Posts Tagged ‘Diver’
Royal Navy Issued Precista RN82 Automatic
The British MOD realized Submariners were getting far too expensive way before the rest of us. In 1979, the MOD and Royal Navy stopped using Rolex and put out a call for British watchmakers to answer, a criteria defining what would be the Milsub’s replacement. CWC won the contract. However, CWC lost the contract only…
Read MoreMB&F HM7 Aquapod
Pursuing any thread to its absolute end can often seem like madness to the outside world. I am reminded of scotch distillers, who will endlessly move certain barrels around warehouses to age closer or further from the sea, for just the right hint of salt. But also Red Bull and Ferrari F1 teams, who a…
Read MoreE859 Jaeger-Lecoultre Polaris
From the very start, the Polaris was a dive watch quite unlike any other. If any watchmaker knowns how to make a fashionably late entrance, it’s la grande maison, JLC. Diving watches with their extreme water resistance and externally rotating bezel were all the rage by the second half of the 1950s. In 1959, Lecoultre…
Read MoreExotic Dial Zodiac Sea Wolf 722-946B
Zodiac’s 1960s Sea Wolf is a vintage Fifty Fathoms of the people: every bit as storied, much less recognized, and way more fun. It gets overlooked often, but the Sea Wolf was one of the earliest commercial dive watches, released in 1953 alongside the Fifty Fathoms at Basel Fair. Its commercial availability and dependable reputation…
Read More2005 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…
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