have had Invicta homages I would put them at the same level of quality as the Invicta bracelet. Another small issue you may run across is that there isn’t a lot of clearance between the spring bars and casing. It take a bit of work to run a NATO strap through the spring bars. It’s a minor annoyance but it is an annoyance nevertheless.



Overall I think the SO&CO New York Yacht Club 5021.2 (I really hate these names) is a really solid choice if you want a GMT Watch. I would gladly pay more for it than the $70 that it sells for on Amazon.

If you like the Pepsi bezel style but want something that is mechanical or with better water resistance the Seiko SKX009K1 and Orient Mako. Neither are GMT watches (both are divers) but they are fantastic options with a similar look. They don’t normally sell for less than $100 but you can sometimes get close.

SO&CO New York Yacht Club 5018C.2 ($50 on Amazon) on Orange & White NATO

This was the first SO&CO watch I stumbled across in my search for a GMT model. I find it very appealing for a few different reasons the biggest being that it’s an original design that is not about as tacky as possible. Let’s be honest the vast majority of affordable watches that are not pulling design cues left and right from the luxury manufacturers are few and far between. And the ones that are making unique designs don’t really have a good grasp on the concept of subtle. The 5018C.2 (as far as I can tell) is a tasteful, wholly original design.



It’s available in a few different colors but I went with the blue and orange. This is a great color combination and as you can see it looks fantastic on a matching NATO strap. At 42mm it is a bit bigger than most of the watches I wear but that is common for most modern watches. Compared to some of the monstrosities produced by companies like Invicta it’s downright petite. Another thing that helps this watch to wear smaller is how thin it is. Despite it’s bigger face it’s about the same thickness as a Timex Weekender so it wears well on my smaller wrists.



The bezel is non-rotating which means that the GMT hand must be set independently of the hour hand to account for a second time zone. The blue model I picked is very rich and captures the light well. It’s actually bit darker in person when compared to the Amazon photos. I find the color to be a bit closer in color to the midnight blue that Tudor has on the Black Bay.



The crown is not screw-down and it has a lower rated water resistance than the 5021.2 reviewed earlier (50m vs 100m.) If you’re looking for a watersports watch this summer I would lean more towards the 5021.2 than the 5018C.2 mostly due to the screw down crown on the former. If you’re looking for something a bitsleeker while still undeniably being a sport watch the 5018C.2 is a good way to. It’s definitely another keeper for me.

Part II covers the ultimate summer watch and an alternative to the Timex Weekender.

Part III covers a dress Frank Underwood worthy dress chrono and a way to de-NATO your Nato straps.