Lucrin Watch Roll Review

[puma1552]

Ordered a Lucrin watch roll last weekend. Even with Christmas, it arrived Thursday from Germany which was super quick. Reviews of these are absolutely non-existent.

Thoughts:

1) The roll is very compact which is really nice, it seems to be about 10% smaller in all exterior dimensions than the other various rolls I've had. It really feels proper in the hand, like what a watch roll size should be.

2) Materials are nice enough. Exterior leather is firm so it won't get crushed in your carryon, and interior microfiber/suede is nice, but nothing amazing.

3) Workmanship is generally good. Is it perfect, no, but it's sufficient overall. Both exterior flap corners have weird foldover/cuts that are visible. Not a big deal. Snaps feel really good. Note that all three dividers are stitched into place firmly though, none of them really move or fold out of the way much as you snap/unsnap the pillows.

4) Pillow side pieces are edge glued and somewhat cheap, not a big deal, but clearly cheap. Pillows are moderately soft, kinda firm.

5) Lucrin told me the pillows measure 17.8 cm, they are more like 17.2 - 17.3 cm. In the comparison pic below with the red pillow, the red pillow is 17.8 cm - they are almost the same size but wildly different shapes - the Lucrin pillows are very thin but deeper front to back. This is partly why the roll is more compact, especially heightwise, but it's really unnatural for a watch to be on it because the curved clasp blade creates a space between it and the pillow which doesn't happen on the red pillow. Watches fit like a dream on the red pillow with zero tension yet zero sliding around.

6) The pillows are simply too small, though part of it is probably the shape. The watches slide all over the pillows, so these just won't work. My wrist is 6.5-6.75", and I wear my watch just slightly loose.

7) I ordered a white roll, which appeared to have a light gray interior on their site. They also have an off white roll with the same light gray interior. What I received appears to be an off white roll with a completely white interior? Expectation vs. reality I guess. The roll is far more cream than it appears in the pics and there's a large difference in color between the exterior and the clearly white interior. Not a huge deal, but that's the problem when the website images are all CGI.

8) Roll was $400, realistically it's worth about $275 in my mind.

9) Final verdict: the pillows being too small/unnatural are a deal breaker, the roll simply doesn't work for me if the watches slide all over. Not like they can get up and walk away, but the point of a roll is for them to stay in place where they are put, and they don't in this roll. If it wasn't for that, I'd keep it.

10) I'm done with rolls. For some reason it's been really difficult to just get a well made roll with a pillow that fits, even when custom specifying the dimensions. I initiated a return on this and am waiting for them to contact me to 'verify' the return whatever that means before giving me an RMA (let's see how Lucrin's CS is, Trust Pilot reviews say it's awful...). I've decided instead to order two of the newest light brown/beige Rolex travel pouches (the pouches ADs give out as gifts once in a while) off Chrono24 from a Netherlands dealer that'll be here in about a week and that'll be that, that's what I'm going with for travel and that's the end of it. Eventually you just have to give up on something if it doesn't seem to work.

[Duke Nukem]

Have you tried the Everest watch rolls? I have similar wrist size as you and their rolls & pillows are perfect. I have multiple four and single watch rolls from them.

[Brenngun]

There's a lot to like about this roll. Great design from how the pads are held in place to having a divider between the watches.

[puma1552]

Originally Posted by Brenngun

There's a lot to like about this roll. Great design from how the pads are held in place to having a divider between the watches.

There is a lot to like about this roll, unfortunately the pillows are just a miss for me.

[BraveBold]

The Carapaz rolls are phenomenal - for anyone still in the hunt, I highly recommend.

[RichM]

This is the one that ticks all the boxes for me. https://www.everestbands.com/product...40101545672766

They have great CS. I also had a four watch Carapaz (also excellent) which I sold.

[train-time]

Great write-up! Sad to hear about the pillows. I looked at Everest, Carapaz, and Bosphorus. Ended going with Bosphorus because the interior and pillows are genuine suede. All three brands used leather for the outside of the roll, but Everest and Carapaz used synthetic microfiber on the inside and on the pillows. Since they were priced about the same I went with Bosohorus. I'm not sure about the measurements of the pillow, but they are mounted similarly and seem to fit the watches well.

[puma1552]

Originally Posted by train-time

Great write-up! Sad to hear about the pillows. I looked at Everest, Carapaz, and Bosphorus. Ended going with Bosphorus because the interior and pillows are genuine suede. All three brands used leather for the outside of the roll, but Everest and Carapaz used synthetic microfiber on the inside and on the pillows. Since they were priced about the same I went with Bosohorus. I'm not sure about the measurements of the pillow, but they are mounted similarly and seem to fit the watches well.

I gave up on Bosphorus. The red pillow above is actually a Bosphorus pillow. I bought one of their 2 watch Petra cases and that pillow is from that, and it's absolutely perfect. Then I reached out to them for a second pair of pillows for some other little project and asked them to make them exactly the same, and they did. So I was like ok, they are clearly using a template and can be very consistent, excellent.

