Rare Salvage Bronze - Vintage Wall

Selten Salvage Bronze

Hand-crafted patina. Bronze that will age alongside you. And no two pieces are exactly the same.

Salvage Bronze is one of the most intriguing projects from Hong Kong’s Selten. Instead of a classic mass-produced dial, the watches feature a hand-patinated metal surface, the final appearance of which cannot be perfectly controlled. Each dial therefore has its own unique pattern, texture, and color. As a result, every piece is an original.

The patina is created for Selten by an artist in the USA using a proprietary formula. Controlled patination can involve various materials and influences, ranging from chemicals, salt, wood, and soil to rain or fire. The result is not a set of perfectly identical dials, but rather small abstract paintings.

Triple-layer dial

The construction of the dial itself is just as interesting as its surface. Selten uses a three-layer sandwich construction.

The bottom layer contains recessed luminescent indices, the middle consists of the hand-patinated dial itself, and above it lies a sapphire layer with anti-reflective coating and printed indices. This creates an unusual spatial effect that simultaneously lets the patinated surface take center stage.

Swiss Super-LumiNova in an Old Radium shade is applied to the dial, hands, and bezel.

A watch that will keep on changing

The patina doesn’t end with the dial. The case is made of CuSn8 bronze, which naturally reacts with its environment and gradually acquires its own patina through use.

Selten has done part of the work for you by creating a unique dial. You will complete the second part yourself just by wearing the watch. The bronze will gradually darken and change shade, so the appearance of each piece will continue to evolve over the years.

A true bronze diver

Beneath the artistic surface lies a fully capable diving watch. The bronze case has a diameter of 39 mm, a 47 mm lug-to-lug distance, and a height of 12.25 mm excluding the crystal.

The unidirectional 120-click bezel features a matte black ceramic insert, the crown is screw-down, and the water resistance is 200 meters. A distinctive box-shaped sapphire crystal adds a slight vintage character while allowing for a lower bezel profile.

Inside beats the high-frequency automatic Miyota 9039 with a power reserve of approximately 40 hours. The watch comes on a black FKM rubber strap.

Three variants, three different moods

Blue Cave
The darkest and perhaps most dramatic of the trio. Royal blue shades intertwine with ink-black areas, and Selten compares the final effect to looking into a mysterious underwater cave. Depending on the specific piece and the lighting, the dial can appear anywhere from a vivid blue to almost black.

Terrarium
A more natural-themed variant, working primarily with moss-green shades complemented by subtle yellow accents. The resulting texture is reminiscent of looking into a small terrarium – the organic pattern of the patina works particularly well here because no surface is perfectly regular.

Vintage Wall
The warmest of the trio. Deep brown tones are complemented by amber traces, and the irregular texture resembles an old wall showing layers of time. In our opinion, the Vintage Wall also connects most naturally with the bronze case and its future patina.

Why choose Salvage Bronze?

Because here, the phrase "every piece is an original" truly takes on its full meaning.

The hand-patinated dial is unique the moment you receive the watch. The bronze case will then begin to change based on how and where you wear it. In a few years, your Salvage Bronze will look different from all the others.

And beneath it all remains a very capable 39mm diver with 200-meter water resistance, a ceramic bezel, sapphire crystal, and an automatic Miyota 9039.

Selten created the dial. Time and your wrist will do the rest.

Technical details:

About the brand Selten

Selten is an independent Hong Kong brand founded in 2021 by Leonardo Tsai, who comes from a family involved in the production of watch dials. It is therefore no surprise that dials are among the brand's greatest strengths.

Selten works with unusual materials and techniques, such as natural mother-of-pearl, meteorite, guilloché, or various surface finishing methods. The name Selten means "rare" in German and reflects the founder's respect for German watchmaking.

Selten is an independent Hong Kong brand founded in 2021 by Leonardo Tsai. He hails from a family involved in watch dial manufacturing, which explains why unusual materials and dial processing play such a significant role in the brand's creations.

Selten enjoys experimenting with materials and manufacturing techniques, and Salvage Bronze is perhaps the best example of this. It is not just about a different color for a standard dial – its uncontrollable patination means that every piece produced has its own character.