The Doxa 600T Professional vs the Seiko Orange Monster

The purpose of this post is not to compare a Chihuahua to a Great Dane, and then declare the Great Dane to be the winner.  My purpose is to compare 2 orange watches, and give useful information that can help the reader decide if he or she (Hi, Lulu Diver!) wants a Doxa, or a Seiko Orange Monster.  When I refer to Pete Millar and his website, I want to emphasize that I intend no criticism towards him.  I merely desire to complement his website with additional information, and give my point of view.  Doxa S.A., and Doxa collectors everywhere owe him a debt of gratitude for the company's return from the dead.
CLARIFICATION : There are lots of watches that look like dive watches, but those that are built to go deep under water typically have the word Professional in their name, or on the dial.  All of Doxa's dive watches are profesional i.e. serious dive watches, but they named their orange-faced (orange-dial) dive watches Professional.  Their blue-faced watches are called Caribbean, their yellow-faced watches are Divingstars, and their black-faced watches are called Sharkhunter.
I recently purchased a limited edition, Clive Cussler series Doxa 600T Professional, and experienced strong emotions as soon as I took it out of the box.

First, some history:  in the mid 1960s Doxa S.A. made the original orange-faced dive watch--that is easier to read under water, and under poor light conditions.  It's their invention, and they do it very well.  Seiko has been in business since 1881, a full 8 years more than Doxa, founded in 1889. 

Actually Seiko is more than 8 years older than Doxa, because Seiko has continuously been in business, while Doxa went bankrupt when low-priced Japanese quartz watches (including Seikos) killed the Swiss watch market.  When I got PADI certified in 1988, and I was shopping for a dive watch, Doxa was out of business, so I had never heard of them.  I saw some orange-faced Japanese dive watches at the time, but nobody explained to me why orange-faced dive watches were the bees knees, and I thought they were garish.  Besides, I wanted a dive watch that I could wear with a suit & tie--hence my Heuer 1000m Professional--so I wasn't going to wear a loud orange watch.

Scroll forward to the late 2000s, when I realized that I regretted selling my Rolex GMT Master for a rip-off price to the watch repair shop, and I wanted a nice mechanical watch.  I don't remember if I bought my Seiko Orange Monster before after I stumbled across Dr. Peter Millar's excellent private website dedicated to Doxa dive watches (the company makes other watches, too).  Pete's website was born of his personal love and nostalgia for the orange-dialed dive watch worn by novelist Clive Cussler's creation, Dirk Pitt.  Either way, I was quite impressed with the Orange Monster.  I also have its twin sister, the Seiko Black Monster, but don't wear it for reasons that I will give in a later, separate post.

Bottom line is that I was in love with the Orange Monster.  Of course, the urge to wear a nice Swiss watch that is easily recognized by people who are not WISs (Watch Idiot Savants) continued to gnaw at me, and last year I finally had the money for an Omega Planet Ocean.  I wanted the large 45.5. millimeter edition of the watch:

When it arrived via UPS, I was stunned by how beautiful it was.  It was big, shiny, and solid.  It weighs a ton.  To my very pleasant surprise, it was every bit as luminescent as the Orange Monster, something that nobody had mentioned.  I would wear the Orange Monster on one wrist, and the Planet Ocean on the other, when I walked the dog in the dark, and the Planet Ocean was the Orange Monster's equal.  This was also true at 02:00 in the morning, when my 45 year old bladder would wake me up.

You would think that the Omega would now be my one & only, and that the Seiko would sleep in the drawer.  Nope: I wear both, every day.  I love my Orange Monster.

So why did I buy a Doxa 2 weeks ago?

Because I am a WIS. 

Despite owning a kick-ass Swiss dive watch, I continued to haunt Pete Millar's website, and the Doxa forum at WatchUSeek.

So, the Doxa arrived via Fedex, and when I opened the box, I was struck by how tiny the watch was.  It was microscopic.  Miniscule.  I will probably do a separate Doxa 600T vs Omega Planet Ocean 45.5 mm review, but it will have a lot of overlap with this review's comparison of the Doxa vs the Seiko.

First, an explanation:  the Doxa line of dive watches vary quite a bit in size.  This review compares the smallest Doxa vs the largest Omega only because that's what I own.  The name i.e. number of each Doxa does not necessarily denote its size: the names denote their depth ratings: the Doxa 600T is water-resistant to 600 meters, as is the Omega Planet Ocean 45.5 mm.  The 600T is the same size as the 42mm version of my Planet Ocean.  The Doxa 750T is resistant to 750 meters, but that has nothing to do with the fact that they made the 750T with a much larger case, and dial.  They did that because Doxa's rabid fan base a.k.a. loyal customers (the Doxaholics) demanded a bigger watch, in keeping with the modern trend towards large-sized watches.

When I saw the 600T Pro for sale on WatchUSeek's sales corner, I assumed that the watch would be a normal-sized watch, and had no idea that my brain had become accustomed to over-sized watches.  The 600T is not actually small: it is normal.  Watches today have gotten so big that normal watches look small, in comparison.  Here is my 600T next to Skarret Smith's Rolex GMT Master II:

The take-away here is that if I tired of my Omega Planet Ocean 45.5 mm, and got a Rolex, I would think that the Rolex is too small.  So why didn't I realize that Doxas are so "small" ?   Because Pete put a Doxa 750T next to a Rolex Submariner Sea-Dweller (same size as the Rolex GMT, above), and from those photos I mistakenly assumed that all Doxas are bigger than Rolexes, closer to the larger Omegas in size.

So, how does the Doxa fare in comparison to the Seiko Orange Monster?  After all, that is the title of this posting.

LUMINESCENCE

Surprisingly, the Doxa 600T loses in this department in more than one way. Readers of Pete Millar's review of the 600T on his website already know this, but I want to point out several specifics:

1) The lume on the Doxa 600T wears out much faster i.e. does not last all night long.

2) The midget hour hand is a famous Doxa characteristic that is designed to make sure that the diver does not confuse the hour hand with the minute.  Unfortunately, this also provides little space for lume.

3) The amount of lume on the hour and minute hands is too little.  Proportionately, the Orange Monster has a much higher percentage of the hands' surface area covered in lume.  Note in the photo, above, that on the Orange Monster the hands are basically black frames for holding a lot of glow-in-the-dark paint.  If you look at the hands on the re-issue Doxa 300T, they did it right i.e. they did what Seiko does with the Orange Monster, where the hands are thin black frames (the black sticks out against the orange dial, making it easier to read the time in daylight) holding a lot of lume.