So then I ordered a roll from them, and asked them to make pillows identically sized to those Petra pillows, but just with the obviously needed snaps on the sides. They failed at doing this, and overstuffed the pillows. I took pictures and sent them to them and asked them about it, and this time included a photo of the circumference measurement and they apologized and said they would remake them, which I appreciated. They made them a second time, and they were the same? Still overstuffed, nothing like the Petra case pillows. Their customer service is good and polite, but it was like one email per continent per day and I never really knew if they were understanding my request. I'd try to catch them at the beginning of their day and hope we could speed things along a bit and knock a couple emails out within their work day but it never happened, it was always like 12-24 hours between replies going each way. Then add how long it would take to make stuff and ship it from Turkey, their constant and quite frankly ridiculous price increases over a 1-1.5 year period, and at that point I kinda had a bad taste in my mouth and was just done. Quality was decent, but nothing spectacular either, most of the snaps weren't even aligned well at all. I left a mediocre review for it somewhere here.

And actually that's a lie, one thing I never posted here was that I went back to them one last time for another Petra case (shame on me). The first one (non customized) is pretty good, but now having had one I was like this case could be great with a couple dimensional customizations/tweaks. Plan was to order a second one with some customizations and sell the first one. Ordered a second one in the same color scheme (black ext./red int.) for a whopping $830 (again, relentless price increases and really slow custom ordering process), and it showed up real half assed compared to the first one. Red interior wasn't even the same shade of red as the first one though it was supposed to be, it was super washed out and threadbare, among other issues (issues like it wobbled an entire quarter inch corner to corner, like wtf?). Then I was really done with Bosphorus. Their website is nicer than their products IMO. I was so annoyed with this second case that I actually took an $830 loss and just binned it rather than even bothering dealing with contacting them about it and asking for a refund blah blah (granted it was monogrammed with my son's initials so it was basically worthless anyway and it was so poorly made I didn't feel right selling it). I just decided to keep the first case.

For whatever reason, Wolf/Carapaz/Everest products just do nothing for me. Not sure why, but I've yet to see a roll I like from any of them. Quite frankly, the best roll I've had so far? It's a tossup between this Lucrin which is a pillow short of being a keeper and a hexagon watch roll from Qwatchbands off Amazon of all things. At this point, it's idiotic for me to keep trying to get a roll, so I'm just done...all I wanted was a roll with the red Petra pillows above and it's just been impossible to get, or even get close to. Bizarre.

[David5807]

Originally Posted by BraveBold

The Carapaz rolls are phenomenal - for anyone still in the hunt, I highly recommend.

Yup, these are the best I've found

[brandrea]

You wouldn’t think making a watch roll would be so complicated.

[1William]

Good review.

[Calatrava r]

I like the product. Looks great and seems to be well made.

[BraveBold]

Originally Posted by brandrea

You wouldn’t think making a watch roll would be so complicated.

Sturgeon’s law.

[brandrea]

Originally Posted by BraveBold

Sturgeon’s law.

Had to look that up


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[puma1552]

Originally Posted by brandrea

You wouldn’t think making a watch roll would be so complicated.

You wouldn't think so, I certainly didn't. I realize I can be picky, but kinda not really - I expect and can accept some imperfections in a hand made product as long as the core functionality does what I need it to. But I'm also shopping at the high end of the market - if you're going to charge $300, $400, $500 for a product like this where cheaper versions exist costing just 10% of that price, there had better not really be any issues with the product, otherwise it's impossible to justify paying the other 90%. The amount of money I've spent on accessory trial and error the last 1.5 years is nuts, and I've ate most of it. And I should say - every single item I buy is a well thought out decision that I genuinely intend to keep. I've worked hard for my money and I'm deliberate with where I spend it, especially being that I've got a wife and young son and prioritize their needs.

I think I got spoiled with those first red pillows I got in my Bosphorus case. Since the fit is so perfect, it really should've been easy to either have Bosphorus themselves just duplicate them with snaps on the side for a roll, or just take the measurement from them and have someone else make a roll with pillows that size, but here we are. So the best way to move forward is to remove pillows as part of the storage solution, hence, no more rolls for this guy.

Originally Posted by BraveBold

Sturgeon’s law.

I also had to look this up, I didn't know there was a law to describe how I feel about 90% of stuff out there.

[Snow-Dweller]

Originally Posted by BraveBold

The Carapaz rolls are phenomenal - for anyone still in the hunt, I highly recommend.

Absolutely

[brandrea]

Originally Posted by puma1552

You wouldn't think so, I certainly didn't. I realize I can be picky, but kinda not really - I expect and can accept some imperfections in a hand made product as long as the core functionality does what I need it to. But I'm also shopping at the high end of the market - if you're going to charge $300, $400, $500 for a product like this where cheaper versions exist costing just 10% of that price, there had better not really be any issues with the product, otherwise it's impossible to justify paying the other 90%. The amount of money I've spent on accessory trial and error the last 1.5 years is nuts, and I've ate most of it. And I should say - every single item I buy is a well thought out decision that I genuinely intend to keep. I've worked hard for my money and I'm deliberate with where I spend it, especially being that I've got a wife and young son and prioritize their needs.

I think I got spoiled with those first red pillows I got in my Bosphorus case. Since the fit is so perfect, it really should've been easy to either have Bosphorus themselves just duplicate them with snaps on the side for a roll, or just take the measurement from them and have someone else make a roll with pillows that size, but here we are. So the best way to move forward is to remove pillows as part of the storage solution, hence, no more rolls for this guy.



I also had to look this up, I didn't know there was a law to describe how I feel about 90% of stuff out there.

I hear you and thank you for the in depth review …

I considered these as an option not that long ago


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