Worth Of Entry: Ball Fireman Enterprise Watch
In case you go to its webshop, Ball Watch will present you with a not very digestible array of 455 SKUs all through eight inscrutable collections. Buried there on the end is the Fireman assortment, made up of a scant 13 timepieces. And it’s there that you simply simply’ll uncover most likely essentially the most moderately priced Ball Watch, the Ball Fireman Enterprise. Whereas Ball perhaps rightly will get some criticism for its unclear provenance, as we’ve beforehand shared on this web site, the watches it produces are well-made and generally stand out from their contemporaries. The Ball Fireman Enterprise is amongst the additional moderately sized fashions the mannequin affords, and whereas it couldn’t have the aptitude of, say, the Roadmaster assortment, it nonetheless serves as a secure entry-level offering.
Ball Watch traces its roots once more to the late 1800s and Webb C. Ball, a pioneering American railway inspector who set timekeeping necessities which will forestall railway accidents. Out of his work received right here Ball Watch, based mostly in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1891. Like most watch companies of the day, the mannequin made pocket watches, and throughout the case of Ball, pocket watches significantly made for the railroads that crisscrossed the US, with an emphasis on precision and reliability. Masses has modified since then. The mannequin nonetheless touts its origin story like all mannequin with heritage should, nonetheless it has its official headquarters in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, whereas being held by a Hong Kong-based holding agency. In my experience and my opinion, none of this bears on the usual of the watches themselves.
Of the numerous Ball Watches I’ve had a possibility to cope with, I’ve not at all been upset. Most of them have been too cumbersome for my liking, nonetheless the overall trend and execution have on a regular basis appealed. (In actuality, early on in my watch accumulating, I had on a regular basis wanted a Marvelight III, though a possibility encounter with one revealed that the size merely wasn’t correct.) There are some issues that define almost every Ball Watch, and I solely half-joke as soon as I say the cumbersome proportions are one amongst them. The others are utilizing railway phrases for assortment names, tritium gas tubes the place totally different producers would use typical luminous paint, and the flowery Double R counterbalance on the seconds hand of the watches. The mannequin moreover has fairly just a few novel issues and useful behind-the-scenes tech that makes their watches compelling. That ranges from temperature and tide issues to patented GMT and world time options to patented antishock and antimagnetic methods (and previous). As with most Worth of Entry selections, though, the Ball Fireman Enterprise isn’t outfitted with lots of the mannequin’s thrilling choices, nonetheless it nonetheless delivers on the foundational mannequin DNA.
The Fireman assortment is a little bit little bit of an odd one contained in the Ball catalog, and that’s saying one factor considering Ball has 5 completely totally different Engineer collections and the Trainmaster and Official Railroad traces, the latter of which is a set of the earlier’s lineup. Parsing the variations between the entire Engineers or what makes a Trainmaster a Trainmaster might be a bit troublesome, nonetheless what’s clear in regards to the Fireman is that it’s the one line the mannequin affords. For the Fireman Enterprise, Conventional, and Victory, you get a 40mm 316L stainless-steel case (not the 904L that some Ball’s are manufactured from, nonetheless there is a 45mm black DLC Fireman for some goal). The Enterprise is 11.3mm thick with a lug-to-lug of 47mm, plus a domed sapphire crystal and a screw-down crown that helps with the watch’s 100m water resistance.
The smaller dimension moreover owes to the scarcity of any further case choices. There’s no swinging crown lock, no tide bezel, and no GMT pushers. In its place, the reasonably svelte case has lugs that appear almost pinched and that perform spherical brushing. The sparing case design, which sees lugs that mimic being individually linked, means the scale will probably be preferrred for a lot of with no further bulk (even when 40mm is on the broader end of latest traits). On the wrist, the watch actually wears increased than its dimensions would suggest, and that’s all the best way right down to the lugs. Try lots of the watches in your assortment and likewise you’ll possibly see lugs that descend to the an identical plane as a result of the caseback or perhaps not even that far. Inside the latter case, that means a watch that perches prominently on the wrist. The Ball Fireman has lugs that descend beneath the caseback, giving the wrist an accurate little hug for a match that’s cozier than a crackling fireside on Christmas Eve (or the penultimate night sooner than irrespective of chilly local weather trip you observe).
The dial on the Ball Fireman Enterprise is reasonably ho-hum. Supplied in black or white, you’ve obtained the Ball model and “Official Customary” textual content material, plus depth and movement knowledge at 6. The floating date window is appropriate nonetheless nothing further. It’s far more palatable on the white dial, nonetheless on the black dial it truly stands proud and whereas it nestles a bit contained in the prolonged hour markers, you get the feeling it’s about to float away. The minutes are marked by transient hashes whereas the hours are marked by reasonably prolonged tritium tubes, with the 12 o’clock marker in a contrasting orange. On the arms, you get the essential Double R counterbalance, and the dauphine hour and minute arms use the an identical straight tritium tubes that mark out the hours. That’s one among many shortcomings of using such tubes — they will’t do one thing nonetheless be straight tubes and wreck any idea you may need of lume design. Among the finest Ball does with that’s forming Arabic numerals out of the tubes, nonetheless that’s not part of the Enterprise.
As talked about, one amongst Ball Watch’s signatures is its use of tritium gas tubes instead of Large-LumiNova. Whereas the mannequin does use typical lume for its bezels, it defaults to tritium for dials and arms. The advantage of tritium is that it is on a regular basis on. There’s no need for charging and the brightness is mounted. You undoubtedly lose the preliminary burst of brightness you get from Large-LumiNova, nonetheless the mounted brightness of tritium is on a regular basis sufficient to study. The an identical can’t on a regular basis be said for the comparatively quick fade of painted compounds.
The caseback on the Fireman Enterprise features a correctly rendered embossing of a put together, which is turning into given the mannequin’s historic previous. The screw-down caseback conceals the Ball RR1103 caliber. Possibly not surprisingly, this is not one among many mannequin’s manufacture calibers nor one amongst its chronometer grade actions. In its place, the RR1103 is an ETA 2824/Sellita SW200 (the mannequin reportedly makes use of every and I wasn’t about to open it as a lot as uncover out which). Accordingly, you’ll get a run-of-the-mill minimal power reserve of 38 hours at 28,800 vph, plus the reliability that comes with ETA/Sellita actions. One degree of boasting that this watch does do is the anti-shock functionality, which measures 5,000 G. Whereas it doesn’t appear to perform each of the mannequin’s patented anti-shock items, apparently, Ball checks all of its watches to the 5,000 G customary using a pendulum impact-testing machine, which is exactly what it looks as if.
Whereas the Fireman Enterprise couldn’t pack the punch of the Roadmaster Ocean Explorer or an Engineer Hydrocarbon, it does present numerous hallmarks of the mannequin whereas being easier on the wrist than most totally different selections throughout the catalog. In a method, the pared-down aesthetic of the Fireman Enterprise harkens once more to the simpler pocket watches with which the company obtained its start (though the Trainmaster assortment does so further faithfully). In the long term, though the usual is there for the Fireman Enterprise, besides you’re actually in love with the design, it might be value the extra money to enhance to one among many further thrilling fashions. The Ball Fireman Enterprise is priced at $1,199 USD. For further data, please go to the Ball Watch web page.
