Nomadic Empires collection from Amir Watches

One of the most interesting and fascinating aspects of microbrands is that they open up new territories for watch design, corners of the world that have no watchmaking tradition, but now they can bring their own interpretation of horology. Such is the case with Amir Watches, a watch brand from Kazakhstan, that in the coming days will launch a new collection of dress watches, the Nomadic Empires.

For over 3000 years, the Sun has turned on the Nomadic Empires, home to some of the greatest civilisations history has known. Through waves of rise and fall, these historical Empires connected and ruled the East and West throughout history. We pay tribute to these empires today with the Nomadic Empire collection – heritage timepieces that are the modern reincarnation of a tradition passed Father to Son for millennia.

Amir Watches Nomadic Empires – the Khan

At the heart of each timepiece is the Shanyrak, a timeless symbol of home, hearth, and heritage. For millennia, the empires that ruled the known world housed their people in yurts, mobile dwellings for noble emissaries and mercenaries alike.

At the vertex of the yurt is the Shanyrak, the cross piece structure that held the building together, and let the dweller view the sky.

While every other part of the yurt would be replaced over time, the Shanyrak was eternal. Passed from father to son through the turning of generations, a family’s heritage was measured by the “vintage” of their Shanyrak, aged over countless decades over the family fire. Traditionally, when the first-born son came of age and became responsible for his family, his father would pass him the Shanyrak, symbolising both trust in the next generation and the responsibility the son now defended.

Amir Watches Nomadic Empires – the Conqueror

The Nomadic Empires Collection

The Nomadic Empires collection has four models with 42 mm titanium cases: the Nomad — with a dark grey dial, the Khan — gold coated with black dial, the stealthy Conqueror with black dial and the Eagle Hunter with white dial. While titanium has several advantages over stainless steel — it’s lighter, resistance to extreme temperatures, great biological compatibility — it is also harder to machine, and because of this many watchmakers avoid it.

One may claim that it is hard to tell the time with this model. Although true, this design element was well-thought through and planned. The objective was to encourage the owner of the watch to enjoy studying every detail of this watch and the inner workings whenever the time needs to be read.

An exploded view of the Amir’s Nomadic Empires Khan model.

The seconds hand has a unique design, it is a rotating disk made from high-grade aluminium, shaped like a Shanyrak, turning above the minutes and hours hand and the skeletonized Miyota 8n24 automatic movement.

Diamond cut Red Hour Hand symbolises the Fire, an essential element of life and heart for Nomadic empires.

Blue Minute hand symbolises the Sky. Both hands are filled with Super-Luminova at the tips for comfortable display of time in dark settings.

Limited to only 50 units of each model worldwide, this is one of the most anticipated watch releases of 2017 according to the most prominent watch collectors. Major watch forums have topic threads about the Nomadic Empires Collection.

Amir Watches Team is part of Miami Watch Company, the same guys who own and operate Stranger Watch Company that we already covered here on WatchPaper. This is not their first crowdfunding experience, with Stranger Watches, they have successfully completed two campaigns: the Thoroughbred Collection and the Ocean Predator Collection. Their aim is to bring more exposure to Kazakhstan, where Amir Watches is Headquartered at and where they originally are from.

Nomad in a wallet

They are scheduled to go live on Kickstarter on March 10^th with very attractive Early Bird Specials:

• Super Early Bird Special (available for first 3 Days only): $179 USD (MSRP $700)
• Early Bird Special (available first 6 Days only): $229 USD
• KickStarter Special: $279 USD

We will do another shout out once the campaign is live, in the meantime, sign up the be notified by email from the Amir website.

UPDATE: The Nomadic Empires campaign is now live on Kickstarter