S.A.R. Rescue-Timer LUMEN — Cream Dial / Black Canvas

In daylight the S.A.R. Rescue-Timer LUMEN reads as a cream dial with black hands. Switch off the lights and the entire face becomes the light source.

That is the whole idea. Mühle-Glashütte approached the German Maritime Search and Rescue Service in 2001 with a proposal to build a watch that could survive the crews' working conditions, and handed the first examples to their coxswains in February 2002. Night legibility, robustness and an absence of sharp edges were requirements the rescuers set themselves. The LUMEN answers the first of them literally: the dial is completely covered in Super-LumiNova over a cream ground, and the blackened, skeletonized hands stand against it as silhouettes. The surface itself glows, so there is no cut-out or sandwich construction involved.

This reference wears the 42.0 mm matte stainless steel case on a black canvas strap with woven stripes, named for the Seenotretter, the German sea rescuers, and closed with a steel pin buckle. A soft black rubber bezel surrounds the 4 mm double anti-reflective sapphire crystal. The date sits at 4 o'clock under a magnifier, and the solid caseback carries the S.A.R. model marking. Inside, the SW 200-1, Version Mühle automatic runs 41 hours with Mühle's patented woodpecker neck fine regulation and stop-seconds for precise setting. Rated to 100 bar.

A 47.6 mm lug-to-lug keeps a 42 mm tool watch sitting closer to the wrist than its diameter suggests, and canvas keeps the package light.

Perfect for: full-lume dial collectors, sea rescue watch enthusiasts, canvas strap tool watch buyers.