Disguised as a supposedly ``Navy Seals'' watch while not being a genuine military issued watch, Luminox has been bashed and looked down upon by many collectors. Its real military cousin, the elusive jet black Sandy P650 manufactured by Stocker & Yale, has been one of the hottest collector's item among military watch collectors, and an absolutely must-get-item for Sandy collectors (I admit I am one of those Sandy collectors and perhaps the person responsible for starting this madness with that P650 review I wrote almost a year ago). Be that as it may, Sandy P650 is not a perfect dive watch, and it certainly has its own pitfalls (probably to bring down manufacturing costs, the inevitable tradeoff for being a genuine military issue watch), such as: 1) cheap plastic case, 2) non-screw-down crown, and 3) flimsey caseback attached by tiny screws... making the watch essentially unsuitable for actual diving. Well, one shouldn't really complain as P650 was not intended to be used as a dive watch but rather a navigator's watch. The Luminox dive watches, or at least their Series 3100 line of models (shown in the photo above), have a few attractive features not found on Sandy P650, namely: 1) a solid stainless steel case, 2) screw-down crown, 3) screw-down caseback, 4) tritium vial equipped second hand, and 5) of course, relatively easy to get at an affordable price, at least compared to P650, that is. The bezel is also marked 0 to 55 for real scuba diving, although some prefer the 0 to 12 marked bezel found on P650 to track second time zone (like Zulu in military lingo). Combining only the useful features found on Luminox and Sandy, I had a feeling a great hybrid watch could be born. And so my quest began...

I first purchased a used series 3100 Luminox from ebay thinking of converting it with a Sandy P650 dial, but as you probably have guessed, finding a spare P650 dial was almost impossible, considering the fact that Sandy P650 itself is hard to get in the first place. It was so rare, I even experimented with an idea of getting a doner Sandy P650 and extracting the dial out of it, but it was simply too crazy and costly thing to do; an action worthy of being frowned upon by fellow Sandy collectors. One of the rules to abide by when building a hybrid (or franken) watch, in my personal opinion, is to keep the cost lower than purchasing a stock military watch. Well, did I mention finding a P650 dial ``was'' and ``almost'' impossible? As you can see from the photos in this review, I did eventually find one! And for free! Can you believe it? Well, to make a long story short, Nick, a regular on MWR and also the owner of CountyComm, has kindly donated me a brand new P650 dial along with various parts to help sustain my series of hyrbid watch projects. Thank you very much, Nick!

Here are the specs of the completed watch:

As you can see from the photo, I had the distasteful Luminox Navy Seals dial replaced with the P650 dial Nick kindly supplied. My watchmaker, Mr. Chung, also took out the original Ronda quartz movement and installed a very thin Tugaris 17 jewels automatic movement. It doesn't have the desirable hack feature, however, the reason being the stainless steel Luminox case a bit short in height to accomodate a regular automatic movement with hack feature. In fact, my watchmaker still had to carve the caseback inside to make sure the automatic winding disc rotated freely. It is running perfectly now. I've also asked him to remove the Luminox markings on the caseback so the watch is practically sterile!

It's really neat to see the self-illuminated second hand sweep at night. I go jogging every once in a while, and sometimes in the evening after work, so tritium illumination definitely helps. The bezel is used to track my running time. I thought about fitting a one-piece nylon strap to make it look more like a Sandy but found the original 22mm rubber strap supplied with the Luminox more suitable for sporting activities, and it is quite tasteful looking in my opinion, although my wife thinks otherwise; the first words she uttered when she found me wearing this Luminox Sandy hybrid were, ``my god, what's that tire you got on your wrist?!''

Well, so be it. Enjoy the scans, folks.