If you're an older watch collector or if you specialize in vintage watches, then you've surely heard of the A. Schild brand. It was one of the most important movement manufacturers from the 1950s until the quartz crisis in the 1970s. That very crisis led to the brand’s eventual merger with ETA at the end of the decade, after which the A. Schild name disappeared. Interestingly, A. Schild was never a major watch manufacturer in its own right—their primary focus was on producing movements.
My personal connection to the A. Schild brand runs even deeper. Since my main area of interest is mechanical wrist alarm watches, A. Schild represents one of the most important parts of my collection. I can confidently say that A. Schild was the most influential designer and producer of mechanical alarm wristwatch movements. If we also count Poljot, which produced the 2612 movement—a slightly modified copy of the A. Schild AS 1475—then I’m not exaggerating when I say that around 70% of all mechanical alarm wristwatches used some version of an A. Schild movement. Some of these movements were later produced (and in some cases, still are) by other manufacturers.
If you’re looking for more information about A. Schild alarm movements, check here.
But alarm movements aren’t the only A. Schild calibers in my collection. There’s also the interesting automatic movement AS 1701, which powers the Glycine Airman—part of my now-abandoned collection of space watches. Yes, A. Schild was in space long before Omega… Since that collection is no longer active, I’m selling the Glycine, but A. Schild has remained an important part of my overall collecting focus.
The A. Schild brand disappeared a long time ago, so you can imagine my surprise when I received an email from the Watches.com webshop announcing the introduction of a new brand in their lineup—Schild! They even launched it with promotional pricing. Naturally, I was intrigued. I checked all over the internet to see who else was offering these watches, but the only other source was the official Schild web page. Not even Chrono24 had any listings.
So I started to analyze the collection. Quite a few models were available, featuring a variety of different movements. One particular line caught my eye: the Johann collection. Why? Because this one truly honors the original Schild legacy. Inside these watches runs a genuine vintage A. Schild automatic movement. While the other models use Sellita or Chinese-made movements, the Johann models are pure Schild. The movement inside is the AS 5203—the last movement developed and introduced by A. Schild back in 1976. And since the company merged with ETA just two years later, very few watches from that era ever featured this caliber. So this is quite a rare find.
I admit I wasn’t familiar with this movement, so I did a bit of research and came across a very good description of it here.
By reading the description of the movement, it becomes clear why it was eventually abandoned. In many ways, it was inferior to the ETA 2824. But for a true collector, that doesn’t really matter, right?
Before purchasing the watch, one question kept bothering me—where did these movements suddenly come from? Are they leftovers from old stock dating back to the end of the Schild era? Or is someone producing new movements based on the original schematics? And who even owns the production rights today?
I contacted the Schild company several times with these questions, but I never received a reply. Maybe my inquiries were too sensitive, or maybe their customer support is just poor—I honestly don’t know. Unfortunately, I still can’t give you the answers.
I had to buy the watch without knowing exactly how the AS 5203 movement ended up inside it.
Since the watch features a display case back and even a partially see-through dial, and since all of this was visible in the product photos on their website, I was at least able to confirm that it is indeed the AS 5203 inside. I also had to act quickly—besides the introductory promotional price, a Black Friday discount was active as well. So, I took the risk and bought it.
Before I continue, let me just mention that there are four dial color variants available with the silver (steel) case, and one additional version with a black dial in a rose gold PVD-coated steel case. My dilemma was between the Salmon dial and the Glacier version, which features a kind of “panda” white-and-black look. As you can see, I ultimately chose the latter—but even now, I’m not entirely sure it was the right decision. Unfortunately, in some photos the Salmon dial looks very pink, while in others it appears more bronze. I would have liked bronze, but pink was definitely out of the question. So, the panda was a safer choice...
It took almost two weeks for the watch to arrive. Between all the customs bureaucracy and the shipping from the USA to the EU, the wait was long—and I was already very eager to see what the watch would look like in person.
My first impression was very positive. The watch came in a solid wooden box, with a nicely designed envelope containing the booklet. A small magnifying glass was also included. The box even has a dedicated space for a spare strap, though this particular model doesn’t come with one—so it’s probably a standard box used for all Schild watches, as some of their other models do include an extra strap.
