Sinn U1 Tempus Limited

A limited black edition of the already fabulous Sinn U1. Specs:

Ref:1010.4920

WR to 1000 meters

Limited Edition of 250 pieces

You can read more here.

Oris Divers Regulateur

New for 2008, the Oris Regulateur, 1000m, big whopping 49mm diameter.  Interesting dial split between minutes, hour, and seconds.

You can learn more at SwissTime.

Intriguing Vintage Zenith

Somewhat by accident or happenstance, I've stumbled across the opportunity to acquire a vintage Zenith 1000m diver, pictured to the left.

I know almost nothing about this diver, other than it uses a Zenith 2542 movement and was made around 1968 or 1969.  Nor do I really know what it's worth.

I've seen the case before, though, used in a multitude of other high WR dive watches from the era.

If you can point me to any information about this watch, I'd love to hear from you.

U-Boat Thousands of Feet - All Show, No Go

The U-Boat "Thousands of Feet" certainly looks butch, bad-ass, and generally extreme. And the specs seem promising at first:

• Unitas 6497, same movement used in the classic Panerai 111 diver.
• 50 mm diameter. BIG. Should be enough steel to make this thing bomb proof.
• ~$3000 street price. Definitely enough funds to pay for some good engineering.
  

Maybe the design is a little too-too much, but I can respect some horological steel-hewn machoness if it delivers the goods. But then you get to this:

• Water Resistance: 100 meters

WHAT??!! You're telling me that ginormous, relatively pricey, Hummer of a watch has a pansy-ass 100m water resistance? 100 meters isn't even one thousand feet, let alone thousandS, plural. With the name Thousands of Feet, you'd expect at least 300m water resistance, and that's if they're being very liberal in their definition. 600m would at least make the name credible.

Perhaps it should have been named the U-Boat "Poseur". How do you say that in Italian?

Extreme Dive Watches - Why & What?

Well-preserved vintage Jenny Carribean 1000, one of the first of the extreme dive watches, which came to market in the early 1960's.



I've been collecting watches with some level of seriousness and just enough knowledge to be dangerous for about 4 or 5 years now, and blogging about watches with a horrible lack of consistency for about 3 of them.

Over that time, I've come to the personal conclusion, a philosophy if you will, that the world of watches is simply too broad to allow for any kind of disciplined and coherent collecting without an over-riding focus or theme. Without one, it's tough to learn enough about the history, models, and relative values to prioritize your hunting and purchasing activities in a competitive and effective way. The stricter the criteria, the more focused the collecting. After all, it's easy to spend money on just any watch out there; it's the search that makes the purchase special.

To make a long story short, over the last several years, I've settled one of my collections on dive watches, specifically, on extremely over-engineered dive watches. How do I define extreme dive watches:

1. 1000m Depth Rating:

Yes, completely impractical, I know. But one has to draw the line somewhere, and 1000m depth rating sets a high engineering and construction bar to be met. It also narrows down the field of eligible dive watches significantly.

So, as much as I'd like to add an Omega Planet Ocean or a Seiko Marine Master to my collection, at the present time, I can't, as they're both only rated to 600m.

2. Automatic Movement:

I may adjust this one some day, but for the time being, I'm only collecting extreme divers with automatic movements.

3. Provenance:

This criteria is less objective than the other two, but it basically boils down to "does it have a story." If somebody wants to know about your watch, what can you say?

The story can be:

a) A noteworthy or unique horological history. Vintage watches often have this in spades.

b) A noteworthy or unique design and engineering story.

The best choices score well in both areas. For example, the Sinn U series scores a few points due to the overall provenance of Sinn as a company, and scores quite highly for its design and engineering achievements. Most of the eBay German/Chinese watches, on the other hand, while meeting the depth and automatic requirements listed (although the veracity of the depth rating is debatable), completely fall down in the area of provenance.

So, with that manifesto being written, let the blog commence. I'll be focusing on watches I find interesting, a few that I own, a few that I'd like to own, and also just general news that fit the theme.