Junghans Max Bill Automatic review

When buying my first higher-quality automatic watch, I chose the Junghans Max Bill Automatic.

After several weeks of daily use, I had a good understanding of its strengths and weaknesses, which I present in this review.

Junghans

Junghans is Germany’s oldest watch manufacturer, founded in Schramberg in 1861. The company began producing wristwatches in 1927.

Today, Junghans is one of the few independent watchmakers not owned by a large watchmaking group.

Max Bill and Bauhaus design

In the 1950s, Junghans began working with the Swiss artist Max Bill from the Bauhaus school of design. Bill designed several wall clocks and watches for Junghans during a collaboration that lasted many years.

A wall clock designed in 1957 even entered the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Buying a Junghans therefore always means buying a piece of design and horological history. To celebrate 100 years of Bauhaus design, the company released several special-edition watches.

Junghans Max Bill Automatic

Packaging

The Junghans Max Bill Automatic comes in an attractive dark-grey leather box. The lower section contains the watch and a cloth, while the upper section holds the manual and warranty.

The warranty lasts five years, although the nearest authorized service centre is in Vienna. Warranty claims or out-of-warranty repairs from Czechia or Slovakia may consequently take longer.

Design

The Junghans Max Bill Automatic has a simple, clean and timeless Bauhaus design created by Max Bill in the 1960s.

Its steel case is genuinely thin, measuring only 10 mm, and the domed crystal gives the watch a slightly retro appearance.

The crystal is plastic with a Sicralan coating. You might expect sapphire, but there is a reason for this choice. Inexpensive watches use plastic primarily because of cost; more expensive watches use it for historical authenticity. It suits a design from the 1960s and can also be found on watches such as the Omega Speedmaster Moonwatch.

At 38 mm in diameter, the watch is not well suited to very large wrists. It is ideal for my 16 cm wrist and does not look small at all. The very thin bezel gives the dial considerable presence and makes it appear much larger. Compared with my Seiko SNK809, only one millimetre narrower, the Max Bill looks like a substantially larger watch.

Thin hands complement the large cream-white dial, with lume on the hour and minute hands.

Luminous dots also mark three, six, nine and twelve o’clock. Two dots at twelve make the watch’s orientation clear even in darkness.

Strap

My reference, 027/3502.00, came with an uninspiring light-brown leather strap. You will probably buy a better one, which should be easy at the standard 20 mm width.

I am fond of NATO straps. They may appear unsuitable for a dress watch, but I consider them a great way to make it less formal. You naturally need the right colour and style, such as a perlon strap.

Functionality

The Max Bill Automatic has no complications, in keeping with its clean design. If you want a date, you can choose the Junghans Max Bill Mega; for a chronograph, there is the Junghans Max Bill Chronoscope.

The watch can be hand-wound, useful if you do not wear it every day and want to keep it running without a watch winder. Its power reserve is 38 hours, so this may be unnecessary. Then again, perhaps you also find winding a watch strangely satisfying.

It also supports hacking: pulling out the crown stops the seconds hand, allowing the time to be set to the exact second.

My J800.1 movement, a modified ETA 2824, gained seven seconds per day in real use, a very good result. Hacking makes occasional corrections easy.

The watch has only minimal water resistance. Rain is fine, but greater exposure to water would be a risk.

Specifications

Conclusion

The Junghans Max Bill Automatic is an excellent watch. Apart from small issues such as the need for a better strap, I am very satisfied with it. It was my first higher-quality automatic watch, and I certainly do not regret buying it.