Kobold Polar Surveryor Ref. KD 915151

The world's greatest living explorer. British explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes is described by the Guinness Book of Records as "the world's greatest living explorer." He was the first person to circumnavigate the globe via its polar axis during his Transglobe Expedition. Sir Ranulph Fiennes has led more than thirty expeditions in the extreme cold of the Antarctic and the hot desert of Arabia. He discovered the lost city of Ubar, called the “Atlantis of the Sands.” He also lead of the Pentland South Pole Expedition, which achieved the first unsupported crossing of the Antarctic continent and was the longest unsupported polar journey in history.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes used to use a Rolex Explorer II in his expeditions. Today he uses a watch created by a little known company, called Kobold. This little known company build swhat is probably the worlds best exploration watch.


Kobold Polar Surveryor Ref. KD 915151. The Kobold Polar Surveyor is a dual time chronograph watch with a day night indicator for local time and a date display. That is a mouthful, but one look at the Polar Surveyors dial, tells you that it is a complicated watch.


At the center of the dial, the Polar Surveyor has four main hands. Local time is displayed by the regualr hour and minute hands. A second time zone is displayed by a arrow head hand which rotates once every 24-hours. The large second hand is used in conjunction with the chronograph function.

Further out, at the 3 o'clock position you have a date display. At the 6 o'clock position you have a sub-dial with 12-hour timer, which together with the 30-minute timer in the sub-dial at the 12 o'clock position, is used in conjunction with the chronograph function. At the 9 o'clock position you have a very interesting sub-dial, with two hands. One is the continues seconds hands, the other one is a 24-hour day night indicator which is synchronized to the local time.

The bezel is engraved with 24 hour markers for use with the dual time function. At the 2 0'clock and 4 o'clock positions you have the start/stop and the reset buttons used to manipulate the chronograph function. These buttons can be screwed down. The sability to lock down the push pieces function improves the water resistance of the watch. With the push pieces locked, the watch is water resistant to 300 meters. Unlocked, water resistance is rated to 30 meters.

Movement and Case. The Polar Surveyor is powered by a modified ETA 7750, which Kobold calls its K.751 movement. This movement produces 28,800 vibrations per hour and has a 42 hour power reserve.

The case has a diameter of 41.3mm and made of stainless steel. The dial is protected by a sapphire crytal glass. The watch is available with blue and black dials.

About Kobold. Kobold is a watch company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The company was founded by Micheal Kobold in 1998. The company specializes in making watches targetted at adventurers, divers, the military and law enforcement. Kobold only manufacturers 2500 watches per year.