This is the Lake Superior version of the Shinola Monster, a highly-regarded dive watch with a Swiss automatic movement, a depth rating of 1,000 feet, 26 jewels, and a 38-hour power reserve.
Shinola is an American watchmaker based in Detroit. They focus on hiring members of the local community, providing much needed jobs and skills training. The company started out strictly as a watchmaker but have now expanded their scope, and now manufacture everything from bicycles, pocket knives, and sunglasses to bags, wallets, and belts.
The 43mm Shinola Monster has a 316L stainless steel case, case back, and bracelet as well as an anti-reflective sapphire crystal and an anti-magnetic shield.
As the story goes, Shinola actually started out in 2011 with no name. The founders hadn’t been able to settle on one they all liked, and at one point the debate over the name reached boiling point, with one person saying “You don’t know sh*t from Shinola.”
For the uninitiated, this is an old American phrase that pre-dates WWII. The original Shinola company made shoe polish, and the saying simply meant that a person was too dense to differentiate between feces and similarly-colored shoe polish.
They quickly realized that Shinola was the perfect name for their new company, the brandname was already well-known but the original company had shutdown decades ago. They registered the new name and established their manufacturing facility in Detroit, Michigan to start the process of bringing back the once dominant American watchmaking industry.
The Shinola Monster Lake Superior
This is the Shinola Monster Lake Superior, it’s a variant of the popular Shinola Monster automatic dive watch named for the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area, and all who have dived in it.
The watch has a high-grade 316L stainless steel case, case back, and bracelet as well as an anti-reflective sapphire crystal and an anti-magnetic shield. The watch is powered by the Swiss-made SW200-1 automatic movement, which has 26 jewels, a 38-hour power reserve, and a date complication at the 4 o’clock marker.
Each watch comes in a steel nautically-inspired tackle box finished in black.
The Monster has a unidirectional bezel, a micro-adjustable clasp for a secure fit while diving, and a dark enamel dial paired with white hands to ensure easy legibility even in low-light underwater conditions. The watch is far less expensive than many of its Swiss-powered competitors, retailing for $1,650 USD directly from Shinola.
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