About
Editor’s Note: Fate has ordained me a lucky fellow to have three friends who were willing to share their tonneau beauties at the right time. David, James, and Ronald: your aptitude for grace and patience is unmatched. Thank you.
I like to imagine that, if Doxa founder Georges Ducommun had written a mythological text and sank it to the bottom of Lake Neuchâtel, his soon-to-be-discovered preamble would read as follows:
In the beginning, there was light. Then, there was Doxa. After which came Synchron, who was also Doxa. Then, it was just Doxa again. After that, no one for a time. But then, Doxa returned. And then, Synchron did as well. But as a competitor.
It’s a confusing chronology – Georges would probably have to backtrack at least twice through his own notes while writing it up (especially given he wasn’t around for over half of the plot anyway). Corporate shuffling has always provided for design idiosyncracies and history worth studying, however, and I think there’s a lot of fun to be had in discovering just what the name Synchron means to Doxa. Two birds of a feather and all that; for a time, Doxas were Synchrons and vice versa, and you couldn’t have one without the other. Today, the two companies exist as independent competitors, and so the way we look at their relationship now versus back then is fundamentally different.
A great way to study the relationship between these names is through the design that made Doxa famous: the Sub. More specifically, I’m talking about a quirky Sub offshoot whose re-issue I reviewed recently: the Army. A rare bird from the 70s with a name fit for cosplay, it never bore the Synchron star on the dial but would have been produced under its purview. The Army was a small-time guest in the catalogue; it wasn’t widespread, and it was never featured in a Cusslerian adventure novel while Doxa was on life support. In my mind, it is both entirely random and not random at all that the Army would be central to a corporate dustup between the modern incarnations of Doxa and Synchron.
We’ll get into what I think about these two brands and who they serve momentarily, with the road to personal clairvoyance paved by a pair of Army reinterpretations that launched a few years ago: the 2021 Synchron Military and 2022 Watches of Switzerland edition Army. I recognize a retrospective review of two long-sold-out limited editions might seem a touch Johnny-come-lately, but bear with me – these are the right watches to understand just what standard each company bears.
A Foreword On Legitimacy
Important fact to remember: Doxa’s existence precedes its creation of the Sub and its involvement with Synchron by over three-quarters of a century.
Georges Ducommun founded the company in 1889, but the name, meaning “Glory” in Greek, didn’t appear until 1906. The first half of Doxa’s history is neither focused on dive watches nor well-chronicled; before the 1960s, the company was largely known for complication innovations, vehicle instrumentation, and dress watches.
Conversely, the emphasis of Doxa in the 1960s, dive watches, was a new endeavor at the time that is thoroughly documented today. In 1964, Urs Eschle and team began developing the company’s first-ever dive watch. This watch, the Sub 300, appeared in 1967 at the Basel Watch Fair. It was quickly replaced by the beefier Sub 300T Professional, which retained the 300’s trademark sawtooth no-deco bezel and cushion case design. Feedback from the professional market was positive; Jacques Cousteau, whose U.S. Divers Company had provided input during development, signed an agreement to be Doxa’s exclusive North American distributor (which is what gave rise to Aqua-Lung-branded Doxas). Given their new flagship diver and the distribution agreement with Cousteau, it can be quite confusing to hear what came shortly thereafter. In November 1968, Doxa ceded its independence via corporate merger and joined the newly formed Synchron SA. The Sub Professional barely had a year before the Sailboat gave way to the Star – what gives?
Zoom out beyond Doxa for two minutes. Quartz technology was knocking on Switzerland’s door, rapidly incubating into a horological tidal wave via Seiko’s efforts with the Astron 35SQ. ASAUG, or Allgemeine Schweizerische Uhrenindustrie AG, was one of the largest Swiss watch conglomerates of the day; today, we remember them as one of two key companies that merged to create the almighty Swatch Group. In 1968, they created a new subsidiary called Chronos Holding AG. The goal? Proactively consolidate resources into a larger balance sheet for a new group of watch brands. Chronos Holding AG rebranded that same year into Synchron SA. Concurrently, it acquired and integrated several badges like Doxa, Cyma, Ernest Borel, Tavannes, and Favre-Leuba. Those first three companies formed the core of Synchron and thus represented the three points of the Synchron star logo.
