Stocker and Yale 490
Stocker and Yale 490
Background
The Sandy 490 finds its origin in an embarrassing situation for Stocker & Yale. In 1988, during a routine control in an army depot in Pennsylvania, a geigerteller showed elevated levels of radiation. The source turned out to be Stocker & Yale Sandy 184 watches. To comply with military requirements they applied the numerals and hands with tritium. However, the geigerteller indicated that some watches had up to 100 times the maximum radiation level allowed from the watch.
Ironically it was also Stocker & Yale that put pressure on solving the problem. For their military compasses Stocker & Yale already used tritium in little vials containing the radiation. They wanted to apply the same technology to their watches. However, the current military requirements prevented the military from purchasing such watches since they didn’t comply with the requirements. Stocker & Yale successfully convinced the US government that an update of the requirements was a necessity. In 1989 Stocker & Yale started the development of the Sandy 490, and it was accepted shortly after by the US Department of Defense. It could immediately report for active duty, because the first Gulf war was about to break loose.
Features
- This US military watch has a Swiss movement. Stocker & Yale fitted the Sandy 490 with ETA 2801 manual wind movements. No blued screws or Geneva stripping for the Sandy 490. A hack seconds function enables precise time setting.
- The 34mm matted black case is made from fiberglass composite
- The tritium vials are placed at a 5 minute interval in the outer ring of the dial
- The tritium vials are also placed in the hour- and minute hands of the watch. To eliminate as much chance of error when reading the time in the dark, the tritium vial at 12 o’clock emits an orange light, while the rest is light green.
- Bright white Arabic numerals at every hour position identifying both the AM as well as the PM hour and clear, long stripes to indicate the minutes that don’t have a tritium valve
- The dial shows “H3”, the chemical symbol for tritium, and a radioactive symbol. Because the tritium is contained in the vials any geigerteller won’t measure an elevated radioactive level outside the crystal.
1999 - End of the Road
Although the Sandy 490 was used in active duty it had a relatively short army life. Because of the first Gulf war there was an immediate demand for these watches, but Stocker & Yale could not produce them as fast as Marathon, who developed the 348 as competitor of the Sandy 490. Because of that the majority of the orders went to Marathon, leaving Stocker & Yale in the dust. For watch collectors this makes the Sandy 490 only more interesting. In 1999 the US Department of Defense changed the requirements for their army watches once again. Visibility at night was not a requirement anymore, since the technology of warfare has developed so fast that American troops could be located by the light emitted from their watch dials.
Notable SandY Models
Links
Credits - https://monochrome-watches.com/the-real-military-watch-stocker-yale-sandy-490-series-i/