The first impression of the watch itself, however, wasn’t all that impressive. In the promotional photos, it looks better—more vivid and refined. In reality, the dial feels a bit dull. The white ring around the center isn’t truly white; it’s more of a pale grey. The hands are also underwhelming—they seem to get lost on the dial, as the contrast between the hands and the background is quite weak. The same goes for the Roman numeral hour markers (again with the incorrect number 4—written as IIII instead of IV).
The only two elements that bring some life to the dial are the red date window and the red tip of the second hand. However, even the date window isn’t perfect—it’s a bit too small (not the numerals themselves, just the window size), and the alignment of the date is inconsistent. On two-digit dates where the first digit is a 2 or 3, the second digit is partially obscured. On single-digit dates, the numeral appears off-center. Only the dates from 10 to 19 seem to be properly aligned within the window.
The dial appears to be metal, and the screws securing it to the movement are visible.
What’s good is that the dial isn’t overly busy. Even though there’s quite a bit of text on it, it’s printed in such small fonts that most of it goes unnoticed. Only the SCHILD logo is clearly visible, positioned just below the twelve o’clock marker.
The minutes are “hidden” on an inner black 3D ring. Small red markings denote almost every minute, and the five-minute intervals are marked with numerals. Everything is very subtle—almost invisible, in fact. Maybe that’s why they included a magnifying glass in the box. :)
Then I turned my attention to the bracelet. Resizing it was very easy, as it uses standard push pins. What I did miss, though, were half-sized links. All removable links are of the same size, and since the bracelet ends with a double-sided butterfly clasp, there are no micro-adjustments available.
Fortunately, the full links are relatively small—just 8mm. I’ve seen bracelets where the so-called “half link” was nearly the same size as a full link on this one. Still, I had quite a dilemma deciding how many links to remove.
With four links taken out, the bracelet fit perfectly—snug and secure on my wrist. With only three removed, it was too loose, hanging below the wrist and allowing the watch to rotate. So I went with four.
That is, until the very first evening—when my wrist, of course, expanded a bit. Suddenly the bracelet became tight and uncomfortable. I had to add one link back in, and my final setting ended up being the longer version. Just one micro-adjustment hole on the clasp would have been a blessing.
But overall, the bracelet is very good. The smaller, seven-piece links make it soft and comfortable to wear. The clasp opens and closes smoothly, and the release buttons are not intrusive. The clasp itself is compact and features an elegant AS logo. The end links are well-fitted to the case and sit flush, adding to the overall quality impression.
What I don’t like, however, is the 20/16 mm taper from the lugs to the clasp. This makes the bracelet feel too narrow—at least for my taste. I haven’t mentioned it yet, but the case size is 44 mm, so pairing it with a 16 mm clasp looks a bit off. It feels unbalanced and visually disproportionate. A 20/18 or even 22/18 taper would have been a better choice in my opinion.
There’s another great feature of the bracelet—it comes with an integrated quick-release system, so removing it and putting it back on takes just a few seconds. I have tons of different leather straps at home, so I took the opportunity to experiment a bit and see how the watch looks and feels on the wrist when paired with leather.
Since some of the straps were brand new and still stiff, I didn’t take those into consideration, as they wouldn’t do the watch justice. Below you can see some of the results. In my opinion, leather straps gave the watch a bit of added value—I was even tempted to leave the fully black strap on as my final setup.
The best-looking combination was the black strap with red stitching. Unfortunately, that particular strap is quite stiff, and the watch doesn’t sit well on the wrist with it. I probably should’ve worn it for a while before taking photos for this comparison.
Nevertheless, since I needed to show the original configuration of the watch for the purpose of this review, the bracelet went back on in the end…
It’s a pity that Schild didn’t include an additional strap in the package. The box clearly has space for one, and the bracelet features a quick-release system, so including a leather strap with quick-release spring bars would have been a logical and very welcome addition.
Speaking of the overall impression of the watch on the wrist... As I already mentioned, the case diameter is listed as 44/45 mm, so one might assume this is a large watch. But that’s far from the truth—there’s a catch. The 44 mm refers to the diameter of the octagonal platform on which the “standard” round steel case ring is placed.
Visually, your focus is drawn to that round ring, which measures just 41 mm. And even that ring curves inward, so the diameter of the sapphire crystal (and the visible dial beneath it) is only 37 mm. All things considered, the watch doesn’t appear large on the wrist at all.