The move was proactive, but ultimately futile. The Quartz Crisis (or Revolution, if you are a Seikophile) devastated the Swiss watch industry, and Synchron SA was not resilient enough to withstand the decline in the desirability of mechanical watches. ASAUG elected to shut Synchron down and divest its constituent brands; Doxa and Ernest Borel were sold to the brothers Aubry in 1978, which began a new, more experimental chapter in Sub design. We could spend a long afternoon on Aubry Freres’s ownership of Doxa, but that’s for another day. If you are curious about their tenure as Doxa’s corporate masters, Cole Pennington’s 2021 write-up on the original 600T design is the place to go.
Doxa went quiet on the western front around the mid-80s. Aubry Freres’s ownership was no more successful than Synchron’s was, and they shut down Sub production sometime around 1985. In fact, by the time the Jenny family bought Doxa in 1997, the company still existed but had been limping on as a much smaller watch purveyor in Eastern Europe. At this point, the only people who remembered Doxa’s tool watch bona fides were existing owners and Clive Cussler novel aficionados.
Enter Rick Marei: a former Microsoft employee with Microsoft-based capital, he approached Doxa in 1999 with a plan to resurrect the original Doxa Sub. Rick would execute on design, distribution, and online sales; Doxa, through the Jenny family’s Walca subsidiary, would create the watches. Rick’s company bore a familiar name: Synchron. In many ways, we can consider Rick’s strategy with Doxa to be an early blueprint for microbrands. While commonplace now, Doxa (via Synchron) was probably one of the earliest brands to sell limited editions via an e-commerce platform.
The Sub 600T, a very early Marei-era Sub from 2003 – 2005. These are both my watches, or were at least – the Professional remains in my possession, while the White Shark has since returned to its original owner.
Rick’s partnership with Doxa was a fruitful business arrangement; it lasted until 2019, when the Jenny family elected to consolidate their control over the Sub product line. Modern Synchron continued, however, and the architect behind Doxa’s dive watch revival artfully used his company as a rollup platform (much like the Synchron of yesteryear) to consolidate and revive several amphibious brands like Aquastar, Isofrane, and Tropic.
Rick’s contributions provide food for thought around the brands being co-guarantors of the Sub’s legacy. When you put the timing in perspective, Doxa’s 20th-century history as a provider of elite dive watches was short-lived. The lifeblood of the original Sub flowed through three management groups – independent, Synchron, and Aubry Freres – over two decades at best, with the Star dominating its golden era. Rick was the key figure in the Sub’s revival over a very similar calendar period of time; the Jenny family always owned the Sub during their partnership, but without Rick, it would have remained thick as thieves with the Dodo bird. Obviously, Rick’s Synchron is not the original, and the naming technically makes it a zombie watch brand. However, it is synonymous with the man most responsible for the Sub’s rebirth. This tale of two companies is seemingly more complex than one established brand dealing with a copycat.
Synchronization
There’s one major detail concerning Doxas produced during the Synchron era: as the holding company, Synchron never produced a Sub that was eponymously and solely branded. The Synchron star both did and did not appear on Sub dials (we know the dial transition didn’t take place immediately), but if present, it shared real estate with the Doxa name. In 2021, modern Synchron established a new precedent by releasing its first watch: the Military. Clearly inspired by the Army of the 70s, this signal flare naturally caused a bit of a stir with Doxa.
For some quick historical context, the Army’s beginnings lie in Swiss military service. Starting in 1968 and lasting through 1975, the Sub 300T Professional was issued in limited quantities (146 units, to be exact) to Switzerland’s combat diving unit as their official watch. Doxa moved to capitalize on the partnership circa 1969 – 1970 by releasing the Army. An obviously service-themed model, it had several changes that made it visually distinct from the 300T: a 60-minute countdown bezel, an exotic checkerboard dial, and a stealthy heat-treated, oil-dip finish. The Army was offered and issued to this diving unit, but ended up being more popular with support staff, as the divers generally preferred their 300Ts. The Army never had the Synchron star on the dial; however, given the rough timing of its release, we should consider it to be a Synchron product. It was then and remains now a rare watch; original examples are exceedingly scarce, doubly so for those with their finish intact.
