I had been looking at Ball Watches
for so long and when they finally released the Skindiver I just couldn’t resist
it. Their whole concept with filling up the whole dial with tritium tubes just
felt so ridiculously cool. Today I’ve grown apart from the tritium tubes but
back in the summer of 2013 I still thought they were an awesome feature.
Initially I had had my eyes on
the Ball Engineer Master Diver II COSC version but the misalignment with the
day and date window looked horrible. I was therefore considering the non-COSC
version but quickly realized the green or red details on the inner bezel would be too much and
start to annoy me. But then Ball announced the Skindiver. It had a great retro
design, a lot of tritium tubes in different colors and it even had a lumed filled bezel. So I started scanning the
for sale-pages for a used one and eventually found one in a really good condition
from a seller in United States who agreed on shipping it overseas. Said and
done, the Skindiver was on its way.
 |
| #185 - The Ball Skindiver. |
 |
| A slightly domed crystal. |
 |
| Great artwork on the case back. |
I was really impressed by its
finish and overall high quality. It looked stunning. And the case back, WOW!
Ball must have one of the coolest line-up of case back engravings in history. I
can’t say I liked the appearance of the bracelet very much but I must admit
that it was very well engineered and was super comfortable to wear. It measured
40mm excl. crown and sizewise it felt like wearing a mix between a Rolex
Submariner and a Marathon SAR.
Why I started to get second
thoughts about Ball, and all watches with tritium tubes in general for that
matter, was because even though the tubes are supposed to be glowing for 25 years
they actually start to fade quite quickly and just in a couple of years you can
notice a huge difference in decreased glow capacity. I want a watch to age with
dignity. Older watches actually tend to look better the more they age (to a
certain extent of course) but newer watches just start to look like shit the
more they are used and the older they get. Of
course that statement doesn’t apply to all new watches but that’s just how I feel for a lot of newly produced models.
 |
| How can you not fall in love with this product image? (borrowed from Ball Watches) |
After owning the Skindiver I
felt that I barely had scratched the surface of all cool Ball watches to
discover but I actually haven’t had a single one since then. On Swedish watch forums
they are rarely seen for sale so I really haven’t had any good opportunities either.
I honestly can’t say that I’m sure I will own something from Ball ever again.
At least that’s how I feel today.
© All pictures by a Watch
Flipper's Diary unless noted.