4) I like the second hand on the Doxas, better.  Besides the fact that it's a signature piece of the Doxa design, the large white square of lume on Doxa dive watches' second hands glows more brightly than the hour hand.

THE ZERO MINUTE MARKER ON THE ROTATING BEZEL

Very few watch companies get this right: the lume on the zero minute marker is disproportionately small on both the Doxa and the Seiko.  Those Luminox watches that use a tritium marker get it right, as do all of Ball's dive watches.  Doxa and Seiko need to increase the size of the luminescent markers on their dive watches' rotating bezel.  Bali Hai (unrelated to Ball) is one of the few watch brands that does it right.

THE ORANGE DIAL

I realize that this is sacrilage, but the Seiko has a better shade of orange.   In the hand, the orange on the 600T is a deep, serious orange that has gravitas.  This darker shade of orange adds to the watch's high-quality look.  Unfortunately, the 600T's deep orange also makes it harder to read the watch both in daylight, and at night:

1) In daylight, it is hard to distinguish the black hands from the dark orange dial.

2) At dusk, or at night, the deep orange does not give the dial that odd glow that enhances readability.  For a Doxa, that's pretty ironic.  If you look at the current range of T Professional divers on Doxa's official website, you will see various shades of orange.  On their website, at least, the 1200T looks like it has a better (lighter) shade of orange that might be able to compete with the Seiko for readability.

3) The actual size of the 600T's dial is noticeably smaller than the Orange Monster's

The Seiko's orange--on the other hand--has a faded, cheap, yellowish cast to it.  It makes the watch look cheaper, but it is precisely this yellow-orange color that makes it easier to read the time on the Orange Monster in daylight, and at dusk/night-time.  Probably under water, too.

THE CRYSTAL

Both the 600T and the Orange Monster have curved crystals, and this is a good thing.  Numerous blogs, along with posts on WatchUSeek, hate curved crystals.  I think that the curved--as opposed to flat--crystals do a good job of re-directing the kinetic energy of impacts on the watches' fronts, reducing the damage to the crystal, or even the metal parts of the watch.  Despite the fact that the Orange Monster's crystal is not made of (synthetic) sapphire [the crystal of the entire Doxa dive watch range is made of scratch-proof sapphire], the curved shape avoids scratches & gashes by letting the offending object slide off the crystal's surface.  There are complaints that curved crystals reflect light in a weird way that makes it harder to look at the watch and tell the time, but I could make the same complaint about flat watch crystals.

THE DATE WINDOW

Doxa loses to Seiko on two fronts:

1) Both watches have black numbers on a white field, but the font of the numbers for the date on the 600T consists of very thin letters.  The same-sized numbers on the Seiko are just bolder, hence easier to read.

2) Seiko and Citizen dive watches (along with their dress watches, etc.) have the day of the week, along with the date.  I have been complaining about the fact that Swiss dive watches do not have these feature.  I wish that Doxa, Omega, et al would have the day of the week.  Make it an option.  At least in the past, you could buy your Rolex Submariner with- or without the date.  I only recently realized that in fact, Ball dive watches do have the day of the week.

THE MINUTE MARKERS

This is one of those seemingly small details that can be a deal-breaker: the minute markers on the Seiko Orange Mnster are bolder than the thin, hard-to-see ones on the Doxa 600T.  When I glance at my Orange Monster, I instantly know that it's 11:36 a.m.  With the Doxa, I have to study the minute hand's location i.e. which thin little black line i.e. minute marker it's actually pointing at, before I decide that it's 11:36 a.m.

     ONCE AGAIN, THE JAPANESE HAVE TAKEN A GERMANIC PRODUCT, AND MADE IT BETTER.

     WELL, EXCEPT FOR ONE THING:

PRECISION

The Seiko Orange monster is a notoriously inaccurate watch.  Mine is 20 seconds slow per day.  It also does not have a hacking, hand-wind movement.  There are high-quality Seikos that cost a helluva lot more money, that have precise, hand-winding, hacking movements, but none of them are orange monsters.  Too bad they don't make a Seiko Marine Master with an orange dial.  There are rumors floating around that Seiko has seen the light, and has come out with a new Orange Monster that has a precise, hand-winding, hacking movement.  I have seen illustrations of it, and can see that they changed the rectangular shape of the luminescent 5 minute  markers into wedges that point at the 5, 10, 20, 25, 35, 40, 45, 50, and 55 minute markers..  This may, in fact, improve the ability to discern if it is 11:34 vs 11:35 vs 11:36 a.m.

The Doxa 600t on my wrist is 10 years old, and it is + 3 seconds a day.  Now, that's a Swiss watch for you!  I have not re-set the time on it since it arrived, 2 week ago.

THE ROTATING BEZEL

This is a deal-breaker for me. 

     Imagine wearing the Doxa 600T--or any Doxa dive watch while carrying out some physical activity, and asking yourself, "How many minutes have gone by?"  If your reading glasses are stapled to your face, you might be able to answer that question.  With the Seiko Orange Monster, a blind man can tell how much time has gone by.

     There is a reason why the minutes are so small on the Doxa's rotating bezel: they need space for the second set of numbers--in orange--on the outside of the rotating bezel.  These numbers are the US Navy's no-decompression limit numbers.  This is a very useful function that Doxa invented in the 1960s, but it has its limits: a true no-decompression table is precisely that, a table:

Clearly, the no-decompression limits on the outer ring of Doxa's dive watches are just a guideline.  A cheatsheet, if you will.  When I used to dive in the 1980s, I had to know how to use the whole chart, and had a plastic copy of it tethered to my buoyancy compensator (dive vest).

HEFT, WEIGHT, SIZE

The Seiko Orange Monster--like the Omega Planet Ocean 45.5 mm--is a heavy watch.  It feels substantial, solid, and confident, but a lot of people won't like wearing a cannon ball on their wrist.  The 600T, on the other hand, feels noticeably lighter, despite the fact that it is well-constructed, and made out of high-quality stainless steel. The links of the bracelet are solid, yet the 600T feels light as a feather on my wrist.  A big plus for the Doxa.

