If not for Ball watches, America as we know it might look very, very different.
Following the 1891 Kipton, Ohio railroad disaster, Webster C. Ball was tasked with improving timekeeping across the entire railroad system, a charge he took to with great vigor. Dubbed “Chief Time Inspector,” Ball made certain that railway men were issued with his watches — and that even if they weren’t, that the watches they were using conformed to rigorous timekeeping standards in order to prevent accidents and collisions.
Today, Ball Watch Company is Swiss-owned, and its product line has since expanded to dive watches, chronographs, dress watches, and more. The particular Ball watch we have here is a Roadmaster Marine GMT, a unique tool watch whose bang-for-buck ratio is wildly impressive, even in today’s microbrand-ridden climate.
Housed in a 40mm titanium case with a sapphire crystal, a signed crown, and a bidirectional rotating bezel with a luminous black ceramic insert, it features a satin silver dial with applied Tritium gas tube ‘Arabic’ and baton indices, a matching, modified handset, a red and white GMT hand, and a day-date display at 3:00.
Powered by the chronometer-certified, automatic Ball RR1203-C movement, the Marine GMT includes several special features: Using the pushers on the left side of the case flank, it’s possible to quickly jump the GMT hand forward or backward in one-hour increments. And due to a small 24-hour scale on the dial’s rehaut, one can track three separate time zones: local time on the main handset, another using the 24-hour dial, and a third using the bi-directional, 24-hour bezel. What’s more, the titanium watch head comes paired to a matching titanium 'h'-link bracelet with a signed, push-button deployant clasp, and also includes its factory goodies.
Few legacy watchmaking concerns are able to offer the comprehensive feature set that Ball continuously includes in its modern offerings — especially at prices like these. If you’ve never ‘had a Ball,’ we say it’s high time you gave them a try!