Adding to this illusion is the relatively short lug-to-lug distance of just 48 mm. Combine that with the narrow bracelet, and the overall wearing experience—both in feel and in appearance—is much closer to that of a 40 mm watch than a 44 mm one.
The only real issue when it comes to the dimensions of the watch is its thickness—more than 15 mm.
The crown is signed with the same AS logo as the clasp and is screw-down, which adds to the sense of quality. What I really appreciate is the unusually long stem of the crown. When you pull it out, there’s absolutely no doubt whether you’re in position 1 (for setting the date) or position 2 (for setting the time).
The setting procedure is identical to that of ETA 2824 movements, but with one very important difference—this movement does not have a hacking complication. However, you can “force” the second hand to stop!
When setting the time counterclockwise, the second hand actually moves slightly backward and occasionally stops entirely. You can use this to manually hack the seconds. Once you’ve aligned the hour, minute, and second hands to your desired position, you gently apply backward pressure to the crown—just enough to engage resistance as if you were about to set the time counterclockwise, but not so much that the hands move. The second hand stops. When you're ready, simply release the crown and voilà—the watch is synchronized.
After the synchronization, I was able to assess how well the movement performs in real-world use. Honestly, the results were much better than I expected. After one full week of continuous wear, the watch averaged –3 seconds per day. The best day showed a deviation of just –1 second, while the worst day came in at –8 seconds.
I believe that worst result happened because I barely moved for two consecutive days, so the movement was nearly out of power. After noticing the drop, I gave it a manual wind, and from that point on the daily deviation consistently stayed within the –3 ±1 second range.
I should also mention the lume. As you can see, all the hour markers are luminous, and the hands also feature lume—but only on the tips, not along their full length. There are two big issues here.
First, the lume fades quite quickly. Second—and this one is almost laughable—the luminous section of the minute hand is so short that it’s nearly impossible to distinguish it from the hour markers in the dark. Take a look at the photo showing the lume at its brightest: you’ll notice how the minute hand disappears into the IIII marker. Now imagine what happens when the lume starts fading. You simply can’t tell the minute hand apart from the markers. Essentially, the only things clearly visible are the hour digits and the hour hand. Poor design, unfortunately.
So, to conclude: the Schild Johann is a very interesting watch, featuring a rare and unusual movement. Overall, the watch is well made, but it does come with some unnecessary flaws. Simply changing the hands and applying lume more generously—or at least over a larger portion of the hands—would greatly improve both the usability (the basic ability to read the time) and the visual appeal. Ah… maybe I should have gone with the Salmon dial.
But Schild has set a ridiculous list price for this watch (as well as for the rest of their collection): 2500 USD, before taxes. Even a rare, out-of-production movement like this one can’t fully justify that kind of pricing. At launch, the introductory price on Watches.com was 800 USD, and I was able to apply an additional 20 percent discount. With all the taxes and duties included, my final cost came to around 750 EUR. In the meantime, Watches.com raised the price to 1500 USD, but recently brought it back down to 800 USD—clearly realizing that 1500 was still far too much.
I suspect Schild might follow the same strategy we’ve seen from brands like Invicta, Gevril, or Revue Thommen: set a sky-high list price, then rely on resellers to offer massive discounts.
So, if you want a Swiss-made watch with a movement that isn’t just another ETA clone, and if you can get it at the current promotional price, then go for it. It’s a unique piece with real collector’s interest. Even though it’s marketed as a limited edition of 300 pieces, there’s no clear information on whether that number refers to the total production, to each dial variant individually, or just to the first batch. And even if this movement ends up being reintroduced in future releases, I believe the watch—at this price—is still worth it.
However, for anything above 1000 USD, I would strongly advise caution. Unless you have a very specific reason for wanting this movement in your collection, there are simply better options out there if you’re just looking for a good-quality, everyday mechanical watch.
Add comment
Comments
This was a great read, thank you for the detailed insight. I just received my Schild Hermann (same AS5203 as yours) and I'm impressed with its accuracy and finish. Did you happen to find out if the company is using old stock AS 5203 movements? If so, that would make these limited edition pieces even more collectible.
Sorry, the company never responded. But based on many new models they are launching with this movement I am affraid they started some new production based on the old schematics somewhere..