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Luminox Watches
Shop By Brand :: Luminox Watches
Luminox Watches
Luminox began as the Richard Barry Marketing Group founded by Richard Timbo and Barry Cohen. Richard and Barry (hence the company name) were business acquaintances through their careers as sales representatives. Based on prior sales experience, they made a strategic decision to seek out opportunities that included branded products or proprietary technology that would create a barrier to competition. They discovered a unique illumination technology being produced by a Swiss manufacturer, suggested the technology be incorporated into a line of Swiss watches, and negotiated an exclusive relationship for the use of the technology in North America, and the world's most luminous timepiece collection was born.
Initially marketed under the Swiss firm's name, RBMG moved to create their own identity by registering the name Luminox, as well as the logo, a shield icon incorporating the colors black, white and red. Luminox, meaning "light night" in Latin, was selected to emphasize the superlative illumination system utilized in the watch collection. The company logo encompasses this meaning by using white lettering (light) on a black background, black lettering (night) on a white background, and red trim (color of the Swiss flag).
As an unknown brand attempting to penetrate a heavily brand driven market, sales were initially slow until Luminox Watch was contacted by a procurement officer for the U.S. Navy SEAL teams to build a dive watch for their use on night missions. With the help of their Swiss associates, Luminox spent 9 months developing the initial Navy SEAL dive watch that launched in 1994. Becoming a supplier to the SEALs gave Luminox Watches an enhanced credibility that helped spur sales in the consumer arena. After successfully selling hundreds of thousands of the original plastic model, Luminox Watch launched its first steel version (with carbon fiber bezel) of the SEAL dive watch in 1999. This series became an instant best seller and suggested to RBMG "if we build it, they will come".
With this in mind, Luminox Watch continued to expand the SEAL dive watch story with the addition of an all steel series and an all titanium series in the fall of 2000, both of which are selling extremely well. The all steel and titanium series incorporate higher quality features found in the realm of fine watches, such as 10-year lithium batteries and sapphire glass crystals with anti-reflective coatings. Simultaneously, a new version of the original model was developed to be sold on a limited basis to better accounts, adding freshness to the original series. That fateful day back in 1993, when procurement officer, Chief Nick North of SEAL Team 5 asked Luminox to create watches for the SEALs helped a new brand of watches emerge from obscurity to become a successful player in the watch business.
Similar good fortune occurred in 1999 when Luminox Watch received a call from Edwards Air Force base, saying they loved the watches and wear them on bombing missions. However, the one thing they didn’t care for was that these were watches made for the Navy. They asked if Luminox might be able to create watches specifically for them. Of course, the answer was an enthusiastic affirmative. Luminox began the process of developing a model for the U.S. Air Force to be worn by F-117 Nighthawk Stealth pilots. This watch incorporates the same quality features as the upper end SEAL Luminox Watches and has also been very well received in the marketplace. Rather than simply make a single model for the Air Force, Luminox entered into negotiations with the Lockheed Martin Corporation to acquire a license from them to develop watches related to some of their most unique and compelling aviation properties.
Luminox is presently in development on an entirely new ultimate Navy SEAL dive watch that will either come with an ana-digi movement (incorporating analog and digital functions) or be available in analog and analog chronograph as well. They are also developing an entire range of aviator watches as part of the “Lockheed Collection” that will be tied to specific jets such as the F-117 Nighthawk (another new series of watches for this unique jet), the F-16 Viper and Fighting Falcon, the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-22 Raptor (a supplemental Stealth jet), the SR-71 Blackbird (record setting jet of the 1960s), and even the Venture Star (the next Space Shuttle), thus linking Luminox Watch to NASA.
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