PRESENTATION The Deep Ocean comes as many watches of its kind do these days in a plastic hard case. The case (which you can see in the photo down the bottom) is of a similar type to Pelican – not quite to the same quality if I’m honest but still nice. Andersmann have put a metal nameplate on the front of their box which helps to give it a more premium feel.
Inside was the Deep Ocean on its rubber divers strap along with: a warranty card, two custom Andersmann strap-changing tools and two additional straps, one brown leather and an alternative rubber divers strap.
DIAL Andersmann watches all seem to follow the same aesthetic codes: clean, simple and highly legible; the Deep Ocean is no different. It has a sandwich dial with a black texturized top level and a vintage-style beige colored SuperLumiNova bottom level.
There are Arabic numerals at 3, 6, 9 and 12 and circular markers everywhere else. Then there’s a set of polished semi-skeletonized sword hands also with SuperLumiNova – so far there’s certainly some influence coming from a well-known Italian watch brand, but in combination with the ocean blue lollipop-style seconds indicator, one couldn’t accuse the dial of being overly derivative.
The dial is finished off with 4 simple lines of text: the ''Andersmann'' name and the words ''Automatic'' and ''Swiss Made'' – all in the same beige / ecru color as the hour markers and then there’s ''3000M'' in the same blue as the seconds hand.
Overall, the dial is super nice looking, very harmoniously balanced and with clean and crisply printed text. The texturized sandwich style has a premium feel to it while the highly polished Rhodium plated hands add a sense of luxury.
CASE The Deep Ocean has a 47mm in diameter case which has been constructed from Grade 5 Titanium. Grade 5 Titanium is far superior in quality to Grade 2 which is more commonly used. It is a lot more scratch-resistant, too. The case has a bead-blasted with polishing on the tops of the lugs. The lugs are straight, there’s no real curvature to them so smaller sized wrists might experience a bit of an overhang.
The blasted Titanium gives the watch quite a sporty feel – less bling, more understatement. On the side of the case at 9 o’clock is an automatic Helium Escape Valve with an engraved ''He'' – a nice touch!
BEZEL The Deep Ocean is equipped with what could only be described as a substantial divers bezel. For starters, it has a nice amount of height to it. Then there’s the Clous de Paris grip on its side – the combination makes handling the bezel a real pleasure.
The bezel has a matte ceramic inlay with a raised dive-time scale and a small lume capsule in the triangular marker at 12. The bezel is very precise, nice and tight but quite, loud and ratchet-like in its movement – this isn’t so much a complaint – rather an observation.
CROWN Like the bezel, the crown has a knurled grip. It has a particularly wide diameter and so is lovely to use – inspiring plenty of confidence. I don’t know why you’d want to set the time wearing a divers glove but if you did, you could and with great ease, too. The crown has been positioned at 4 o’clock for comfort – plus imo, it looks cooler there!
CASEBACK The caseback is made up of two parts an outer part, secured with eight hex-screws and a main inner part which is black DLC coated - slap bang in its middle is a big ''3000M'', proudly advertising the Deep Ocean’s high level of water-resistance.
CRYSTAL The Deep Ocean is fitted with a double domed Sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on its inside. The crystal has a thickness of 4.5mm.
WR The Deep Ocean has a certified water-resistance of 3000 meters. Each watch is individually tested twice; first by an independent body in Switzerland and then in the Andersmann laboratory using Swiss made Roxer pressure testing equipment.
3000 meters is considered extreme water-resistance; some watches go deeper but in the grand scheme of things, this is still very much a niche area of dive watch design of which the Deep Ocean is one of the nicest looking and feeling that I have come across out of the almost 20 dive watches with such a water-resistance.
LUME The Deep Ocean uses the latest type of C3 SuperLumiNova – it has a vintage old Tritium look but actually has a bright blue glow.
MOVEMENT Powering the Deep Ocean is a Swiss made ETA 2892-A2 automatic mechanical movement with hours, minutes and central sweeping seconds indicator. The date is absent simply to retain the dial’s lovely clean appearance.
I’m not one of these anal retentive types, who times accuracy using an atomic clock – it’s a 2824-A2, it gets me to work on time – it keeps excellent time and because it’s such a roust movement, it can take being dropped on the floor once in a while – I’m a happy punter!
STRAP The Deep Ocean comes on a beautiful embossed matte black rubber divers made from natural rubber. Unfortunately it’s been sized to fit a small child – okay, slight exaggeration there, but it just about fits my 19cm wrist on the second to last hole – I’m hardly an ape, so a standard strap should fit – this barely fits.
Luckily a 2nd, longer strap is also supplied, but I preferred the standard strap as it’s stiffer and more rugged. There’s also a handmade Italian leather strap in light brown – I wasn’t really digging the color, it needs to be darker in my opinion. However the Deep Ocean can very easily be re-shoed with a 3rd party strap.
BUCKLE This is a chunky Pre-Vendome style buckle hewn from a solid piece of solid Grade 5 Titanium. It looks pretty nice, feels fantastic but it’s a little lacking in originality.
PRICE The Deep Ocean is priced 2380CHF – when we compare this to a comparable boutique diver it is a little dearer. However, you have to understand that, the Deep Ocean isn’t produced in volume, just 100 pieces at a time.
Andersmann have gone the full Swiss route: high grade ETA, Swiss components, testing and assembly. We know how expensive tooling is for Grade 5 Titanium for example. If it had a well-known Swiss name on its dial – you could expect to pay at least double what Andersmann are asking – but it isn’t half as good as any of the big names – it’s right on par with them!
OVERALL From the first time I introduced the Andersmann brand and the Oceamaster collections, I raved about the styling because for me it was bang on – particularly their dials which played to all my tastes. Simple, clean, elegant, sporty!
Then the Deep Ocean was released – it had the same type of simple styling but this time executed in the form of a deep diver. The Grade 5 Titanium was a huge selling point – it’s tough, comfortable to wear and looks properly toolish – I couldn’t resist!
©OceanicTime
I started off watch collecting with a 3000m diver, the Breitling Avenger Seawolf Gen. 1 – admittedly, that was a while back, but even today – I consider it one of the best that there are. The Andersmann Deep Ocean is a better in almost every aspect – it isn’t COSC certified, it doesn’t have a strong brand-name, it doesn’t even come with bracelet but it’s way more impressive in person and is built just as nicely. If you’re into these types of watches – this won’t disappoint.
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