Okay, back to the regular programming. There’s a general understanding that Rick Marei was interested in bringing back the Army during his time at Doxa; for reasons we can only assume are related to its niche appeal, it was not made during his tenure. It should therefore not be surprising to anyone that, upon the termination of Rick’s partnership with Doxa, the Army was the first watch that he targeted for re-imagining. On March 10th of 2021, Synchron announced the Military and listed it for pre-order at $990 USD ($1,290 at launch). The total run was 500 units, with 250 in bare steel and 250 finished in black PVD. A respectable watch independent of the connotation behind it, the Military was nonetheless an obvious reinterpretation of the Army and not something Doxa could ignore.
Doxa’s response was immediate. On both Instagram and Watchuseek, the very same day, they posted an image of the Army with a caption stating “Only the original deserves your trust.”
It was a curious thing to caption the photo with – the bracelet was unfamiliar, and the handset eschewed the Army arrow handset in favor of something that resembled a typical Sub with a modified seconds hand. Doxa eventually modified both announcement posts to state that the watch shown was a prototype execution from the 70s. I haven’t seen anything to confirm the veracity of the bracelet – that seems a bridge too far, and it never made it to production with the re-issues – but we know the handset has some authenticity based on the located example below. If you want to learn more about the Army prototype, Dr. Peter Millar has a great write-up that dives into both it and the Military in detail.
Beyond the prototype issue, there was another complication that the internet did not perceive favorably: time. Doxa’s announcement was a quick PR counter-punch, but the company didn’t actually have a watch ready to go. The watch that they eventually produced, the Watches of Switzerland edition Army, ended up being an excellent release that was also limited like the Military. Unfortunately, it dropped almost a full year later in April 2021. Produced to higher specifications than its competitor, it also carried a correspondingly higher price tag at $4,500.
The timing gap and pricing delta add some nuances that might not be readily apparent when looking at these watches at a glance. Synchron shot first with the Military. Doxa shot more precisely (and expensively) with the Army. Awkwardly, they also shot well after Synchron had already walked away from the duel. So while we have to acknowledge the shared spirit of design, these dynamics mean that the watches A) varied heavily on the margin in terms of construction and B) fought for different segments of market share at different times. Like I said earlier – it’s complex.
Starboard, Meet Port
Latching onto the feeling of commoditization – that we simply have two companies playing “who wore it better” – is understandable. Sitting in front of you are two cushion case-style watches, both measuring in at the same diameter ballpark (42.5 x 44.5mm and 42 by 45mm lug-to-lug for the WoS Army and Military, respectively) with 20mm lugs. They both feature the iconic checkerboard dial and arrow handset protected by flat sapphire crystals, sport 300 meters of water resistance, and carry a sawtooth countdown bezel. Additionally, both arrived sans bracelet with a rubber strap; the Army came with a Doxa-branded strap with an additional alpenflage NATO, while the Military naturally featured Tropic and Isofrane. If you had never held them, it would be reasonable to expect some level of interchangeability between the watches.
Let’s start with the cases. The diameter measurements are bang-on similar, but the vertical real estate is a noticeable point of differentiation. Synchron’s offering is 14mm tall, while the Doxa is noticeably slimmer at 11.95mm. That size delta is accentuated by the material in use; the WoS Army is matte-black ceramic hugging a titanium core, while the Military is 316L stainless steel, regardless of its finishing method.
The height-material combinations make for two very different watches on the wrist. The Army is sleek, superbly lightweight, and sits flush like a pancake. Conversely, the Military is a far more bellicose competitor; it’s big, brutish, and carries every bit of thickness into the wearing experience. In some ways, the Military almost feels more authentically Doxa because of how imposing it is. I knew I wasn’t wearing a T-Graph, but a blind fold and a sporting guess solely defined by weight might have produced an incorrect watch on my lips.
As stated previously, the Military arrived in two different finishes: bare steel and black PVD. The black PVD is technically matte like the Army, but has a deeper, darker luster. In a strange juxtaposition of feelings, I found the PVD Military’s finish to simultaneously be more engaging and less premium. I wasn’t sure how to place the butterflies at first, but I think it is rooted in the knowledge that the WoS Army is “exotically” constructed from ceramic. Stylistically, all three watches offer something a little different in their reimagining of the original design. The steel Military feels the most like its own thing; the PVD Military is the close alternative; and the WoS Army is the modernized equivalent.
