Christopher Ward C60 Trident Pro 300

The C60 Trident Pro 300 is Christopher Ward's core dive watch: a steel case with a unidirectional ceramic bezel, 300 meters of water resistance, a Swiss automatic movement visible through a screw-down sapphire back, and a bracelet with a ratcheting clasp. What makes it unusual is not any single specification. It is that the same watch is offered in four case sizes, 38, 40, 42 and 44 mm, which almost no brand at any price bothers to do.

It is sold directly by the maker. There is no authorized dealer, no display case, no waiting list and no discount to negotiate. That single fact explains most of what is good about the watch and the one thing that is genuinely bad about it.

The specification

What direct selling removes from the price

Christopher Ward publishes its pricing rule, which is rare enough to be worth quoting: it takes what a watch costs it to make and multiplies by three, rather than by the higher multiples it says the rest of the industry uses. Whether the arithmetic is exactly as stated is not checkable from outside. What is checkable is the structure it describes.

A watch sold through retailers carries a chain of margins. The brand sells to a distributor or a dealer at wholesale, and the dealer needs enough margin to cover stock sitting in a case for months, staff, rent, warranty handling and the discount a customer expects to negotiate. That gap is commonly a factor of two or more. Selling direct deletes it, along with the marketing budget that pays for ambassadors and sponsorships.

What comes back to the buyer is specification. At this price the C60 gives you a ceramic bezel insert rather than aluminum or printed steel, sapphire with an anti-reflective coating, Super-LumiNova in a high grade, 300 meters with a screw-down display back, and a bracelet with screwed links, a proper taper and a ratcheting micro-adjustment clasp. Individually, none of those is remarkable. Together, at a four-figure price, they are the argument. Our guide to microbrands and independents covers how the model works across the sector and where its limits are.

The movement, and living with it

Inside is the Sellita SW200-1, the Swiss automatic that sits inside a very large share of watches between roughly $500 and $2,500. It is built to the same architecture and dimensions as the long-established ETA 2824-2, so parts and knowledge are everywhere. It hand winds, it hacks, and it runs at 28,800 vibrations per hour with a 38 hour reserve.

Christopher Ward specifies it in an elaborated grade with a decorative finish visible through the caseback, and publishes a tolerance of minus 5 to plus 12 seconds a day. That is a factory acceptance window, not a promise about your individual watch: Sellita sells the caliber in several grades and the figure depends on what the brand ordered. Our comparison of the NH35, Miyota 9015 and Sellita SW200 sets out what the grades actually buy.

Two lived realities. The 38 hour reserve is short by modern standards: take it off on Friday evening and it has stopped by Sunday. And the SW200-1 has a rotor you can hear in a quiet room. Neither is a fault; both are noticed in the first week.

Christopher Ward recommends a complete service every three to four years, which is conservative, and states that after service it regulates to within plus or minus 20 seconds a day for most mechanical watches. Our servicing guide covers what a service should include and why a wider post-service tolerance is not automatically a red flag.

How it wears

The case Christopher Ward calls Light-catcher is a shape rather than a material: a mid-case with a broad polished chamfer running the length of the flank between brushed top and side surfaces. The watch throws a bright line along its edge in almost any light, which makes it read as slimmer than its 11.3 mm and makes a plain steel diver look more expensive than it is. It is the most effective piece of design here.

The sizing spread is the practical headline. Because the height changes by only 0.7 mm across four sizes, choosing a smaller case buys you width and lug to lug, not slimness. Match the lug to lug figure from the table to your wrist rather than the diameter, and check it against the size calculator. If you are moving between the common modern sizes, the 38 versus 40 versus 42 mm comparison is the relevant background.

The bracelet tapers to 16.5 mm at the clasp, which is a large part of why the watch wears lighter than its 160 grams suggests, and the ratcheting clasp lets you add a few millimeters when your wrist swells in heat. Quick-release spring bars mean strap changes take seconds.

What is wrong with it, and the resale problem

Start with the small things. The 38 hour power reserve is behind rivals that now offer 70 hours or more at similar prices. The watch is not certified to ISO 6425 and does not carry the DIVER'S marking, so its 300 m figure is an ordinary water resistance claim rather than a fitness-for-diving one. And Christopher Ward states that it does not sell or provide parts and requires all repairs to go through its own workshop, with third-party work voiding the warranty. That is a common brand position and it does narrow your options.

The real weakness is resale. A direct-sales brand has no retail margin baked into its price, which is exactly why the watch is good value new and exactly why it is a poor store of value. On a traditional brand, the gap between the window price and the wholesale price gives the secondary market room: a used watch can sit well below retail and still be above what the dealer paid. Here there is no such cushion. The buyer of your used watch is comparing it directly against a new one, with a five year movement warranty, 60 day returns, and frequent brand-run sales that reset the reference price downward.

In practice a clean used C60 tends to trade around half of what it cost, sometimes less, and it can sit unsold for a while at that. Our pages on value and depreciation and selling a watch explain the mechanics in full. The correct response is not to avoid the watch. It is to buy it as a thing to wear rather than a thing to hold, and to accept the loss up front.

What it costs, new and used

Indicative and moving: the steel C60 Trident Pro 300 sits at roughly $1,000 to $1,250 depending on strap or bracelet, with bronze and titanium variants higher. That is a US figure before sales tax, which varies by state, and Christopher Ward prices per market rather than converting, so elsewhere the number moves with local tax, import duty and distribution. It also runs periodic sales, so the price you see today is not a fixed reference.

Used, expect roughly $450 to $700 for a good example with box and papers. Over ten years the running cost is two or three services at independent-workshop or brand rates, plus a strap or two; put your own figures into the cost of ownership calculator. Against a light-powered quartz alternative, the servicing line is where the money actually goes, which is the trade our quartz versus automatic comparison lays out.

The alternatives, and when each is the better answer

If you want the same job done for a quarter of the money with no service schedule at all, the Citizen Promaster Diver is rated to 200 m, is marked to the diving standard the C60 is not, and never needs a battery. You give up sapphire, the ceramic bezel, the bracelet and the mechanical movement.

If you want a Swiss automatic diver with dealer support and a resale market, the Oris Aquis and Longines sit in overlapping territory through conventional retail. You pay more for comparable content and keep more of it when you sell, which is the same trade seen from the other end.

If the appeal is the direct model itself, note that Christopher Ward has moved upmarket in recent years and that its more ambitious watches carry in-house work; our Christopher Ward brand page covers the range, the ownership and how the guarantee behaves in practice. The Swiss made guide is worth reading alongside it, because "Swiss made" on a direct-sales watch means the same legally defined thing it means anywhere else.

Buy it if you want the most specification per dollar in a Swiss automatic diver, you need a size outside the usual 40 to 42 mm band, and you intend to keep and wear the watch. Buy something else if you expect to sell within a couple of years, if you need a certified divers' watch, or if a 38 hour reserve will annoy you every Monday morning.