independent watch projects

Dievas watches offers historic and original designs, the latest being the Vortex, a 44 mm diving watch with Helium release valve rated to 50 BAR. Ariel Adams published a detailed article about this novelty on aBlogtoread.com.

Based on his extensive experience as ODM and OEM, Japanese entrepreneur Kenji Hashimoto started to work in 1997 on a label under which he could produce fine watch with an emphasis on quality and good looks. Kentex was founded in 1989 to release limited niche watch series. After 10 years, the brand earned respectability amongst watch collectors and enthusiasts in Japan. In 2008 an entry-price label called KTX was created, some of which diving watches are made for the Japanese Self Defense Force.

Kentex produces sport watches (Craftsman, Skyman, Landman, Marineman), Classic watches (Tourbillon, Espy, Confidence) and JSDF (Japan Self Defense Force) series. All are made in stainless steel with mechanical or quartz movement.

Raven Watch Company offers tactical watches using self-luminous Tritium vials for the dial indexes and the hands. Here is the company’s presentation:

Raven produces the highest quality custom tactical watches. Our timepieces are made from a variety of parts including the high end Swiss made 25 jewel ETA 2824 mechanical automatic movement. This movement is not only used by many name brand Swiss time pieces, but also the U.S. Department of Defense and European military and aeronautical groups. Our watches are available in this automatic movement, or a rugged high torque quartz caliber.

Raven’s dials and cases are all business! We use Tritium watch dials that are currently used by the U.S. Military and NASA, and we also have available historic dials from the Vietnam era and the British Ministry of Defense (MoD). Our cases are made from solid 316L stainless steel with a unidirectional bezel, water tight screw down crown and case back, domed crystals, and are available with a fine bead blasted finish, brushed steel, or a black PVD coating. We have 2 case designs to choose from, both are water resistant to 200 meters.

Raven Watches are assembled by our skilled watchmakers. We have models to choose from on this web site, but further customization can be requested through our contact page. Thank you for visiting the Raven Watch Company.

Here is the Canadian company’s presentation:

The company that was to become Marathon Watch was founded in 1904 as Weinsturm Watch, later to be named Wein Brothers. In 1939 Morris Wein founded Marathon Watch in Montreal, supplying fine precision timepieces to retailers throughout North America. In 1941 Marathon began manufacturing timing instruments for the Allied Forces. Marathon’s tradition continues today with its fourth generation manufacturing fine quality innovative instruments measuring time, temperature and distance. Marathon’s manufacturing facilities include Switzerland, Canada, and the USA.

Amongst its products, Marathon offers the SAR, an automatic watch featuring Tritium vials and the automatic ETA 2824-2.

This eBay newcomer sells the Praetorian Signifier, a stainless steel watch featuring an automatic Miyota 8215 caliber and indexes and hands with self-luminous Tritium vials.

Kentex released a limited series of a 100 pieces of the S526M a titanium watch featuring high antimagnetic shielding (64,000 A/m), self-luminous Tritium vials and housing a Swiss ETA 2824-2. At JP¥ 76,500 a pop, they just sold like hot cakes.

Read the full article here.