Again, the Doxa 600T looks small, if you have been wearing an Omega Planet Ocean , recently.  If you have never owned an over-sized watch, the 600T will appear to be normal-sized. 

CONCLUSION

I like the Doxa 600T, but I put it on sale on the WatchUSeek sales corner.  I am very interested in using the money from selling the 600T to buy a large Doxa Professional like the 750T, or the 1500T.  I like the idea of a large, Swiss-precision, orange-dialed (Professional) Doxa, as long as it is easy-to-read.  I would go for the 800Ti--Doxa's only tritium watch, but Doxa chose not to put a glass vial tritium marker on the second hand, because it would have broken format, by not having the large, square lume on the second hand.  Instead, they put a second hand that has an empty square.  They could have put the tritium marker vial sideways, which would have been 90 degrees off from how everybody else puts their tritium glass vial, and it would have resembled the square Doxa second hand.

The Seiko Orange Monster is The Perfect Watch

I have been walking around, composing entries for this blog in my head, for months.  The one thing that has kept me from posting is that I need to take the time to set up a photo shoot of various watches' luminosity over time e.g. the course of one evening.  Life is busy, so I keep putting it off.  A lot of weird things have happened in the past 6 months.  I got laid off, but have been able to keep chugging along by working shifts at a local hospital. It's a tenuous existance--one in which you don't know whether or not you will be able to pay next month's mortgage--so worrrying about watches--be they $3,000 luxury watches or $100 eBay purchases--has no place.

The company that laid me off paid for me to go to these sessions with a company that helps you find job openings, write a winning resume, etc; all skills that I already had.  My first day there, I walked into the classroom, and this guy 10 years older than me in a dark Brooks Brothers suit was sitting in the corner, peering at the world over his half-glasses, a stainless steel GMT Master with the red & blue bezel on his left wrist.  I assumed that he was the guy teaching the "how to get a job" class.

Turned out he was one of the students, like me.  Coca Cola laid him off after he worked there for 20 years.  They eliminated his position (Gee, that's what happened to me!).

So, of course, I beat up on myself for getting pissed the last time my GMT died, instead of fixing it.

But, here's the thing: I have this crazy Seiko Orange Monster, and it's better than a Rolex:

(Try to ignore the mosquito bite)

Note that Saturday is in blue lettering.  Sunday is in red. Monday to Friday are in black.  Clever!

1) It's a mechanical watch (like Rolex and countless other watch brands)
2) It has a screw-down crown (like Rolex and countless other brands)
3) Its luminosity (because of the orange dial and copious amounts of phosphorescent paint) outshines anything Rolex or anybody else sells

What about Doxa, "The Inventors of Orange"?

Yes, Doxa is the original.  Esthetically, their watches are unique and beautiful.  Their hacking Swiss ETA movements are more accurate than Seiko movements (this is the one and only argument against the Orange Monster)

But, here's the thing:  If you go online, and cruise the various watch enthusiast forums, you keep discovering something really weird: all these guys out there who own Rolex, Omega, and/or Panerai (there are a bunch of guys out there who perversely own multiple Swiss luxury watches, while I currently can't afford to buy even one), you will discover something really bizarre: THEY ALL OWN A SEIKO ORANGE MONSTER.

WHAT THE HELL???

So, what this really comes down to is a big case of Swiss snobbery.  I can say that: I'm part Swiss.  My great-great grandfather was a priest who fled Hapsburg-era Hungary, grew tired of celibacy, and married a woman during his Swiss exile.

WHY THE SEIKO ORANGE MONSTER IS THE BEST:

1) It tells you what day of the week it is

That's it. Period. The other factors that I listed in paragraph 6 are common to other dive watches, GMT watches, or in the case of Omega (and why doesn't Rolex do this?) their GMT Dive Watch model # 2535.80 (that's the serial number, not its price).

None of the major Swiss brands have the day of the week on their dive watches.  Citizen--another Japanese company--also put the day of the week on their dive watches.

Why not the Swiss? 

There is no excuse, whatsoever, for not having the day and date on a "tool watch".

I have been lusting after the Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean large sized, with an orange bezel.  Once my employment situation solidifies, and my family life gets back to normal, I may make a long-term project out of saving up the money to buy a Planet Ocean, but something is nagging me:

Let's pretend I buy a lotto ticket, today, and win millions of dollars.  All my bills, mortgage, etc are paid off, and I can travel.  Obviously, I can afford whatever watch I want. 

But...why buy that Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean, when it only has the date, but not the day of the week?

Luminox: Marketing Success & Brand Failure

First, I'm going to explain what the hell a Luminox is, and why you should care. 

LUMINOX is an American brand of watch that has a lot of the parts made and assembled in Switzerland.  Their watches are radioactive, so they glow on their own 24 hours a day.  They are also waterproof.

Luminox's selling point is that they are the watch of the U.S. Navy SEALs.  Doesn't get more manly than that!  The problem with that is (1) Luminox has no history as an official supplier of watches to the U.S. military.  In the blog entry in which I talk about radioactive watches, we can laugh at the bullshit on one web site that gives the history of Luminox.  As a health physicist who works with radiation, I see they don't know what they're talking about.

Okay, I'm gonna stop saying 'waterproof' now, and tell the truth:

There is a concept out there that there is no such thing as a waterproof watch.  In the past, watches that could be submerged while the wearer was swimming (at whatever depth) had the word 'waterproof' engraved on the back, or front.  Due to the passage of various standards and regulations, manufacturers aren't supposed to print that on their watches any more.  Instead, they are supposed to put 'water resistant' preferably with a rating of how deep the watch can go under the surface, without imploding (As you can imagine, water inside a watch will make it stop working, and if you wait a couple of days instead of running straight to the watch repair guy at the mall, the parts will rust.  The guy who bought my Heuer 200 meter dive watch from me swam with the crown unscrewed {I will explain what that means, later}, and gave it back to me, rusted.).  Thanks, Keith.

Okay, back to Luminox.  If you have read my entry about radioactive watches, you will now understand why a watch with radioactive + luminous hands is awsome--in my mind the best choice.  So what makes Luminox watches (okay, the idea of Luminox watches) the greatest thing since sliced bread is that they are waterproof, and brightly glow in the dark 24 hours a day.

