Blancpain Launches The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe 70th Anniversary Limited Edition
A vintage inspired daily diver, with a thoroughly modern engine under the hood.
Blancpain stands out in a number of ways but one of the most notable, is that it has a quite incredible range of watches. In November of last year, it launched one of the most complex and sophisticated chiming complications of the all time: the Grand Double Sonnerie, which is a grande et petite sonnerie minute repeater with a novel retrograde perpetual calendar, which offers the owner the ability to choose whether the en passant tune played at the quarters is the traditional Westminster chimes (or Westminster quarters, as they’re also known) or a tune using the same notes, but composed by longtime Blancpain collector, the rock drummer Eric Singer.
On the other end of the spectrum, Blancpain has a well regarded and highly diverse range of diver’s watches (partly thanks to CEO Marc Hayek’s lifelong fascination with diving, and experience as a diver) including various Fifty Fathoms models (which range from straightforward diver’s watches, up to the complex depth gauge dive timer X Fathoms) and the very popular Bathyscaphe models. Blancpain’s just announced a new Bathyscaphe limited edition of 300 pieces to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Bathyscaphe.
The new 70th Anniversary model is based on a vintage model from 1968, and it reflects the origins of the Bathyscaphe as a an alternative to the Fifty Fathoms. According to Blancpain, the Bathyscaphe, which is named for the pioneering deep sea exploration vessels originally designed by Auguste Piccard in the late 1940s, was intended to be a smaller, more versatile diver’s watch for civilian divers, as opposed to the Fifty Fathoms, which had been designed for the French Navy’s combat divers. (Oceanography fans may recall that the bathyscaphe Trieste was piloted by Auguste Piccard’s son Jacques, and the US Navy’s Don Walsh, on the first successful dive to the Marianas Trench, in 1960).
The original Fifty Fathoms was over 41mm in diameter, while the first Bathyscaphe was 35mm – diminutive by modern standards, but much more in line with prevailing standards for daily wear wristwatches at the time.
The new model follows suit, with a 37.40mm x 12.30mm case which is the same diameter as the 1968 model. This is in contrast to the current Fifty Fathoms models, which are typically between 38mm and 45mm in diameter. Despite the smaller size and vintage-adjacent dimensions, it’s still a robust, practical diver’s watch, with a 300 meter depth rating and one-way timing bezel. Blancpain’s opted for “vintage color” Super-LumiNova, with a grey sunburst dial, and a chocolate calf leather strap – the use of leather straps on diver’s watches occasionally draws some fire for obvious reasons, but it goes well with the rest of the watch, and reflects the “civilian diver” ethos of the design (and of course, there are a plethora of aftermarket dive-suitable options). The bezel is updated from the hesalite used for the original, to steel with a ceramic insert, and of course, sapphire’s used front and back for the crystals.
One other update is the movement – this is the Blancpain caliber 1150, which is 26.20mm x 3.25mm. The cal. 1150 is also used by Blancpain in smaller Fifty Fathoms models, although generally Fifty Fathoms watches are powered by the cal. 1315 – the latter, introduced in 2007, delivers a 120 hour power reserve out of three mainspring barrels, though it’s a bit larger, at 30.60mm x 5.65mm. The caliber 1150 has an interesting history, having originally been launched by F. Piguet in the late 1980s as an extra flat movement for dress watches. F. Piguet is now Manufacture Blancpain and the 1150 has gone through a number of significant updates (Jeff Kingston, writing for Lettres du Brassus, Blancpain’s in-house magazine, notes that it’s been updated so many times, that it’s only force of habit that’s kept the name of the caliber in use – a bit of a Movement of Theseus situation, if you will).
The current version offers a 100 hour power reserve, and although it’s still relatively slim in comparison to some modern sports watch movements, the many updates to the design (which took place in 1996, 2001, 2009, 2013 and 2014, according to Kingston) which include a silicon balance spring, freesprung balance with inertial weights, and the use of beryllium bronze for the train wheels, make it a solid competitor.
Over the last ten years, tastes in the market for dive watches have moderated somewhat from the preference for, as well as the belief in, larger sized dive watch cases as something which both looks the part, and which are necessary to ensure water resistance. A well-engineered dive watch, however, can offer water resistance well in excess of anything a recreational scuba diver is likely to encounter, as the 70th Anniversary Fifty Fathoms demonstrates. As is often the case with luxury level diver’s watches, the price may raise some eyebrows – the watch lists in the USA for $18,300 – but whether or not that seems appropriate depends on what you compare it to, and it’s easy to make apples to oranges comparisons. Personally, I think the combination of history, well executed design, and an in-house movement with a long and very interesting history of adaptation to modern horological methods and materials, makes a strong argument.
The 1916 Company is proud to be an authorized retailer for Blancpain watches. Please contact us for current pricing and availability.