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tritium

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In the vast panoply of watch brands, it is inevitable that there are some brands that we simply have never covered, whatever the reason may be. Luminox is one of those brands. For me, I was always aware of them (I still remember seeing the workbench ads in Popular Mechanics), but we just never made contact. Well, that is, until recently. I had run across a particular model (as it turns, a rather old one), and went chasing things down to get some solid contacts with the brand. As it were, that watch was no longer available, but of course, there was plenty of others in the catalog to have a look at. And that, dear reader, is how we arrived at today, with my review of the Luminox 1924.

If there is one thing that I know you and I like, we like dive watches. Sure, we may not get any deeper than the local pool allows, but we seem to be drawn to that promise of adventure and robustness, the very tool-like nature, of the dive watch. There are certainly no shortage of options, and a good many of them are well done and quite affordable. If you are looking for an indie brand with some amazing in-the-dark visibility, Deep Blue is probably one of your first stops. We have been covering them a lot lately, but that is because they have had a spate of new releases. In fact, in conjunction with the upcoming Baselworld exhibition, they just announced the Deep Blue Daynight Scuba.

Over the past few years, I have had the pleasure of sampling a variety of different watches from Ball, with quite a few different styles in play. For all of that variety, I had yet to go hands-on with anything from their Engineer line (Engineer II, yes, but not Engineer). Well, we saw fit to rectify that particular oversight, and got to spend some time with the Ball Engineer Hydrocarbon.

If you are a fan of watches that light up the night, you have plenty of options. There are the heavily-lumed watches to go for (such as the Seiko Monster), or you can go in a different direction, with watches that rely on tritium tubes for their illumination. One of the brands we have featured in the past with these tubes is British company Nite Watches. Until now, all of their watches have featured quartz movements. That changes with the launch of the Nite Icon Automatic.

I don’t see a lot of watches with tritium gas tubes for illumination, so I was pretty interested in checking out the two Chronologia Dive Watches, the R004 and R004 Chronograph. I was also a tad skeptical, since I do have an automatic preference for automatics, but I found that I really enjoyed wearing both of these watches (though the 3-hander is more my style).

When it comes to the watches that Ball Watch has on offer, it is like a double-edged sword, at least to me. What first drew me in to the brand was the Engineer line, with its bold styling and use of multi-colored tritium tubes. As I have spent time with the brand’s wares (and refined my own tastes), I have come to realize that I prefer things a bit more subdued (such as with the Ball Watch Engineer II Marvelight or Trainmaster Kelvin. That all said, I think another great – and entry-level – option from the brand would be the Ball Watch Night Train DLC.

Tritium-equipped watches are nothing new to these pages. We have taken a look at a few different brands and varieties over the past few years, and I always have come away enamored with the light output (and colors of said light) of the watches. Today, we have got something a bit different with regards to the tubes used. For the first time here, we will be featuring a watch that has flat tritium tubes – the Nite Icon T100.

Ball is a brand that first caught my eye a few years back for its use of tritium tubes in a variety of ways across their catalog. They are not just a one trick pony, though. In the last year or so, they have introduced quite a bit of technical innovations to their watches and movements. One of the latest ones that will be coming down the pike is the Ball Engineer II Magneto S Watch.