At their core, the Military and the Army are dive watches. And as is the case with all dive watches (aka fidget spinners), tactility reigns supreme: how do the moving parts feel when manipulated? The bezel is where most of the action takes place. Both watches use a unidirectional setup with a fully graduated and lumed countdown insert; unlike the original Army, however, they are 120 clicks instead of 60 clicks. The Army’s bezel is matte ceramic, like the case, while the Military uses a sapphire insert. The latter’s action feels slightly better upfront; it is less sharply finished and more substantial, in a way that feels familiar like a steel watch should. On the other hand, it has more backplay, which can be frustrating with unidirectional bezels. The signed screwdown crowns also come with their own quirks. The WoS Army’s case forms a natural set of crownguards around the inset crown, while the Military’s crown tube is fully beyond the curvature of the case. Extended or external crowntubes continue to surprise me; I don’t prefer the look or lack of protection, but the easier manipulation is undeniable. You can’t have it all, it seems.
Visually, there is something just a little off everywhere you look between the two watches. The numerals on the Military’s sapphire bezel are weirdly spaced towards the outer perimeter, and it’s hard to unsee this once you do. Like their progenitor, both watches use the classic exotic checkerboard dial and production-correct arrow handset. Things once again diverge quickly, starting with tone; the Army is far sandier in appearance, whereas the Military is more cream or latte in color. Its handset is also darker and more textured, and I’d classify the mixture as reliably belonging to the fauxtina department. The Military’s dial feels crowded; I didn’t measure the dimensions, but the patterned minute track extends deeper into the dial, as do the minute track hashes (which makes sense given the bezel graduations are longer on the Military as well). Finally, take a look at the indices. The Army has a black notch at 12 o’clock, which emulates the original watch, as well as raised white edges that flank each lume plot. In my estimation, the aggregate details favor the Army. Overall, it is a more visually put-together watch.
Most curiously, the Military lacks a famous signature at six o’clock: Swiss Made. Such tattoos are easily fudged, such sins of omission easily forgiven: 60% of production costs falling within Switzerland leaves plenty of room to maneuver. Its absence is surprising, however, when you take into account that the Military, like the WoS Army, is equipped with a Swiss ETA 2824-2. Remember Walca Group, the captive Jenny corporation that makes Doxa’s steel cases? There’s a chuckle-inducing irony to the fact that Walca’s factories are located in Hong Kong while the watches they case are stamped Swiss Made on the dial. Meanwhile, Synchron’s cases are made in Germany (and possibly also France). I can’t fathom why Rick would leave out Swiss Made on the dial, as Synchron’s sister brand Aquastar does have the stamp. It’s a curiosity nonetheless.
The presence of ETA 2824-2s in both watches is certainly a plus; a well-regarded, workhorse movement is what you want in a tool watch. An important note is that movements were not regulated to parity; the Military came out of the box as Elabore-graded, meaning a target accuracy of +/- 7 seconds per day, whereas the Army arrived with a stronger pre-2026 COSC rating of -4/+6 seconds per day. Out of curiosity, I threw all three watches on my timegrapher to check their movement health. The Army and PVD Military were similar – both slow around -6 to -8 seconds per day – while the steel Military was running at +20 seconds per day. Obviously, different conditions lead to different trends over time, and we can’t judge the model lines on three individual timegrapher tests, but I did find the results interesting. As a general side note, the WoS Army’s COSC-rated ETA movement did not survive beyond its release; the regular Armies, priced around $2,000 lower, are non-COSC Sellitas.
Keeping in mind that the internals are an important consideration for any watch, I’ve found my reflection on both models to be entirely rooted in their physicality because that’s where the variation is widest. The WoS Army is such a featherweight that it actively makes me ponder whether I could dress it up and slip it under a suit cuff. Meanwhile, the Military is so blocky and huge that it makes me want to velcro it to the dash of my Isuzu Trooper as some sort of ad hoc timekeeping instrument on a camping trip. There might be a family resemblance, but these two don’t actually function as substitute products in real life.
Between the two, I do think that the WoS Army best honors the pair’s common ancestor. The design is cleaner, plain and simple, and having both the Doxa and Army nameplates on the dial did a lot in terms of making me feel spiritually closer to the original watch. It’s not that I think the Military doesn’t pay proper tribute, I just think the WoS Army does it better (which it should, frankly, given its much higher original MSRP). The Doxa is a more complete product – both aesthetically and on the spec sheet – and as a result, I wanted to reach for it as much as I reasonably could while I had all three watches in my possession.
