Rado V10K

Rado. Formed in 1917 as Schlup & Co., the watch manufacturer now known as Rado initially manufactured and supplied watch movements. In 1957 the company launched its first collection of watches under the Rado brand. What makes Rado stand out from other Swiss watch manufacturers is not the movements used in their watches but the material in which their watches are encased.

Rado has built watch cases and bracelets using such exotic materials as e.g. tungsten- and titanium-carbide, ceramics, lanthanum, and V10K all in an effort a "scratch proofing" the watch case. The first of these scrath proof watches was Rado DiaStar released in 1960's.

While Rado is still best known for, and their name synonimous with the ceramic watch, including the worlds first ever fully ceramic watch, the Ceramica in the late 80's, the V10K line of watches, la in 2004, is probably their most amazing product.


10,000 Vickers. V10K is a coating of high tech diamond surface achieves a hardness of 10,000 Vickers, equaled only by natural diamonds. To put things in perspective the 316L stainless steel used to construct most high watches has a rating of 400 Vickers, 904L a.k.a. "Rolex Steel" has a rating of 490 Vickers and sapphire crystal has a rating of 2,500 Vickers.