For more than a century the Ball watch company have established a strong reputation for manufacturing high quality watches for demanding professionals. Featuring robust construction and Swiss made movements, their collections are both durable and superbly reliable mechanical wristwatches with the focus on functionality first and foremost.

The Engineer II Magento Valor is an extraordinary timepiece designed for use in among powerful electronic or magnetic fields; places where no mechanical watch should ever go, and this unusual characteristic, and in particular the Ball solution is also the reason for its distinctive appearance.

A true instrument watch, its round 42mm stainless steel case houses not only the dial, but also a number of Ball innovation, and one of these is the engaging and practical A-PROOF anti magnetic system. It’s common practice for a watch which can withstand the distortive effects of magnetism to fully encase the movement inside a metal container. However, here in the Engineer II Magneto Valor, in a very cool piece of design and engineering, the coin edged bezel can be rotated back or forth to open and close a steel shutter mechanism whose ‘camera iris’ action, as it seals in the movement, can be appreciated through the transparent caseback. A neat touch is the little window near the crown which fills with green lume to indicate when the A-PROOF system is in use.

The black dial is comprised of a broad outer flange for the luminous minutes numerals, and so the hours and minutes are recessed at the centre. As with almost every Ball watch, crisp legibility is assured thanks to the micro tubes filled with tritium gas, which in low light environs provide a piercing glow, and the hour markers and all three hands are vividly accented in the dark.

On the underside, with the ‘iris’ retracted, the sapphire glass exposes the spinning gold inscribed rotor of the Swiss COSC chronometer movement beating within. With a water resistance rating of 100m, and mounted on a waterproof cordura fabric strap it’s also well suited to life on the wave too.