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I had made a thread a month or so ago asking about Bosphorus, and got overwhelmingly positive feedback. So I went ahead and ordered a Petra case for two watches, in black Togo leather with a red suede/velvet interior. I did not customize anything.
It arrived today after a little over three weeks, and I wanted to do a review.
Packaging:
It was packaged very well. It came in a corrugated box, wrapped heavily in plastic wrap, all taped up and then it was in a shipping bag. Upon getting into the cardboard box, there was a nice Bosphorus box, and then inside that was the Petra case inside its own dust bag.
Surprise:
Upon opening it, I was pleasantly surprised to see silver hardware; the hardware clearly looks gold to me on the website no matter what device I am using to look at their website. I ALMOST asked for customization with silver hardware, I guess they read my mind. Sweet.
Quality and Fit/Finish:
The Togo leather is much softer and more supple than it looks. The hardware is also very nice - the latch mechanism is very satisfying to both open and close. The suede is great, and the quality of the workmanship for the parts covered in red suede is great.
There are a couple cons, however. The lid doesn't even open a full 90 degrees, so there is always a concern of it closing on its own. The opening angle is limited by the red suede liner connecting the lid to the lower box; an extra half centimeter of liner here would let it open 90 degrees and be more stable. Another con is that it doesn't sit flat on the table, it does wobble a bit. Not a lot, but just a bit. The last con is nitpicky, and I knew it would look like this based on the other examples I've seen - the alignment of some of the rivets/nails really isn't very good side to side, e.g. not very symmetrical. I realize this is hand built and things are eyeballed, but quite frankly you could eyeball some of the symmetrical alignment of the nails much better. Not a big deal, but worth commenting on given it cost $550 (I paid $500 with 10% off for being my first order).
Pillows:
The pillows are second to none, these are the best part by far. I don't really like the M or W shaped pillows some manufacturers use, I much prefer a normal oval pillow as it seems more natural for the watch. These pillows are fantastic. They are super soft, well made, easy to squeeze, and fully sewn. My wrist size is 6.5" - 6.75" depending how tight I measure it, and I wear the watch just a little bit loose, so call it 6.75" - 7". These pillows are dead on size wise with the easy link closed, which is what I wanted. Secured in place, yet almost no tension on the bracelet. Even with the easy link open, the watch is still fairly secure due to the friction of the suede. These pillows are *chef's kiss*.
Functionality:
Gotta be honest, this is where I'm gonna dock it a bit. When looking at these cases, I had some concerns about user friendliness and unfortunately these concerns seem to be founded. The pillows are quite snug in the box, almost too snug, especially with a watch on them. You do have to push down quite a bit to get them into the box. Problem is, you have a correspondingly difficult time pulling them back out. I even tried grabbing the watch head and pulling up on that and immediately stopped because it required more force than I was comfortable with. Instead I find myself kind of picking at the edges of the pillows to try and get them up and out; not sure how long they will last when used like that.
Related, the front to back depth of the inner box could be another 1 cm - the bracelet on both the 12:00 and 6:00 side gets wedged against the inner box, which is just unnecessary with a little better dimensional planning. Yeah it's soft, but it still makes me cringe a bit especially given the amount of friction/pressure it takes to get the watches/pillows in and out.
I tried to figure out an alternative way to use the pillows; tilt them towards me, not push them down fully, etc. There is more than enough tension between the pillow sides and the inner box that you can pretty much orient the pillows however you want and they will stay put; you can fully suspend the watch by tilting the pillows upward and then also not pushing the pillows all the way down. But the problem with that then is that, aside from the fact you couldn't use the inner box topper that snaps in place (which is fine, this is kind of superfluous), the little leather pull straps/snaps on the sides of the inner box will be pushed down on the watch when you shut the box, which could scratch the watch. And you can't really fold those back the other way, and since they are secured with two screws, you also can't rotate them down out of the way.
I haven't played with it too much other than unboxing and testing stuff, but right now I haven't decided how best to use this box. I think the inner box cover is pointless, to be honest. Ultimately, until I figure out how to best use this box and/or it breaks in a bit, I have to say it's just not a very good box when you want to reach quickly and frequently for a watch. It's fine for displaying or keeping treasures locked away, but if you want to be in and out of it multiple times a day, I'm not sure this is the case for you.
Lastly, the lock is dumb. The key is just a two prong key with prongs that are like 2mm long. You could lock or unlock it with a pair of toothpicks or any little 2mm long sticks. I don't care either way, I can see myself just tossing the key as I never intend to lock it anyway.
Rating:
I'm gonna go 3.5 stars out of 5. I think there's a lot to like about it, but there's also some low hanging fruit to address that would make this box so much better and so much more user friendly. If I could do it again, I'd customize it to increase the front to back depth of the inner box (and outer box correspondingly), I might add a couple mm to the width of each pillow compartment, and I'd either just ditch the inner box topper and snap straps, or modify the snap straps to be secured with one screw so they are rotatable out of the way. I'd also ask for a bit more fabric connecting the lid to the lower box so that the lid could sit open at like 95-100 degrees instead of 85. And personal preference, the box doesn't need to be so deep, I might make it a touch shallower as well, but not a big deal. If I did all of those customizations it would probably be outstanding. Would I buy it again? Without the above customizations, and for $500+, probably not. With the customizations, probably. I bought this box to sit in my kitchen drawer where my wallet/keys are so I can quickly grab a watch on the way out the door. It fits in the drawer with a half centimeter of height to spare thankfully, but maybe the best use for the box is to just set a microfiber down in the drawer and just set the pillows on that and put the rest of the box away in storage? lol.
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