Schofield is one of those newer watch brands (out of England) that I’ve been following with some interest. We reviewed their strap kit (here), as getting a watch sample in for review has been tricky, due to the demand for the pieces (that said, I’ll have a link for you at the end of a hands-on review). Their latest model, to be introduced at SalonQP later this year (November 7-9), should follow that same mold.
The Blacklamp Carbon follows some of the design that we’ve seen in the Signalman, but there are some big (and obvious changes). First and foremost, lets address the usage of carbon. For this watch, Schofield has come up with a proprietary carbon fiber matrix (that they’re calling Morta), which is hand-laid and formed into individual billets that are then machined into the cases for each of the 101 pieces in this limited edition. While they should all look relatively the same, the manual process all but guarantees some variability (in looks, not structural integrity, one hopes).
Further differentiating each serial in the lineup is how they’re named – each one carries the name of a different English lighthouse, from Wolf Rock (in the southwest) to St. Bees (on the Cumbrian coast). This then plays into the usage of light sources within the watch. Most prominently, the crown of the watch will feature an embedded tritium tube shown above). Next, on the rehaut ring, there’s a material called Moonglow. This apparently was developed by NASA, and casts (what looks to be) an even glow over the dial.
And, should those not be enough for you to see you Unitas 6498 powered watch in the dark, they’re also bundling in a 500 lumen flashlight that you could use, well, as a flashlight. Or to “charge up” the Moonglow material on the watch (though, for that purpose, I’d be tempted to carry a UV flashlight).
However you decide to view the watch in the dark, you’d need to consider yourself fortunate to have one – as I mentioned, there’s only 101 of these being made, and Schofield models seem to sell very quickly (even with the asking price of around $13,000 for this model). For the rest of us, we can follow along the development of the watch very easily, as it actually has it’s own blog . While I’m glad to see the Blacklamp will be surfacing very soon, I’m also quite interested to see what else Schofield has up their sleeves.
Oh! And while you wait for the watch to hit, check out what James Stacy over at aBlogtoWatch had to say about the Schofield Signalman right here.
