The last time we checked in on Ball Watch Company, they threw a chronograph curveball at us with their alternate take on chronograph pushers. This time, they’re doing something not seen pretty much on any other mechanical watch, at least not modern ones: the addition of a mechanical thermometer. The thermometer isn’t new for Ball, as they released limited edition Trainmaster Celsius and Fahrenheit references a few years back, and now they’ve moved on to Kelvin. Limited to 600 pieces, all of which cased in 18k rose gold, the Ball Trainmaster Kelvin is the most recent addition to an interesting and unique collection.
Lately, we’ve had a number of watches with alternative mechanical instruments built alongside the timekeeping element, such as an altimeter and depth gauge, which were both from Oris. With those references, as well as Ball’s thermometer, we’re seeing some really cool, if not novel, mechanical complications that are normally overlooked. They may have limited use for most wearers, but then again, so do a lot of complications when you start considering how easy it is to just use modern technology.
Ball Trainmaster Kelvin with grey dial
While talking about this piece, I’m going to compare it to the Fahrenheit and Celsius versions that preceded it. Reason being, I think Ball took good notes and improved upon the overall design. With such classic looks, 41-millimeters in case diameter was a bit bigger than ideal. Here, with the Kelvin, Ball smartly downsized into that 38 to 40-millimeter sweet spot for modern dress watches, and landed on 39.5-millimeters. As for thickness, Ball trimmed off 1.5-millimeters, down to 10.5-millimeters, which should make for an overall, really nicely sized piece. From a possibly nit-picky point of view, I also like how Ball ditched Celsius and Fahrenheit’s faces from the case back and opted for a useful conversion scale. I don’t know a ton of folks who use Kelvin very often, so the scale might even be considered necessary.
Alright, let’s talk about dial text for a minute. Ball is certainly not the only brand to make questionable choices for dial text, but it’s a point of contention I have with them. If you look at the bottom of nearly all of their dials, you’ll notice “Swiss Made”, as you would have likely suspected, but also an offset “T25” to the left. It looks awkward, and I think they would do well to come up with a different way to display their use of tritium. In fact, some of their other references have just a “T” next to “Swiss”, and it doesn’t look bad at all. I really wish they’d adopt that more consistently in their lineup. Now, to their credit, Ball did clean up the dial a bit by getting rid of “Limited Edition”, which was at the 3:00 position on the Fahrenheit and Celsius, as well as moved the “Automatic” from the 9:00 position to below the temperature readout. In general, I think they can minimize the dial text further by getting rid of the “Official RR Standard” stuff, and maybe just opting for “Ball Watch Co” in script, matching the “Automatic” typeface. It’s details like this – obviously in addition to important stuff like movement and case finishing – that mean a lot to folks possibly spending thousands of dollars on a watch.
Powering the Kelvin is Ball’s caliber 1601, which is an ETA 2892 with their added in-house designed thermometer module. To what degree it was made in-house, I’m not sure, but taking it at face value, it’s a really interesting complication added to a very reliable base movement. If I have any complaints on the execution and display of the movement’s functions, it’s the date at 1:00. It just doesn’t look right, especially with the white date disc contrasted with the grey dial – the white dial option is slightly less obvious. They really should have done away with the date altogether, and pushed the classic looks the whole way. You’ll also easily notice the date window cutting into the 1:00 applied marker, which is another reason why it seemed a strange place to put the date. All of this considered, I still think the design is solid, and one of Ball’s best looking watches.
We’re big fans of unique complications like Ball’s temperature instrument, as it shows off modern execution of old school watchmaking. This is Ball’s second go-round with their temperature watch, and they’ve made some excellent improvements. Though not without faults, we like where Ball went with the Kelvin, and are looking forward to more out of the box thinking from them. With the 18k rose gold case and a production of 600 pieces, the Kelvin is a bit pricey, coming in at $8,500. I think it will be a hard sell for many collectors, except maybe the most serious followers of the brand. We’ll just have to wait and see what the market says.
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