This is the Bamford GMT Steel Heritage, it’s a watch designed in London and made in Switzerland with a Swiss automatic movement, as well as a GMT complication allowing you to tell the time in two timezones at a glance.
The GMT Steel model series from the British watch company is surprisingly affordable for a Swiss-made automatic (it costs over 90% less than many comparable GMTs from major Swiss watchmakers) and it comes in a slew of colorways, four of which we’ve shown below, but there are plenty more on their official store.
The GMT Steel model series from the British watch company comes in a slew of colorways, four of which we’ve shown above, but there are plenty more on their official store for those who are interested.
History Speedrun: The Bamford Watch Department
The Bamford Watch Department was founded by George Bamford in London in 2003, the origin story is well known in the watch world, he arrived at a dinner party wearing a Rolex Daytona and noticed the same watch on many of the wrists around the table. He had his coated in DLC, a hard black finish then used on drill bits and high-performance engine parts, but almost unheard of in watchmaking. He wore it on holiday in the south of France, came home with 25 orders, and before he knew it he had a watch company.
For more than a decade the Swiss industry treated Bamford with no small amount of derision – Rolex even refused to service any watch the company had modified. George Bamford later told the Telegraph he had been “the antichrist” of the watch world.
Jean-Claude Biver would be the man who changed that, as head of LVMH’s watch division he brought Bamford inside so to speak – Swiss watchmaker Zenith made the arrangement official in 2017, TAG Heuer followed later that same year, as well as Bulgari, which had already been working with him quietly.
The terms of this agreement required Bamford to stop customizing brands he had no formal agreement with, which ended the blacked-out Rolexes that had help start the business. “We used to operate in the shade, but now we are in the light,” he was quoted as saying at the time.
The company now designs watches in London and has them made in Switzerland under the Bamford London name. The Mayfair came first, in 2017. The London GMT followed in November of 2018 as its first mechanical, Swiss-powered watch. The customization side continues through limited editions with Girard-Perregaux, Seiko, Casio, and a handful of others.
The Bamford GMT Steel Heritage
Bamford launched the Heritage GMT in mid-2020 alongside the Night Owl, both identical but with the bezel colors reversed, and the silver-dialed Mirage. As is tradition for a GMT, it has red for the daylight hours, blue for night, against a matte black dial – a coloring scheme pioneered by the legendary Rolex GMT-Master.
For those unfamiliar with how GMT watches work, there is a fourth hand that points to a 24 hour clock on the outer face or bezel, telling you the time in a second timezone at a glance while the standard three hands tell you your local time in a little more detail. The bezel is a little non-traditional in its design on this watch, instead of an outer ring, the 24 hour scale sits under the crystal and turns via a second crown at 10 o’clock. It keeps the case sides clean and leaves the scale less exposed to accidental movement or damage.
The case is machined from rugged 316L stainless steel, measures 40 mm across, 11.7 mm thick and 46.5 mm lug to lug, with 20 mm lugs, a solid steel back and an anti-reflective sapphire crystal up top. Water resistance is 100m, the hands markers carry Super-LumiNova lume, and the date sits at three o’clock.
This is the Bamford GMT Steel Heritage, it’s a watch designed in London and built in Switzerland with a Swiss automatic movement, as well as a GMT complication allowing you to tell the time in two timezones at a glance.
The watch is powered by the Sellita SW330-2 automatic mechanical movement, with 25 jewels, 28,800 vph and 56 hours of reserve. Sellita movements are one of the key backbones of the Swiss microbrand industry, offering excellent precision and reliability for a reasonable cost – helping to keep the final MSRP reasonable.
The GMT Steel Heritage is now available to buy direct from Bamford through their official online store here. The MSRP is £1,450 which works out to approximately $1,950 USD.
Images courtesy of Bamford
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