Here's the problem:  their watches suck.  Seriously.  They have one watch that I would highly recommend, and it's one that I want--but they should just throw the rest of their products into a ditch.  They have a whole line of watches, and I could shoot them all down one-by-one, by pointing out their shortcomings.  Instead of shooting down their entire on-line catalogue, I will discuss the two Luminoxes that I do own.  The complaints specific to them apply to most--if not all--of their other watches.  When I refer to a part as being radioactive, that means that there is a radioactive Tritium-filled gas tube mixed with glow-in-the dark paint, providing 24 hour self-illumination:

The cheapie black plastic watch (on the left side of the photo, above, of 3 watches) is the one that's supposedly the military issue Luminox, the 3001: 

Good Points:
=========
1) The hour, minute, & second hands are all radioactive, as are the hour markers.
2) The Zero Minute marker on the rotating bezel is radioactive.

Bad Points
========
1) The crown does not screw down.

2) The caseback does not screw in.

3) The rotating bezel is very hard to turn.  The rotating bezel--which is used to time how long you have been under water--on any dive watch should not be easy to turn (you don't want it to slip, and give you the wrong amount of time), but it should not be this hard to turn.

4) The crown is very hard to pull out, when you want to set the time.  I have to use a pair of needle-nose pliers, and I'm an adult male without arthritis or other medical problems.  This may explain how Luminox rates the watch as 200 meters water resistant; the crown's stem may be so tight as it passes through the case body, that water would have a tough time sneaking by.  There could also be one or two rubber O-rings on the stem.

Points 1 and 2 are absolutely crucial for a watch that is supposed to be a waterproof military watch.  Let me put it this way: I wouldn't go diving with a watch that lacks screw-down parts.

If you're not familiar with the concept of a screw-down crown or case-back, here's what you need to know:  When Rolex sells itself as a waterproof--whoops: water resistant--watch, they refer to their watches as being oysters.  In this case, what this means (and also in the case of other Swiss and Japanese dive watches who don't use the term oyster) is that the body of the watch can be closed off from the outside world, or shut tight.  Imagine having a plastic soda pop bottle.  The only way that water can get in or out of the bottle is if you unscrew the bottle cap.  Now imagine that the other end of the bottle is now a big screw cap that can unscrew, and allow access to that end of the bottle.  The traditional bottle cap end is analagous to the crown, where you wind up the watch, and set the time & date, while the wide, fat end of the bottle is where the watchmaker installs the watch movement in the factory, or where your local watch repair guy opens up the watch to clean and lubricate it. 

Both "ends" (on a watch they're at 90 degrees to each other) of the watch case have rubber O-rings that seal the deal.  Their job is to make sure that even under pressure, no water gets in.

Here's the problem: you need to make sure that the crown is screwed in, properly, when you are wearing the watch.  If the crown isn't screwed, it's an open door, and water will get inside.  It is your responsibility as the watch owner to obsessively check the crown.  The caseback, by default, is closed, because the only people who ever open it are watch makers or repair people.

What about the crystal, where I read the time?  Can't water get in that way?  Yes, it could, so they use a crystal of strong enough material (and shape) to resist the water pressure, and install it using special tools.  It's a locked door into the watch that can only be opened by specialists.

3) Take a close look at the logo and writing on the back of the watch.  It's a cheap sticker, and they didn't even slap it on there neatly.  Ouch.

Getting back to points 1 and 2, especially point #1:  If Luminox had merely called this watch a military watch, I wouldn't say anything, but to imply that it's a Navy SEAL watch--when their job is to scuba dive into places in order to sneak in unseen--that does not have a screw-down crown is unforgiveable.

Okay, now let's look at the stainless steel watch:

This one (see also the middle watch in the photo at the top of this page) is much better built.  Note that the caseback is crew-in.  Unfortunately, they didn't go the last step of also making the crown screw in.  What were they thinking? 

Good Points:

=========

1) Good quality stainless steel.

2) The rotating bezel turns smoothly.

3) Overall, the quality of the hands and dial are very good.  This watch looks well-made.

Bad Points:

========

1) The second hand is not radioactive.

2) The Zero minute marker on the rotating bezel is not radioactive.

3) The crown does not screw in.

4) Mineral glass crystal.  These crystals get scratched up, big time. I have seen a lot of different Luminoxes on men's arms that had scratched-up crystals.  Unbelieveable.

This watch's Zero minute marker is highly representative of everything wrong with Luminox watches.  It is a half-assed wimpy, watered-down compromise.  They should have gone all the way to one extreme, or the other.  Either the Zero minute marker should have been radioactive, or it should not be luminescent at all (like the second hand).  Huh?  Or, as another watch blogger once said, a big bucket of "WTF?"  Marathon, who really are official suppliers of watches to U.S. and Canadian uniformed services, and NASA, decided not to make their SAR (Search and Rescue) watch with a luminescent Zero minute marker.  They merely put a triangle that lets you know, "This is when I went under water."  Several other high-end watch companies have gone with this solution.  I asked a Marathon distributor why Marathon did that, and he answered, "No military necessity."  It's actually not specified in ISO 6425, but the military folks may actually feel that it truly is unnecessary--perhaps even undesireable.  But then again, maybe they just decided that if the military didn't specify it, then they're only going to make it according to what's in the standard, to avoid pissing off government purchasers. 

So what?

Well, the problem is that Luminox put a cheapo luminous dot on the Zero minute, and it (1) degraded very quickly, after I purchased it, and (2) it does not glow nearly as brightly as the radioactive markers on the rest of the watch.

In other words, it's useless.  It's useless because if you are somewhere dark, and look at the watch on your wrist, the bright radioactive markers will overwhelm your eyes, and keep you from seeing the much dimmer Zero minute marker.

Who cares?  Well, they may be called dive watches, but that rotating bezel is used to time all kinds of events, not just how long you have been under water.

The worst offender in their catalogue is a now-discontinued GMT watch that has a 4th hand--a 24 hour hand, so you can know what time it is in Djibouti--that is painted with wimpy, non-radioactive, low-end luminous paint.  Same goes for the rotating bezel.  On GMT watches the rotating bezel does not have zero to 59 minutes (so that you can keep track of when you spray & washed your laundry), but instead 1 to 24 hours of the day.  Since a GMT watch's purpose is to keep track of world time, why would you (a) put a luminous marker on the 24 hour spot, and (2) use cheap luminous material to mark it???

