I thought it was really ironic to learn that Mondaine's US operation was located near where I live in the San Francisco Bay area. What are the odds? When I met with their people at the JCK show in Las Vegas a few months ago, I got to check out some of their new timepieces, and caught a few on camera. Sorry about any blurriness, but it adds to the candid nature of the shots right? Mondaine is a popular Swiss watch company that is best known for their official Swiss Railways watch. Aside from that, they have a multitude of nice offerings at reasonable prices. Part of this has to do with their high volume production that helps them keep prices down.
Two of the best things that Mondaine does are its cases and the dials. You really get impressed but the quality of these parts in relation to the price. I did a full review on one of my favorite watches of theirs, which was the Mondaine Railway Chrono Sport II, which you can read here. Actually, I've seen a few names for the same watch, but you get the idea. I love that timepiece!
Mondaine has a truly dizzying array of watches. So many to choose from. Good news is that they have a relatively useful watch finder on their website that you can check out here. I really dig the Sports II collection of watches. Just great looking timepieces, and they have textured dials with tritium gas tubes in the hands. They also have some automatic versions of their watches, and the lady's timepieces are pretty nice as well. You can tell that the last two images are of women's watches.
Mondaine is obviously type cast a bit with the Swiss Railways watch, and it shows in all of their timepieces. It is going to be a while until you see a lot of totally original watches, but that is ok, because the look they have going for them works, and they are among the most affordable Swiss watches out there next to brands like Swatch. Mondaine timepieces are even mostly less expensive than Tissot timepieces. You also have to agree that Mondaine watches are world's easier to read than any most most Swatch or Tissot watches (not all, but most).
Looking at their collection, you can see classy dress watches, handsome casual watches, rugged sport watches, and almost every iteration and size you can think of based on the original classic look from the 1980s. Certainly a must have timepiece for most any well-rounded watch collection.
See Mondaine watches on eBay here.
See Mondaine watches on Amazon here.
 Mondaine Botta - White Dial - Polished Steel -Leather  US $49.00
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 Mondaine Chrono Big Date Men's Watch A690.30308.14SBB US $299.00
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 Mondaine Evo Quartz Big Date Watch A6693030011SBB US $169.99
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 Mondaine Evo Ladies Swiss Quartz Watch + Leather Strap US $149.99
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 Mondaine Evo Swiss Railway Pocket Watch A6603031611SBB US $164.99
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 Mondaine Swiss Red Ladies' Evo Watch A658.30320.26SBC US $129.99
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At the price of a Mondaine, there’s no reason why anyone interested in watches wouldn’t have one. It’s probably the cheapest watch with some ‘cult’ status. It’s even listed in the ‘Cult watches’ book, of which the (pretty extensive) Mondaine website has a PDF excerpt (together with many other PDF excerpts from other brochures and books)
I have a Mondaine Wall Clock that I am quite fond of. The wrist pieces I have seen have been interesting but there is only so much money to go around. Tons of competition in that price range too.