Right after shipping off that Formex, I just got another watch in! Got this one off of a forum from a REALLY swell guy… sold it to me for such a great price and included Express Shipping all they way to Canada. Got off easy with no duties/taxes too!
Anyway.. here is the wonderful watch from ball:
This is truly one of my favourite watches I’ve received in a LONG time. When i play with it and wear it I get almost as giddy as I do when trying on a new Breitling! Ball watches have been around a while, making watches for the adverse conditions of the railroad building trade I believe. Their new watches have cool Tritium tubes in them to make the indices glow super bright for 25 years!! This one contains an Swiss ETA Automatic movement… the 2893-2. This movement is based on the ETA 2892-2 but wiht the addition of a GMT hand module.
This Ball I purchased is indeed used, and is an older one with the older packaging.. i believe newer models have a white box.
Comes with plenty of links, and a half link as well. A decent sized manual that i have not yet need to consult. Out of the box the watch is keeping time within COSC standards, which is very good. This watch just sits on the wrist really nicely and looks really darn good to boot!
All three hands and all hour indices have the tritium illumination from the tubes. The Second hand and GMT look the same in the dark, however you can tell the difference by the fact that the second one moves a lot quicker. Dial is a nice matte black finish with painted lettering… not quite as nice as the Breitling Dials, but still quite nice indeed. Bezel is very cool as well.
The back of the watch has a very neat engraving/stamping of a submarine, and mentions that the watch is good to -40degrees celcius… a nice feature as it does get cold in Canada!
The bracelet is very well made and I highly recommend the watch in general. Sapphire crystal, Solid stainless bracelet, very robust case and unique styling. It is a lot more streamlined than Breitling watches are, which tend to sit ON the wrist, rather than AROUND the wrist like the Ball.
This Ball also has the signaure ball crown lock which flips up when you release it and pull upwards. A neat feature, but more of s styling gimmick than anything else… kind of like Panerai’s crown protector!
I picked up an Invicta Grand Diver not too long ago to try out what a 47mm diameter watch would feel like on my wrist. I also liked the lines of the Grand diver and how it imitated the lines of the celebrated Omega Seamaster, but in a much larger format. The Planet Ocean never looked good on my wrist, but the Seamaster did.
This watch is VERY well made and a steal at the $160US Shipped price I paid, brand new. It came in the typicall yellow Invicta box and came with all the usual goodies. The suggested retail of $495 seemed unrealistic since it seems all invictas are available at what seems to be about 1/4 of the retail price.
The movement is a Miyota 21-Jewel non-hacking movement made in Japan. The face had some debris inside it and was cleaned out by me when I opened it up for inspection. I cleaned it out nice and good with alcohol, and the watch keeps very good time.. within 5 seconds a day.
Watch has TONS of links, great for a guy with a big wrist, over 8 inches i would say. I have a smaller wrist at 6 3/4. Watch is water resistant to 500m, so would make a great candidate for diving.. but the bezel is quite hard to turn while the watch is on, i could only imagine how hard it is to do with a glove on while diving.
Case is nice solid stainless, and VERY solid for the money. If you can’t afford a Seamaster, get yourself one of these bad boys PRONTO. You will not be disappointed… like every other invicta… tremendous value for the Money.
Been a while since I posted a review.. been very busy with work but have still picked up a few pieces that I should have done some write-ups on. This is a watch a picked up some time ago but just never had the time to post… its a very sweet watch. I keep saying I feel like James Bond when I wear it…. It was introduced around the time the movie Spectre came out, and a Limited Edition Bond version was released with it, featuring a textile Nato strap.. very cool. This one is on leather but also came with the bracelet. The case measures a very nice 41mm in diameter, and a very healthy 14.65mm thick – perfect dimensions, IMO.
The dial is a matte black with antique lume indices that are inset into the dial. The indices are entirely made up of luminous material, there is no metal or anything. The watch is a re-issue of 1957 Seamaster 300, which you can see a neat comparison of the two side by side that Omega does on their marketing page whenever they re-issue vintage pieces. This piece features the Liquidmetal® ceramic bezel. This technology allows Omega to embed metal numerals into the ceramic bezel – the special metal fuses seamlessly with the Ceramic, and is harder than stainless steel.
Here’s a shot of the crown side of the case, with Omega’s characteristic brushed sides which continue on this Seamaster as well. As many of you know, this is one of those features that looks great, but the watch polishing place always charges extra to do it because its not as easy to touch up! The bezel has some grooves in it, making it much easier to turn than the regular Seamaster 300m Diver. The crown actually features matching sized grooves and gives the crown sort of a cog-like relationship with the bezel.
Tried to score a nice macro beauty shot of the dial, but the depth of field is a bit small.. still looks good though. The sapphire crystal is slightly curved and has anti-reflective coating inside only, and not on the outside. Usually this means you won’t see the blue tint that is on the crystal, but the crystal isn’t quite as anti-reflective as if it were on both sides. You can see the inset indices really well here, and what’s also pretty cool is while the antique lume looks sort of yellow in the light, it glows a neon blue in the dark. I forgot to take a lume-shot, but they are readily available on Google image search as well as Omega’s marketing page. Of note, the minute hand and lume-dot on the bezel are green lume, not blue lume like the rest of the watch.
The beautiful exhibition case back shows off the fantastic Omega Calibre 8400 that is the soul of the watch. This spectacular movement features Omega’s Co-Axial escapement, anti-magentic properties up to 15,000 gauss and two barrels providing up to 60hrs of power reserve. It is also a certified chronometer, like most of Omega’s movements. The movement rotor and bridges are finished simply, but nicely. I always like exhibition case backs, and am very happy that this one provides a nice wide view of the whole movement.
In conclusion, I am really happy with this timepiece. This is a great piece of Omega History, modernized for our hipster generation. I love the retro look of the 1957 re-issue, but with the new in-house Omega 8400 movement, ceramic bezel with Liquidmetal® numerals, and awesome anique lume that glows neon blue. Its just such a successful merging of old & new. Highly recommend this if it suits your tastes!
General Specs:
Case Diameter: 41mm
Case Thickness: 14.65mm
Material: Stainless Steel
Movement: Omega 8400
Power Reserve: 60 hours
Water Resistance: 300m
Breitling has released a new model, which isn’t really new. More like an option on a previous released model from last year, the Superocean 44 Special. Its a nice option for those of us that don’t like the blacksteel cases like myself. I don’t mind the look of blacksteel I just don’t like how it ages after its been bumped and scratched a few times. Overall, not a particularly interesting release from Breitling, but a release nonetheless.
Superocean 44 Special
A diver with a steely temperament
With its sturdy steel case, its ultra-legible dial and its rotating high-tech ceramic bezel, the new Superocean 44 Special plunges securely to a depth of 1,000 m (3,300 ft). This special series with its technical and original style is available in black or blue versions.