Needless to say, this watch's second hand is not radioactive. 

Somebody shoot me.

WHERE LUMINOX AND THE GOVERNMENT BOTH GOT IT WRONG:

All of Luminox's currently produced watches, along with a good number of other Tritium (radioactive) watches from other companies have quartz movements.  That's okay.  There are lots of reasons why someone (or some organization) may want a quartz movement, including (a) higher accuracy and (b) no need to wear it or hand-wind it to keep it running.  Why ask for a mechanical movement?  Well, you'll never find yourself on vacation in rural Hawaii/hiking Mt  Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland/under the Arctic Ice Cap on a nuclear submarine and suddenly scream, "My watch battery died!"

The one Luminox that I would want, and may actually buy one day is the 6602 in titanium, with a matching titanium bracelet.  That, or the same exact watch in stainless steel although it looks like--in their infinite wisdom--they discontinued the stainless steel version.  I have worn the stainless steel model on my wrist: it is gigantic, and very heavy.  Lots of watch purists don't like titanium watches, but in the case (no pun intended) of a watch this big, decreasing the weight substantially is worth it.

They have come out with a new watch, the 1501, which has all of the features that I ask for, above, but they still managed to do it wrong:  Yes, it is automatic (self-winding), and the second hand and Zero minute marker are radioactive (as are the hour and minute hands on all of their watches), and it even has an outstanding feature that Luminox has not had before: a helium escape valve.  But they made it in a style that could be described as "sporty".  You can't wear this watch at a business meeting, or a wedding.

OH, MAN,  THEY GOT SO CLOSE.  THEY ALMOST MADE IT, AND DROPPED THE BALL AT THE 1 YARD LINE!

Keep trying, Luminox, keep trying.  You'll get it right, one day.

Interestingly, another company got it right: Ball Watch Company.  Apparently, they make radioactive watches with radioactive markers in all the right places, and nice mechanical Swiss movements.  They even have a distinctive style that doesn't scream "Rolex Wannabe" (We'll ignore the fact that the Rolex Submariner, in turn, is a rip-off of the French navy's Blancpain 50 Meters).  Ball's GMT watch has a radioactive 24 hour hand.  Awsome.  Problem is, they cost as much as the other high-end (read: luxury) Swiss watches. Darn.

That's my only "complaint" about Ball watches: I can't afford one.

What do I want from Luminox?  I want them to make one dive watch, and one GMT watch with matching steel bracelets, and  a mechanical movement e.g. Swiss ETA 2824 and 2836 movements or the corresponding Japanese Seiko movement(s).  These 2 watches should be in stainless steel, 200 meters water resistant, with a screw-down crown, and screw-in caseback.  Sapphire, scratch-resistant crystal.  All markers should be radioactive, no combinations with luminous dots.  The dive watch should be $600 retail, and the GMT should be $675.  A verison of the diver with a helium escape valve and deeper rating could go for $950.

If I had a watch that fits the description, above, I would buy it, and it would be my one-and-only watch, that I wear all the time.  What do I do, now?  I wear my Ollech & Wajs 3095 on a leather strap in the office, and I wear the Orange Monster at night, and when I work in the ER on the weekends.  When I go camping, I wear the Luminox 3001.  Oy, vey.

AND NOW, A FEW WORDS ABOUT RADIOACTIVE WATCHES

AN ESSAY IN PLAIN ENGLISH, FOR NON-SCIENTISTS.

I WORK IN HEALTH PHYSICS AT A UNIVERSITY, SO UNLIKE A WHOLE LOT OF CLODHOPPERS OUT THERE, I ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. I am really tired of all the bad information out there on watch forums, blogs, and retail web sites.



I. What you need to know about radiation

II. Why some—but not all—watches are radioactive

III. A brief history of radioactive watches

IV. Radioactive watches today



I. WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT RADIATION.

     a. Radiation is the emission of energetic particles and/or photons from inside, or near the nucleus of the atom. Some—but not all—of the “bad” radiation that you hear about are alpha particles,

beta particles,

gamma photons, x-ray, and ultraviolet photons. There are other weird things that come out of the nucleus during various exotic types of radioactive decay, and like they say in the movie Airplane!, “But that’s not important right now.” What makes these particular particles and photons troublesome is that they can penetrate through our bodies, and while they are doing so, they ionize our living tissues. Ionization is the process of knocking electrons out of orbit. When you knock enough electrons out of orbit, all kinds of weird chemical reactions take place inside your cells, and they either die, or mutate. Picture somebody shooting you with a machine gun that shoots very tiny bullets through your body. The bullets are so small, that instead of visible wounds, you get chemical changes. Because of the ionization that these forms of radiation cause, the term radiation when used by biologists really means ionizing radiation i.e. radiation that can ionize you.

     b. Visible light, radio waves, microwaves, and the signal coming out of your cell phone are radiation, but they are not ionizing radiation. They don’t have enough energy to knock electrons out of orbit. So, the next time somebody heads for the microwave oven, and tells you that they are going to nuke their food, slap them. You have my permission.

    c. When you get x-rayed in the hospital, the x-rays are produced by an x-ray machine (which is basically a gigantic light bulb that is so powerful that instead of a 110 volt wimpy table lamp emitting visible light photons, it gives off 70,000 volt x-ray photons). The x-rays fly out of the glass tube, go through your body, and hit the image receptor (a cassette), forming an image. You only got ionized while the x-rays passed through you. You got ionized (chemical changes in your cells), but you did not become radioactive. Next time someone gets an x-ray, and then says, “I’m glowing!” slap them. You have my permission. The same is true when you hold something radioactive in your hand. Say you’re out hiking on Navajo territory, and find a piece of uranium ore. During the time that you hold it in your hands, your hands are getting ionized. As soon as you drop that rock, and wash your hands, you are no longer getting ionized. When you washed your hands, you didn’t “wash the radiation” off your hands, you washed the radioactive rock powder i.e. dust that came from the rock off your hands. So, the x-ray machine is called a Radiation Generating Device (the only kind of radiation they produce is X-ray) and the uranium ore you found is called Radioactive Material. The radioactive elements i.e. isotopes that are in the material determine what type(s) of radiation get emitted. Some isotopes emit only alpha. Others: beta, and still others: gamma. Some isotopes kick out any combination of the above.

     d. YEAH, BUT WHAT’S AN ISOTOPE? For an element to be an element, it has to have a fixed number of protons in its nucleus. EXAMPLE: Carbon.

