Timeline  /  The first modern diver’s watch
1953

The first modern diver’s watch

Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms put together the features that define a diver’s watch, above all a rotating bezel that cannot be knocked out of place.

Adolphe Schild 1361N movement from a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms
The Adolphe Schild 1361N automatic movement, as fitted to a vintage Fifty Fathoms.Photograph: EMore98 · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
The need
A diver has to know how long he has been down and how much air is left. A misread watch can kill.
Asked for by
Blancpain’s head, Jean-Jacques Fiechter, a diver who had once run out of air, designed it; the first large order came from the French Navy’s combat divers under Robert Maloubier and Claude Riffaud, who had drawn up the same list of demands.
What was new
A rotating bezel that has to be pressed down before it turns, so the start of a dive can be marked and not lost; plus automatic winding, a double-sealed crown, a luminous dial and an anti-magnetic inner case.
Worth knowing
These features, taken together, are what the international diver’s watch standard later required. The name refers to fifty fathoms, about 91 metres, then thought the limit for a diver.

Historian’s noteThe 1953 date is Blancpain’s own. Its bezel patent was filed in 1954, while Rolex filed Submariner patents in early 1953. First to market is unresolved; first designed around timing a dive is Blancpain’s stronger claim.

SourcesBlancpain

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