Discommon Goods Watch Roll: A Better Mousetrap

I’m going to preface this review with the fact that I’m not a huge fan of watch rolls. The concept is great, right? You can carry around 3-5 watches to a get-together, for when you’re traveling, or just everyday storage. They bring a certain level of convenience and simplicity that’s not as achievable with a storage box. My issue with them is that the execution typically winds up as a lumpy, rolled up piece of leather that doesn’t often lend much confidence to the safety of your collection. With the release of Discommon Goods Watch Roll, however, my opinion of the watch roll has changed.

Last time Discommon Goods was mentioned on the site, I gave their Watch Wallet what you can consider a glowing review. If I give something a very positive review, that means I truly love it – and that’s exactly the case with the Watch Wallet. Now, during the process of coordinating that review with Discommon founder, Neil Ferrier, he mentioned they were working on a roll, and I actually voiced how I don’t care much for them. Nevertheless, knowing the way Discommon Goods approaches product design, I held out hope that they’d nail the Watch Roll. After a few months of further development, I finally received the roll for review.

Upon opening the packaging, the roll was tidily cinched up, and looked like no other watch roll I’d seen. I quickly noticed the mix of leather, a durable canvas-y material (turns out to be water resistant polyester), and a nylon strap holding the roll tightly closed. The most important characteristic of the roll is its shape, which is less like what you’d find with a watch “roll”, and more like a watch “fold”. In other words, the roll wasn’t the typical cylindrical shape, but shaped as if you could imagine the watches sitting flatly in each “fold” of the roll. It was a great first impression, but I figured that well-ordered presentation would go away once watches were occupying their respective slots.

Opening the roll is as easy as loosening the strap with the red pull-tab near the plastic clip. The clip slides from its nylon sheath, and Bob’s your uncle, the roll opens up. I don’t remember what I muttered when I opened the roll, but I think it was something like, “oh shit!” or “damn!” (think Ice Cube from Friday). Reason being, the inside of the roll is incredibly impressive. There are four pockets for your watches, three of which feature the same water resistant material on the outside as a protective flap, with the other pocket using a supple piece of leather. The reason for the odd one is that it’s nearest the opening, and considered the “daily driver” pocket. Each pocket holds the case of your watch with a slightly stretchy material, and the whole roll is lined with the same protective 3DO padding as the Watch Wallet. Sitting between your watch and the D3O padding is a nice grey tweed lining to contrast the predominantly black color scheme. At the end of the roll, there’s an additional pouch for possibly an extra strap, spring bar tool, or both.

The key to the folding properties of the Watch Roll is the sewed-in leather divider between each pocket, and the alternating sides on which the pockets sit. You’ll notice as you fold it up, the divider gives the roll no option but to fold neatly. The width of the dividers is wide enough that when watches are in the pockets, the roll does a good job maintaining the squared-off look. Fully packed up, the roll is obviously thicker, but by no means lumpy and cumbersome. I’m sure really big watches would make a difference to how well it rolls up, but I think that problem would be much worse with a standard watch roll.

I want to criticize the Watch Roll, but I don’t know what to say. The construction is rock solid. With all of the different materials and stitch points, you’d think there’d be a few potential points of failure, but I really couldn’t find one. I’ve been yanking and pulling on tabs, seams, and the clip, and I can’t see how you’d reasonably rip anything. Yes, if you really put some elbow grease into it, I’m sure you could rip something apart, but that’s just silly and unrealistic. For normal – or hell, even heavy – use, the Watch Roll isn’t going to fail.

So where’s the catch? If there is one, it’s $310 price tag ($290 for the waxed canvas version). Because let’s face it, you could easily find a flimsy piece of hand-stitched waxed canvas to serve as your watch roll. But that begs the question, “do you want to store your $5,000 or $10,000 collection in a flimsy piece of canvas?” Even if you spend $150 on a shell cordovan or chromexcel roll, it’s not going to be nearly as protective as Discommon’s. Yes, it’s a lot of money for a watch roll, but it’s not a lot of money for the quality and assurance that your watches will be stored safely and handsomely. No hyperbole here, this thing oozes with quality and absolutely blows every other watch roll out of the water. Even Dean, our resident curmudgeon, thinks it’s a great piece of kit. If that’s not an endorsement worth listening to, I don’t know what is. Discommon Goods has no doubt built a better mousetrap with their Watch Roll, and if you’re in the market for one, it’s worth every penny.

by