I just picked up a three-month-old Squale Atmos 20 1545-ORIG Militaire for a fair price from a seller in forums.watchuseek.com. I thought I’d write down some impressions.
This is the “vintage” diver from Squale. Product page: https://www.squalewatches.com/Squale…/1545-orig.htm
Images link (not my images): https://duckduckgo.com/?q=squale+154…ages&ia=images
First Impression
Looks nice. Feels good in hand and on wrist.
Crystal
Dome has a great roundness to it. I like to just feel its roundness with my thumb, with the watch in my hand.
Crown
Screwing the crown back down winds the watch. I find this weird. Is this normal for this watch? [Follow up: Apparently, this is normal.] Do any other watches do this? I did not like the feeling of the crown being “engaged” while screwing it down.
But it is easy to get a firm purchase on the crown. It is large and rough enough to be very practical. Quite different from the slippery, polished bezel.
I prefer no shoulders (no crown guard). But this watch does look nice with shoulders in person.
Bezel
The bezel is slippery, but it is usable once you get the hang of how to turn it.
But the bezel edge/teeth are polished, which I still find inexplicable. Sure, I knew this would be the case from pictures, but why did they do this? It ruins the watch for me in person.
I love how the angle of the bezel continues naturally into the dome of the crystal. Wonderful.
The bezel insert looks good. Nice fonts, glossy black. No engraved numbers or marks, but it’s nice looking.
Bracelet
Disclosure: I wear watches on the underside of my wrist. And my watch is for me to enjoy — I don’t like to advertise.
Bracelet is comfortable and substantial. I prefer 16mm bracelet width at clasp, which I’ve mentioned in some other replies on WUS. But I will say that some 18mm-at-clasp bracelets feel more okay to me than others, for whatever reason. Perhaps it is because this has solid links. Maybe stamped (thus generally somewhat lighter) links have a less substantial feel at the clasp. Who knows. Whatever the reason, I am of the opinion that this bracelet is too wide and slightly too tall at the clasp for me. My NTH Nacken Modern, Black and MWW No. 4 are examples of 18mm-at-clasp bracelets which I find okay.
The links are thick/tall. Some people will love this. I prefer the somewhat flimsy feeling of my thinner yet still solid NTH Nacken links.
When it is on my wrist, I like that the end links push the near-lug ends of this bracelet down toward my wrist. When it is piled on its bracelet on a desk or dresser, I don’t like how rigid the bracelet is.
Clasp
The clasp requires a fingernail to open, for both the safety thingie and the clasp itself. I find this unusual but not a negative.
I love how deeply etched the Squale shark logo is engraved in the clasp. My favorite of all clasp engravings I’ve seen so far.
Dial Indices
I like that there’s a simple, white minute indicator for every position. Good job on that point.
The minute lines don’t match those in the photo on the site. This pic: 1545-ORIG-2T.jpg Maybe that’s a MK1. This one was represented as a MK2 when I bought it and I have no reason to mistrust the well regarded seller.
On my specimen, the minute markers go to the very end of (and, I suppose, under) the dial. In the watch in the product page pic, there’s a gap after these lines before the end of the dial.
And I think the round yellow, lumed five-minute markers are bigger in the pictured watch than on mine. I guess the circles on mine are “Maxi” size.
Logo
Is it ridiculous that it says “Squale” twice on the dial? Yes, this is ridiculous. But I knew that going in. And who approved the off-center crown drawing above the top, uppercase “SQUALE”?
Dial Text
The dial text is too small. But at least it is finely printed so you can read it if you get close enough. Why does it need to say “Y1545”? Please relegate that stuff onto the case back, guys.
Date
The date kills the face of this watch for me. I knew going in that this was possible. I’ve considered replacing with with a black-background/white-text date ring, but it would still mar the dial — it’d just be a black gap instead.
My specimen lacks the white rectangle around the date window shown in the photo of this watch on the Squale web site linked up top. Probably a MK2 thing to drop the white rectangle/outline.
Hands
The hands seem very close to the dial, in a good way. The blacked out shaft of the seconds hand is nice, though I’d prefer that the yellow arrowhead be a little bigger.
Height
This is a nice, not-too-tall watch. A lot like the NTH Nacken.
Wife Says
“It looks like all the other ones. And I don’t like it. I like the other one [referring to my MWW No. 4 that’s been glued to my wrist].”
Keeper?
Nope. This watch is not a keeper for me. Even if it had my dream bracelet, I can’t abide the polished bezel edge. In person, I think this factor ruins the watch.
Epilogue
This post is inherently subjective. If you love something on your own Squale 1545-ORIG which I dislike on mine, I hope you enjoy your watch for the same reasons I dislike it. No worries, friends.
I’m just popping this review off. I may add to it later. I welcome questions.
Here are some photos.
Postscript: I first posted this here: http://forums.watchuseek.com/f74/squale-20-atmos-militaire-impressions-1545-orig-4563127.html