Aftermarket Panerai Review

Kain Heritage Straps Review

Kain Heritage Panerai Straps

Origin: Hong Kong
Construction: Lock-Stitched
Materials: New Leathers
Buckles & Tubes: Tubes and Buckles Included
Price Range: $65-110
Website: Click Here
Date of Review: January 6th, 2010

Kain Heritage is another Hong Kong Panerai strap manufacturer - one of many such as Heroic18 and Strapculture. With so many others, it is always difficult to compete to create a unique identity when the branding is somewhat similar and the straps seem like they might be as well.

The first thing I must comment about Kain Heritage is that not only are their straps a bit cheaper, but they definately come in nicer packaging than many of their competitors. The strap is put in a pouch, and then into a semi-hard case that would make a great Panerai carry case if it didn't use a magnet to close it. I would worry that the magnet might magnetize my watch. If I were Kain Heritage I would remove the magnet and market that case as a watch carry case.

Both straps costed $99, and come from their higher-end Veteran line. The straps measure 130/80mm, and are 4.5mm thick and include both tubes and Kain Heritage's own proprietary buckles. In the above photograph, the strap on the left is called "Vintage Lawn Calf" and the one on the right is "Special Vintage Brown Calf".

The Vintage Brown Calf has a wonderful Charcoal stitching that goes fanastic with the strap, and if you put it on a PVD buckle, I suspect it would go amazing with any PVD Panerais. Keepers are both floating, as is typical of the style of most of the Asian manufacturers. I personally prefer two floating keepers as it tends to require less bending of the strap to put on.

You can see the deep texturing on the Brown Calf, and the edge coating is a shiny type. When the leather is bent, they feel like they are of a very good quality. Different from many Asian strapmakers is the construction. For construction style, Kain uses a single peice of leather folded over itself more similar to what you would see on handmade Ammo Strap styles.

The Vintage Lawn is a very uniquely colored strap, with a generally brown color, but with a slight green or olive hue to it, also with a deep texture to it. This one is fitted with a polished buckle and like the Vintage Brown will fit a wrist size of around 6 to 8 inches.

The Kain Heritage Veteran buckles are extremely chunky, and screwed in. They are available in a few different finishes including Black, Brushed and Polished. The price for the buckles separately is $34.

Both straps seem to be made from a similar leather as far as weight, thickness and flexibility. The are of a medium flex, and exhibit some lightening when bent, allowing the strap to develop some character the longer you use it. The Lawn Vintage strap sports an ivory colored stitching, which is also an excellent choice to match up with the greenish brown base color.

Here you can see the Lawn Vintage Kain Heritage strap on my PAM90, and the color combo is a great fit. Both straps are great choices for your basic black colored Panerai watches, but the Lawn and Ivory Stitch a bit more so since the Charcoal stitch of the Vintage Brown lends itself better to pairing with a black DLC coated watch.

Finally a wrist shot of the Vintage Lawn Strap. The strap looks fantastic as you can see. One notable thing about the Kain Heritage straps is that the leathers have a very good quality feel to them, and they lean towards Heritage and Vintage looks, as their name may suggest. Check these guys out, they make a very good strap with some interesting styles that have nice subtle differences.