The hands and dial markings are coated with Super Luminova which gives a terrific night time glow, although they are still not as bright as my Seiko diver.

The case of the watch is a Monster of design. I suppose partly to the 500m depth rating. The bezel is unidirectional and clicks round the dial at 1 minute intervals. It also lines up perfectly with the hour and minute markers. The screw down crown is protected by the massive case protrusion. I thought this might dig into my wrist but because the case has a deep screw on back, it raises this away and is in fact very comfortable.

The case is a matt finish which is I think caused by bead blasting. Not to sure how this will wear over time, or how it can be restored if it gets scuffed. But it does look very smart and and understated. If this was all shiny it would not look anywhere near as good.

The case back is engraved with the model no, depth rating, anti magnetic rating and the words certified chronometer. This means that the watch time regulation is tested against a DIN 8319/ ISO 3159 standard and the watch is supplied with a certificate to show this testing an how the watch has performed. This is done on a per watch basis so each watch will vary slightly. Placing the watch face up, face down, crown up crown down etc. a reading is taken for each position then averaged out. The figures for my watch are as follows -2,0,+1,+1,0 this gives an average of ZERO. This will make this the most accurate mechanical watch that I own. I will see how this holds up over the next few weeks.

As you can see from the Chronometer certificate this watch has been handled by the prominent master watchmaker Dirk Dornbluth. He carried out the assembly and the proofing of the watch see here for more info on them in the Dornbluth article.

The overall project has been managed by Walter Fricker who also made the case. They produce for people like Sinn, Kobold, Tutima amongst others. More info can be found here

The watch movement is a ETA 2824-2T (Top) with decoration. I have not opened the watch (nor do I intend to) as with all my other watches I would rather leave this to the professionals. Plus one of my friends is a master clockmaker. Though we rarely talk about watches our shared interest is RC Models .

The movement is self winding with hacking seconds and a quickset date. I find it easy to set the time accurately as the movement has a positive feel to it and does not jump or move when you press the crown in. My Omega is often difficult to set the minute hand to the correspond with the second hand on the first attempt.

So overall this is a fabulous watch at a very reasonable sum of money. Other equivalent watches dare I say Rolex Sea Dweller or the above mentioned Doxa have similar features but are both cost considerably more money and lets face it will never be available as a 200 set limited edition. That's not to say I would not like like to own those other two watches ;-). The Seiko Divers and such are also excellent but are produced in their thousands so will probably not be worth anything like this would be in a few years.

This will be a very hard act to follow and my next watch decision could be a long time coming. Looking forward to many years of big watch wearing fun.

Mark

OK, now hopefully your interested where can you get one? Well you may struggle as this is a limited run of only 200 watches. But some may come available second hand on ebay or such. There may be a non limited GMT version in the future. Don't hold your breath though.

UK Dealer