Hands-On: the Benjamin James Deerhurst Regulator

The trajectory of my watch enthusiasm over the past several years can be boiled down to one basic principle: seeking things that are different. It’s what led me to Arcanaut, briefly owning a M.A.D.1S, a devotion to the works of Jiro Katayama, and, ultimately, boredom with brands owned by the big conglomerates.

It’s been, honestly, an exciting time to reject the mainstream, as there seems to be a neverending stream of microbrands doing interesting things either well outside the norm or just slightly tilted away from it. Benjamin James is a Hong Kong based microbrand that falls into the latter category. Their watches are not avant garde or challenging works of outsider art, exactly, but they represent the distilled point of view of their founder, and the Deerhurst regulator surprised me with its overall quality and some of its touchpoints. 

The Deerhurst is a slim, 36mm dress watch available in three dial variations. My sample is in burgundy, but it’s also available in “Old English White” and “Denim Blue.” The design feature of the watch that will either charm you or make you roll your eyes is the Clous de Paris bezel, which in 2026 is perhaps one of the most old-fashioned choices Benjamin James could have made. It’s knowingly anachronistic in the way it dips into decorative case finishing, something very brands engage in these days. 

Let’s stop here and briefly survey just some of those brands. The first that jumps to mind is J.N. Shapiro, which offers a similar in appearance finishing as an option on the case bands of their American made Resurgence. There’s also the Patek Philippe Calatrava, which has been issued in a number of references over the years with a hobnail bezel. And since I’m just back from Geneva Watch Days, I have the elaborately engraved Urwerk pocket watch that I saw there still on the mind, which in turn made me think of similarly elaborately engraved wristwatches by the likes of Ralph Lauren, Louis Erard, and others. 

There’s a whole world of this stuff and many different rabbit holes to fall down if you’re looking at case finishing that goes beyond the standard brushed, satin, and polished effects. But the point is that decorative finishing, whether it’s a repeating design like what we see on the Deerhurst or the Resurgence or something more artful like those Ralph Laurens, is intended to make a statement. It’s well outside the norm, and one of clearest ways a brand or designer might choose to embrace an aesthetics or style first mentality. 

And that, really, is right up my alley. I’ve always liked watches whose purpose on this earth is to look a certain way, as opposed to surviving a certain water pressure exposure, or calculating fuel consumption in your personal airplane. That stuff has always seemed a little affected to me, but appreciating the appearance of something is universal, human, and completely natural. 

Anyway, back to the Deerhurst. I took a liking to this watch almost immediately primarily for the way the case wears. It’s 36mm but probably wears a bit smaller because of the very short lugs, which push the lug to lug measurement to 42mm. It has presence, mostly thanks to the Clous de Paris bezel, but nicely accomplishes its stated goal of looking and feeling like a throwback to another, far more elegant, era. The case finishing, beyond the bezel execution, is perfectly fine but not extraordinary, and consists primarily of polished surfaces. The short, thin lugs are nicely twisted, which is another fun and purely decorative accent that I enjoyed. 

The dial is a little less successful in my opinion. Before receiving the watch for review, I was a little nervous that the studded minute markers on the dial’s perimeter and matching studs in the hour subdial would be a little too much with the Clous de Paris. I’m glad to say that this was not really an issue, in practice. Those studs offer some nice dimensionality to the dial and subtly aid in legibility as well. 

What let me down was that the dial itself is probably just a little too non-descript for a regulator. I like regulators a lot, but feel like they can look a bit like modded watches unless there’s some intentionality behind the structure of the dial itself. The vertical procession from hour hand, minute hand, to seconds hand can feel kind of unfinished without something else to capture the eye. Louis Erard does a great job with their regulators by creating unexpected sectors and using the design codes of their collaborators to create some tension and visual interest. The Deerhurst, I think, could use just a little of that. 

That said, I quite like the burgundy colorway, and the hands themselves are also very nicely done, each with a unique shape and finish, with the minute hand being the most dramatic and the runnings seconds at the bottom of the dial the most invisible of the three. That’s a fitting choice based on how we actually use regulators: the minute hand is by far the most essential and needs to grab the eye first. 

The watch is powered by a Sellita SW266-1 M, a manually wound caliber with about 41 hours of power reserve. The thin movement allows the watch to come in at just 9.1mm tall. Compare that to the aforementioned Louis Erard regulators, most of which are made in chunky 42mm cases with automatic movements, and you begin to understand another reason for the Deerhurst’s appeal. A manually wound regulator is a fundamentally different proposition than an automatic one, and this watch actually helps identify a shortcoming of those Louis Erard pieces (which I love, I own two, personally): they are kind of masquerading as dress watches, whereas the Deerhurst is the real thing. 

The Deerhurst is priced at $1,702 on a bracelet, and $1,569 on a strap. For a unique watch with a Swiss made movement, I think that’s a pretty fair price, especially if you’re really drawn to the Clous de Paris and have a more forgiving outlook on the success of the dail than I do. Benjamin James