     Any atom that has 6 protons in its nucleus is carbon. Period. Most carbon atoms also have 6 neutrons in their nucleus. That’s nice and balanced. This version of carbon, called Carbon 12, or C12, is not radioactive. However, if a carbon atom has less than, or more than 6 neutron, it starts to act weird, and will give off some sort of radiation. Let’s say a carbon atom has 8 neutrons. The 6 protons (remember, it has to have 6 protons, if it is carbon) and 8 neutrons make it radioactive Carbon 14, or C14. The same thing happens if the carbon atom only has 5 neutrons. Then it’s called C11, another isotope of carbon, and it, too is radioactive. C11 and C14 emit different particles. The same is true all across the Periodic Table of Elements. IMPORTANT: C14 and C11 not only emit different particles; they are also radioactive for two different amounts of time. Their half lives are different.

     e. WHAT IS A HALF LIFE? A Half-Life is the amount of time it takes something to be half as radioactive as it is today. Carbon 11’s half life is 20.4 minutes, and it decays (turns into) Boron 11. Carbon 14’s half-life is 5730 years, and it decays into Nitrogen 14. Pretty weird, huh?

     f. WILL I DIE IF I GET EXPOSED TO RADIATION? GET CANCER?
A little radiation? No. A lot of radiation? Depends on what the isotope is, and how much you were exposed to. Radiation has existed before there was life on Earth. Every cell in your body has repair mechanisms that spend all day long 24/7 fixing the damage from ionizing radiation. The threshold for how much is too much varies from person to person, and even changes for the same person, depending on their age and health status. This is why doctors and scientists won’t give clear, yes-or-no answers to questions about exposure.

II. WHY SOME WATCHES ARE RADIOACTIVE, AND OTHERS AREN’T

     a. First of all, why should any watch be radioactive? Surprise #1: Things that are radioactive do not glow. Period. There are lots of watches out there with “glow-in-the-dark paint” on the hands. The paint is nothing but a chemical that is luminescent. It gets energized by the sunlight, or some lamp in your house, and when you go into a dark room, the watch glows because the energized paint is slowly losing energy in the form of visible light. This is analogous to charging up a cell phone battery. If you have a watch with tons of luminescent paint on it—like a Seiko Monster—then it will grow longer and brighter: merely because it has more paint on the hands and dial than other watches (Seiko has a really good quality luminescent chemical that they developed, patented, and named Lumibrite, but it, too, will fade to complete darkness, given enough time). The solution to the problem of luminescent paint losing its energy, and no longer glowing is to mix something into the paint that will keep exciting it 24/7. Radioactive materials are mixed into the bottle of luminescent paint. What you don’t realize while you’re wearing the radioactive watch is that it is glowing with the same brightness all day long. During the day, your eyes are adjusted to the sun light, or the lights on in the room, so you have no way of seeing that your Luminox or Traser is glowing fiercely. AGAIN: WHEN YOUR TRASER RADIOACTIVE WATCH IS GLOWING, WHAT YOU SEE IS NOT THE RADIOACTIVITY; YOU SEE THE PAINT THAT IS BEING STIMULATED BY THE RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL.

b. IMPORTANT POINT:
     If you look at the luminescent paint on any older watch, you might have no way of knowing whether it is just luminescent paint, or luminescent paint mixed with some isotope, unless (1) the watch has the a marking somewhere on the dial that lets you know. If you look at older Swiss watches, you will see some of them say “T Swiss Made T”. That means that they mixed Tritium (a radioactive isotope of Hydrogen) into the glow-in-the-dark paint. Old watches and clocks where they used Radium might not have anything painted on them, but you can easily detect the radioactivity with a Geiger counter. I use an old electric alarm clock with a radioactive radium dial when I teach the Radiation Safety class for new lab workers. We keep that old clock in a plastic zip-lock bag. Why? Because the old Radium paint can crumble, and get on your hands.

c. So why are Rolexes, Omegas, etc no longer radioactive, while Luminox, Praetorian, and Snoon are? Here’s why:

III. A BRIEF HISTORY OF RADIOACTIVE WATCHES.

     a. Originally, and for the first half of the 20th Century, the radioactive material mixed into the luminescent paint was Radium. The four isotopes of Radium: Ra 223, Ra 224, Ra 226, and Ra 228 are all nasty. The first three are alpha emitters, and the last is a beta emitter. Here’s the thing about alpha particles: you can pour a bottle of some alpha emitter—let’s say a bottle of Ra 226 labeled luminescent paint—onto your hand in the lab, and the alpha particles are not able to penetrate your skin. The bottle of radioactive paint is called an open source. Take that same bottle and drink it (pretend that the glow-in-the-dark paint is harmless), and it could kill you. The people who hand-painted the mixture of Ra 226 and glow-in-the-dark paint onto watch and clock dials in the factory were women. They used little horse hair brushes (remember when you were in school, and used to make models?), and would lick the brush tip, to make it sharp and pointy. Each time they did that, they swallowed some Ra 226 that went into their intestines, where it got absorbed into the blood stream, and went to all kinds of undesirable organs. They all died of cancer.

     b. Somewhere along the way somebody realized that you could use Tritium, which is a lot safer. Why is Tritium safer? You’re not gonna believe this, but years ago the good folks in the U.S. Government worked out a chart called ALI: the Annual Limit of Intake. Every isotope has a stated ALI of how much you’re allowed to consume. Isn’t that nice? Tritium has a great ALI. In other words, you’re allowed to be exposed to tons of it, before the government starts to worry about you. First, watch companies started painting the mixture of Tritium and glow-in-the-dark paint right onto the hands—the same way they did with the Ra 226/glow-in-the-dark paint. Eventually, they decided to abandon Tritium altogether. Why? Well, any time you have quantities of radioactive materials in your workplace e.g. a watch factory, a research lab, a hospital etc, you have to have a radioactive materials license from the government (This is true in any modern, western industrial country), and the license requires you to follow all kinds of safety and inspection procedures. There is lots of paperwork involved. Also, regardless of what the isotope is, you have to follow all kinds of industrial hygiene procedures to avoid contaminating the work room. Last—but not least—whenever you want to ship radioactive materials from your facility to some other location, you have to perform tests for radioactive contamination, and provide documentation of these tests. The big watch companies got tired of the paperwork—especially in a world increasingly wary of radiation—and stopped using Tritium. Too bad. My Rolex Submariner with a Tritium dial glowed all night.