To be fair, the Military is still a strong watch. There’s a good, reliable heartbeat with its Elabore-graded ETA; the tanky case feels several levels more sturdy than I’d ever need it to be; and the brand is headed up by the man who led Doxa to the water before plucking the Sub from the shoreline and handing it to them. This was always going to be an uphill battle against the uptiered competition that followed it. Doxa’s advantages were numerous: additional time to examine the lead product (ironically, the homage in this contest), plus the ownership of the Army’s branding. Too similar to be its own thing, yet too dissimilar in a hundred small ways that avoided IP issues but made it look off, the Military was likely always going to be seen as the budget-friendly second fiddle that arrived first. Alternative or not, it has the specs to properly stand on its own two lugs.
The Army-Military Industrial Complex
I’m going to offer one final, amended opinion on the back of my initial crowning of a victor: The Army is the objectively better watch, but the Military is an objectively good watch.
I recognize that this position of peaceful coexistence is, at its core, a “both watches are great” kind of statement – that’s a softball, even if defensible. It doesn’t say anything new on its own, and it doesn’t provide any unique insight or value. However, I think it’s the right starting point because it eases us back into and keeps us anchored on the idea of target audiences mattering. Doxa and Synchron both make good watches. The masters they answer to, however, are equal parts overlapping and distinct.
Take Synchron for starters. The first Military, as capable a watch that it is, is fundamentally still an Army homage (the h-word is present on Synchron’s website, so let’s keep that in mind before hoisting pitchforks). It’s the same niche within a niche on the watch front that Synchron is to Doxa on the brand front. The Military has since morphed into something more Synchron-specific with follow-up LEs: first, multiple changes via an elapsed timing bezel, sword hands, and a La Joux-Perret movement, then later a solid black dial that eliminated the Army callback entirely. The original price points didn’t change, however – $990 at pre-order, $1,290 at full release – which confirms a consistent strategy of budget-friendly, Doxa-coded watches for dedicated enthusiasts. Synchron customers love Rick Marei, appreciate his efforts to revive the Sub, and want to support his brand.
To be sure, Doxa exhibits a heritage focus in its own product strategy as well – they’ve long since been the only game in town for acquiring an Army re-issue. Looming far larger than the Army are the 300 and 300T anchors of the Sub lineup, which itself contains everything under the sun from the 250T GMT to the juggernaut 1500T. There’s even a hint of modernity – think the forged carbon and ceramic Beta lines – which represent the materials experimentation Doxa was always going to need to stay culturally relevant. Doxa’s great advantage in executing its own heritage strategy is brand cache. Whether you agree with Doxa’s value proposition or not, the company is clearly positioned upriver as a more premium tool watch brand. Their customer base is correspondingly wider; they are hunting both the hardcore enthusiasts and more mainstream buyers targeting heritage in new flavors. The WoS Army, a limited re-issue of an esoteric model built with high-end specs, represents the fusion between these two worlds.
Experience tells me that the internet at large does not share my diplomatic thoughts on these brands; forum keyboard warriors tend to hold a fairly parochial view of Doxa and Synchron, boiling down their relationship to who owns the true gospel and who peddles snake oil. Being hot-blooded can be fun at times, but I think those types of positions only capture kernels of the whole truth. Synchron probably does hold a legitimate value proposition edge over Doxa, especially given the latest Ti300M releases. Doxa owns the Sub’s intellectual property and design language by extension, though, and that probably gives them a separate edge for many consumers who psychologically want “the real deal.” It’s okay to love both brands for the things they offer, because while the Venn diagram overlaps, there’s plenty of white space in both circles.
When you open yourself up to the idea that Doxa and Synchron are not one-to-one competitors, I think this, in turn, opens up the possibility of experiencing two watch worlds that are highly complementary to each other. I genuinely believe there’s space enough in any collection for an Army and Military, or a 300T Professional and Ti300M Sealab, or any other combination of watches along the Doxa-Synchron continuum. They most certainly can exist in the same watch box, and if you’ve read this far, you might have the right temperament for owning and appreciating both.
Leave a Reply