Posts Tagged ‘Diver’
2005 Breitling Superocean ‘Slow Chronograph’
Before the dive watch had found its core design (rotating uni-direction bezel, screw-down everything, and crown guards), a lot of maisons just sort of tried everything. I grew up on Playstation, a child of the early 90s, and when I didn’t know how to do a thing in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, I just pressed…
Read MoreIWC Porsche Design Ocean 2000
This unassuming diver is one of Schaffhausen’s best kept secrets. If I told you today that IWC were about to release a fully integrated titanium diver that could go down to 2000m, was going to be issued to the German military, had an antimagnetic cage, tritium, and with a design penned by Ferdinand Alexander Porsche…
Read More3527 IWC GST Deep One
Dive watch tech advanced at a dizzying pace between introduction and mass adoption in the mid-50s and ’70-ish. Helium escape valves, locking bezels, domed crystal, new types of steel, tritium lume, etc. Then the genre found its footing and slowed, a bit like how they say both the goblin shark (that google will haunt your…
Read MoreLip-Signed Blancpain Fifty Fathoms
If you didn’t know, the original Fifty Fathoms was developed in collaboration with the French Combat Diving School, a tool needed for the most elite units of the French Navy (later Commando Hubert). Captain Robert Maloubier, who was previously a British Special Operations secret agent during WWII (and had an enviable mustache) and Lieutenant Claude…
Read More165.024 Omega Seamaster 300
The 165.024 was never a rare watch, but it is today. Examples that haven’t been messed about with are far less common than you may think. It’s a bit like the 964 911 if you’ll follow the over-used automotive analog. Everyone thought they were common as chips, 40-50K USD cars. Then I blinked and they’re…
Read More1812 IWC Aquatimer
For every run-of-the-mill Aquatimer you’d see at a generic airport-based IWC boutique, there is one which is incredibly interesting. The line has a massive degree of stochastic variance with respect to greatness. Yes, there are immensely boring mass produced ETA-base design exercises. But then there are the immensely capable Ocean 2000, Deep One and Deep…
Read MoreBundeswehr-Issued IWC Porsche Design Ocean 2000
When I say integrated sports watch, you almost certainly imagine a RO, Nautilus, or Overseas. You almost certainly do not imagine a Laureato, Octo Finissimo (despite it holding all the records today), or this: an imaginative 1980s diver with a full integrated titanium bracelet issued to Bundeswehr combat dive units known as Kampfschwimmers. This is…
Read MoreGilt 5513 Rolex Submariner
A true gilt dial just hits different. See, there is no one perfect 5513 dial; there are some less common such as the ‘Bart Simpson’, some more common such as the latter productions with white gold surrounds, some common yet gorgeous such as Maxi dials, some a bit bizarre such as 80s Spider dials, and…
Read More6159-7001 Seiko Hi-Beat Professional 300m
If you think the depth and breadth of vintage marques like Universal Genève or Enicar are strong, they are. And yet, neither really hold a candle to the world’s longest running vertically-integrated manufacture outside Switzerland. Seiko has made more dive watch offerings than I will ever be able to hold in my head. Despite that,…
Read More869109/01 Universal Genève Polerouter Sub
Though the Polerouter is probably best known in its Deluxe or Jet guise, the Sub is an equally competent vintage value. Introduced first in EPSA Super Compressor form, the Sub went on to live a long and illustrious run of references. That is, as long as any UG line can be said to have been around.…
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