IV.    RADIOACTIVE WATCHES MANUFACTURED TODAY.

     As far as I know, all radioactive watches today have what is called a sealed source: the mixture of radioactive Tritium and glow-in-the-dark paint is sealed inside a glass tube. Each glow-in-the-dark marker on the hour hand, minute hand, second hand, etc is a separate, tiny sealed glass tube. What’s supposed to happen is one facility makes the glass tubes, injects the radioactive stuff, and seals the tubes (forever). They then clean the outside of the tubes, and send them to the guys at another facility where the glass tubes are glued to the watch hands and dials. Snoon, Luminox, all these guys get their tubes from MB Microtec, a Swiss company. Microtec’s glow-in-the-dark tubes are used for all sorts of applications, besides watches. For example, they are used on a lot of gun sights. Ask the next cop you see if his watch has Tritium markers.

d. TRITIUM: THE REAL SCOOP: Tritium is a heavy isotope of Hydrogen. It has one proton (it has to, if it wants to be called Hydrogen) and two neutrons. Because it has 3 particles in the nucleus, it is called Tritium. Get it? One of the neutrons breaks down (decays) becoming a proton that stays in the nucleus, and an electron that is kicked out. That’s all a neutron is: a positive proton and a negative electron who have become one, and electrically neutral (hence the name neutron). The high-energy electron that gets puked out of the nucleus is called a Beta Particle. Now that the Hydrogen atom has 2 protons—guess what? That’s right—you can’t call it Hydrogen, anymore. Now it’s a Helium atom. Here’s the cool thing about Tritium: when it decays i.e. vomits out that Beta Particle, that so-called high-energy electron isn’t all that high-energy. Tritium’s Beta Particles are so wimpy, that when you wear a Luminox, there are literally zero Beta Particles crashing into your body, ionizing you. The watch, itself, is shielding you. TRITIUM’S BETA PARTICLES ARE SO WEAK, THAT YOU CANNOT DETECT THEM WITH A GEIGER COUNTER. The only way to detect Tritium (even if you spill some liquid on the counter) is with a very sensitive test called a wipe test. You take a very clean absorbent paper (manufactured for this purpose) and wipe the area that may- or may not be contaminated. You then deposit the wipe into a very sensitive instrument that detects what you picked up.

e. HOW LONG DOES A TRITIUM WATCH LAST? Okay, here’s he deal: Tritium’s half-life is 12.33 years. What that means is that if you buy a Traser watch today, and it was made on January 1st of this year, then 12 years and 4 months from now it will have half as much Tritium as it did this year. If the watch has 25 milliCuries of Tritium, then 12.33 years from now it will have 12.5 milliCuries. In real life, that means that the watch will be half as bright as it was the year you bought it. If you’ve ever looked at a Luminox at 2:00 a.m. to read the time, you know that’s still going to be pretty good. Another 12.33 years after that i.e. 24.66 years after you bought the watch, the watch will be half as bright, again. It will be only 25% as bright as it was when you bought it brand new. The next time some dingleberry tells you that Tritium watches “only last 10 years” go ahead and slap them. You have my permission.

Return of the King

Got my Ollech and Wajs 3095 back from Duarte Mendonca earlier this week.  Well, that was certainly a happy ending to a long, knock-down, drag out saga.

This watch has been the solution to my bad case of withdrawal from mechanical Swiss watches.  I bought it on-line, directly from Herr Wajs (I address him as Herr Wajs whenever I email him.  I should just call him Mr Wajs, but hey--he's Swiss, and I'm trying to be respectful).

Ollech and Wajs has a long history of making inexpensive--as opposed to cheap (read: unreliable) Swiss watches before the quartz revolution torpedoed a lot of the lesser-known brands--and even a few of the famous ones.

It's a humongous watch.  I'm an enormous guy, so the watch doesn't look big on the wrist shot.  When you see it in person, its size is an attention getter.  But, this watch has substance--as opposed to the large number of cheap-looking bling-bling over-sized quartz watches out there, right now.  When people see it on my wrist, they notice what is obviously a good quality watch. 

A self-winding, waterproof* Swiss watch that costs 1/20th the price of a stainless steel Rolex.

The watch's plusses:

======================

1) The case is of a good quality hypoallergenic stainless steel.

2) The black dial with large--yet thin--hour and minute markers is legible. It was easy to read underwater, yesterday, while I was swimming.

3) The dial, along with the hour, minute, and second hands are all glow-in-the dark

4) The case has a screw-in back to keep water out.

5) The crown is a screw-in crown to keep water out.

6) The ETA 2824 movement is a common, reliable, well-built movement that any watch repairman can service.

7) The price.

8) The second hand has a bright red-orange tip that not only increases its visibility, but makes the watch look good.

9) The second hand hacks: if you want to completely stop the watch, to set it to the exact time to the second, you pull the crown all the way out.  When the atomic clock hits zero, push the crown in, and the watch starts again.

The watch's minuses:

======================
1) It comes with a mineral glass crystal.  A watch this big has no business having a crystal that is not scratch-proof.  Within two months of receiving the watch last year (and wearing it a lot) it looked like a 20 year old watch that has never been serviced.  It took forever before I found Duarte Mendonca, who was able to get a (synthetic) sapphire scratch-resistant crystal.  The two watch shops before him couldn't find a sapphire for this watch.  Now I can wear the watch in the Emergency Room, and not worry about it.

2) The luminescent paint on the three hands and the dial does not glow very long.  To make it glow brightly, you have to hold the watch under a bright fluorescent light e.g. a kitchen light or compact fluorescent bulb (one of those new, energy-saving light bulbs), and when the dog wakes you up at 02:00 a.m., you can't read the time on the watch.

3) When you hack the watch, you have to pull really hard on the crown to make it come all the way out.

