It’s interesting to think about how standardized the world has become. I’m not talking about the fact that there are 41,800 McDonald’s locations globally, or even about how every watch brand seems to follow the same trend, year after year. I’m talking about literal standards, using similar units of measurement in order to make cooperation easier. Standardized shipping containers make transocean shipping extremely efficient. Standards put in place by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) reduce the likelihood of injuries in the workplace. Even something as simple as country codes for telephone numbers had to, at some point, have a bunch of people sit in a room together to agree on who gets what number.
Watch enthusiasts are surprisingly familiar with this, considering how much we talk about the International Organization for Standards (ISO) requirements for dive watches (that’s ISO 6425, by the way). Another fun standard we like to talk a lot about is Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC), and whether or not having a watch that’s COSC certified makes you better than the people around you (it does). One of the most important recent standards regarding time, however, is the creation of and global adherence to universal time coordinated (UTC), the set of 24 time zones that determine what time it is around the world.
Prior to the adoption of time zones, the U.S. had over 140 individual time zones. This wasn’t an issue when it took many days to travel from one part of the country to another, but the advent of train travel meant that this complicated patchwork of local time zones had to change. Arrival and departure schedules were unreliable, and collisions were frequent due to confusion on who was supposed to be on what track at what time. By 1883, railroad networks coordinated a standard time, and in 1918 the U.S. government officially adopted the time zones we know today, as part of the wider UTC system (also listed under ISO 8601).
Enter the age of flight, which is where the Rado Over-Pole begins its story. As leisure and business travel took off (literally) in the ‘50s and ‘60s, many companies developed watches to cater to these jet-setters. The world time complication was popularized in the 1930s by Patek Philippe, not long after the adoption of UTC. The world time complication allows a disk with the names of 24 cities, representing the 24 time zones, to travel around the dial as time goes on, constantly displaying the current time across the world.
In 1965, Rado, rather than develop a new movement, chose to utilize an existing platform and a unique method to create their own world timer. Named the Over-Pole, they took their popular Captain Cook model, replaced the 60 minute bezel with a world time bezel, and replaced the minute track with a 24 hour scale. Simply line up the city on the bezel which indicates your time zone, with the 24 hour scale on the outer edge of the dial, and you’ll know the current time around the globe.
In 2022, Rado re-released the Over-Pole as a limited edition of 1,965 pieces. The diameter remains as svelte as the original at 37mm. The height of the case is 10.4mm, and the lug-to-lug is 43mm. The lug width is 19mm, and it has a water resistance rating of 100m, though it does not have a screw-down crown. The case is fully polished. Interestingly, Rado chose to use a manually-wound movement for this reissue, rather than the automatic movement an original Over-Pole would have used. The movement is known as the Rado R862, and is modified from a Powermatic 80 found in other Swatch group watches. It has 80 hours of power reserve, and the Nivachron hairspring to increase its anti-magnetic properties. The movement is well finished, and can be seen through the watch’s transparent caseback.
The dial and bezel are the real stars of the show, however. The coin edge bezel is a polished black ceramic, with the cities laser-engraved onto it. The bezel is concave, similar to the 60 minute bezel on other Captain Cook models. While it looks fantastic, I will say that legibility is not always the best. Due to the inherent properties of ceramic, and the fact that the bezel sits at a significant angle, there are times when the glare from the sun (or more likely a computer, let’s be real with ourselves) can obscure a good portion of the bezel.
While the Over-Pole technically falls within the Captain Cook family, the dial doesn’t share very many design cues with it. On the metallic, gradient gray dial base are applied hour indices. I can’t express enough how much I like these; they are multifaceted, catch the light easily, and make the watch feel extremely luxurious. Dial text is limited – just the brand and model names, which helps to give the other elements of the dial some space. I also enjoy the red text on the date wheel, which is in keeping with the original. The one downside to this watch is the negligible lume. A small strip of it on the handset and small dots below each of the hour indices does nothing to aid in legibility at night, though it is true to the original as well.
The watch comes in a leather carrying case, with both a beads of rice bracelet and a leather strap. Both are comfortable, but between them I prefer the bracelet; it is far and away the most comfortable bracelet I own, even though it lacks a microadjust capability.
Since this watch is an LE from more than two years ago at this point, it can be difficult to find, though I was able to find a few retailers still carrying them brand new as of the publication of this article. At $2400 MSRP, however, this isn’t exactly a cheap watch. You can usually find a Longines Zulu Time used around that price. However, while the watch isn’t exactly a value proposition, I can confidently say that there’s nothing like it on the market. If you want a handwound, dressy, small, thin watch with some form of world time/extra time zone functionality, I highly recommend seeking out a Rado Over-Pole. Hopefully, Rado will release more iterations on this model in the near future.
When I started off this review with a brief history of time zones and standards, it wasn’t because I was trying to actively bore you to death. It’s because I think it’s important to understand the context behind why and how the watches we like so much are effective at their functions. A GMT or world time watch isn’t accurate because the world inherently has 24 time zones. They only function in a larger system; one that people invented, agreed to, and use in order to connect us to one another across broad swaths of time and space. Looking down at your wrist and being able to tell the time across the world isn’t just a scientific accomplishment, but a social one.
John began collecting watches in 2018, when he realized that the hobby meshed well with his love of studying history and researching obscure topics. In addition to watches, John enjoys collecting fountain pens, learning languages, reading, and traveling.