4) Like all mechanical watches--be they self-winding (a.k.a. automatic) or hand-wound (you have to wind it up every day), its accuracy is no-where near that of a quartz watch.  A cheapo $40 Timex with a quartz movement is more accurate than a $5,000 Rolex--or my Ollech & Wajs.  This one was 20 seconds fast per day, and I would re-set it to the exact time every Monday morning.  Now it it hovers around +/1 second per day, if I wear it all day long.  That brings up #5

5) This watch has to be worn a lot, to maintain accuracy.  You will read on a lot of web sites that you only need to shake a self-winding watch for a minute to make it run for a day. Baloney.  You will also read that you only need to wear it one hour a day to keep it wound up.  Baloney.

*You're not supposed to call watches "waterproof" any more.  I'm going to call any watch that is water resistant "waterproof" just to be annoying.  I will discuss the topic of watches' varying ability to withstand water in a later post.

Confessions of a former Rolex owner

     I'm doing it wrong: instead of saving up my money, and buying a really good watch, I keep buying watches that I think are a really good deal. Soon, I realize their shortcomings, and start surfing the web, again, looking for the perfect watch. The watch that will make me say "This is the only watch that I will wear every day, for the rest of my life."
 

BUT FIRST, AN EXPLANATION:

Twenty years ago--in my twenties-- I fell in love with Rolex. I wanted one so bad, it hurt. I wanted a Submariner. I couldn't afford one, and figured that one day when I have a college degree, a good job, and my own house, I'll get one.

Staring at the Rolexes on display at the mall chain jewelry store, I was accosted by the beautiful Korean woman whose job it is to look good, and pull men into the store. She asked me if I wanted to get a Rolex, and I immediately let her know that I couldn't afford one. She kept saying that I could, which I thought was idiotic, until she explained that you can buy one on credit, like a car. Soon as you could say "oyster date" I was wearing a Submariner Datejust.

Awsome.

 

Kind of.


Awesome watch, awesome construction, but God help me, the thing weighed 9 or 10 pounds. Maybe more. At least, that's what it felt like.  I started getting carpal tunnel syndrome-like pains in the back of my wrist. All day long, I had to switch the watch back-and-forth from one wrist to the other, to alleviate the discomfort.


Eventually, I traded the Submariner at a West L.A. watch store for a GMT Master I. I was much happier with this watch's weight, and I liked having a GMT watch. For scuba diving purposes I could always fall back onto my Heuer that I had purchased one summer at the duty-free shop in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

I wore the GMT Master for 14 years. A co-worker asked if I would sell him the Heuer, and I did--figuring that owning two self-winding watches was stupid. I enjoyed wearing that Rolex GMT Master. Most of the time. Until it would die on me, every four years.

Here's the important thing you need to know if you ever want to buy a mechanical (as opposed to battery-operated quartz movement) wristwatch: No matter how high the watch's quality, no matter who the manufacturer is, no matter how manly, rugged, and famous the movie star/sports hero is who endorses it on the back page of National Geographic Magazine or Forbes, that mechanical (be it self- or manual-winding) watch will need to be serviced every presidential election. Every four years, baby.

Here's the fun part of owning a high-end Swiss watch: when you turn in your Rolex/Omega/TAG Heuer/Panerai at the authorized repair center with genuine parts, you will spend aprroximately $500 for a service.   The best part is that you are paying this much because they know they can charge you this much.  The same type of work done on a less expensive mechanical watch by the guy at the mall will run you around $150 when you have him clean and fix it.

Two things happen:

(1) Mechanical watches need to be disassembled, clean, put back together, and calibrated to be accurate. There have been improvements in the lubricants on the watch parts, but sooner or later, the moving parts will get clogged with oil that has turned into gunk.

(2) Rolex movements suck. Next time you look at that full-page ad on the back of National geographic magazine, note how they have a manly man exploring the Arctic, Antarctic, some volcano in Mexico, and other extreme environments. Yeah, right. Among high-end Swiss watches, Rolex is the brand that is most likely to experience vertigo while staring down a cliff. I wore the watch while working in hospitals in X-ray and Nuclear Medicine departments, where the watch would get banged against scanners and gurneys.

A short segue about Rolex's precision: they love to emphasize how accurate Rolex watches are in their ads. Sure, in the 1950s that was true when compared to other mechanical watches like a Hamilton or Gruen, but today a Rolex is way the hell less accurate than any cheapo Timex or Casio that you can buy at Target for $40.

     So, a couple of years ago one afternoon at the hospital I glanced at my watch to see what time it is, and realized that the f*&$@ Rolex had died on me, again. I growled, then took an oath: I would never ever ever fix this watch again, and would tell every person I ever meet not to buy one. Boy, was I pissed. True to my word, I called up the watch repair shop in San Pedro, and asked if they wanted to buy it, as-is. They said, "Yes" and offered me $1,000 for it. Boy did they screw me. After fixing it, they sold it for well over twice that amount. Literally the next day after I got my check for $1,000 my beloved Basset Hound got sick, and I wound up spending the entire check on her veterinary care. She died, anyway.

Now I had no Rolex, and no dog.

The Rolex part didn't matter. I had come to the conclusion that men who need to impress other men by wearing expensive manly-man watches were fools. Quartz movement watches were the way to go: (1) they are far more accurate, and (2) because they use a battery, you don't need to wear them several hours a day, to keep them running.

There. I had achieved the wrist watch owner's equivalent of nirvana. I had achieved the enlightened, higher plane of not needing luxury consumer products to impress others, and make me feel good about myself. I got a Seiko quartz movement chronometer. Stainless steel, highly accurate, and waterproof (more on the concepts 'waterproof' i.e. 'water resistant' later).

My love affair with Japanese precision lasted a while. Each day that went by reminded me that I no longer had my status symbol that I could wave in peoples' faces. This--after all--was the real purpose of a Rolex: to let people know that I am somebody. I have gravitas. I may be wearing shorts and a t-shirt, but excuse me while I deliberately rest my left arm on the check-in counter of your hotel. Now, aren't you impressed? I must be somebody, if I'm wearing one of these babies. Wouldn't you like to know?

For a while, good sense over-ruled my desire to return to the days of feeling better about myself because of a bauble.

Now I was in a pickle:  I swore to never get an unreliable, easily-broken, over-priced Rolex again, but wanted a nice Swiss watch.

And it needed to be a manly-man's watch.  It had to be waterproof, and glow-in-the-dark.  It needed to have name-brand recognition, yet not cost thousands of dollars.  

That's when I discovered Luminox.