Here’s a Fifty Fathoms fit for a Golden Jubilee!
Ah, the unstoppable march of time; it eventually catches up with us all but while some dread the thought of putting another year or God forbid another decade on the clock; time affords us a chance for progress, the opportunity for advancements such as those in watchmaking.
For example in 1953 Blancpain created the World’s first definitive diver’s watch created for the French Navy, becoming the benchmark against which all other dive watches would be measured.
Designed with a water-resistance to a depth of fifty fathoms AKA 300 feet or 91.44 meters, it was also equipped with an outer rotating bezel with graduations for timing immersions.
It will be celebrating its 70th anniversary next year. But 69 years on here’s a Fifty Fathoms that I think perfect illustrates just how far this model has over the years.
Celebrating their own Golden Jubilee is the prestigious luxury watch retailer, Cortina Watch of Singapore who has collaborated with Blancpain to create this striking new Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe.
The Fifty Fathoms BATHYSCAPHE, named for Auguste Piccard’s self-propelled submersible, was introduced in 1956 as a tool watch for civilians.
For Cortina Watch’s Golden Jubilee, it is housed in a unique combination of Titanium Grade 23 and Sedna® Gold bezel with ceramic insert boasting Ceragold® markers.
Titanium Grade 23 is a higher purity version of Ti G5 and is the prime choice for any application requiring a combination of high strength, toughness, light weight and high corrosion-resistance, and has a superior damage tolerance over other Ti alloys.
This rare two-tone version combines the understated colors of brushed Titanium and Sedna® Gold resulting in an understated look that perfectly marks the occasion of Cortina’s Golden Jubilee.
Sedna® Gold is a special alloy of gold, copper and palladium patented by the Swatch Group. It’s specially formulated to ensure that the rose gold hue of this material maintains an everlasting luster.
Taking its named from the dwarf planet that’s one of the furthest objects in the Solar System, it offers a rich tonal contrast to the Titanium case of this watch.
Along with the Sedna® Gold bezel, this special edition features a Ceragold® insert, which is a process to create ceramic bezels with gold numbers and scaling, that’s perfectly smooth to the touch.
The bonding process between ceramic and gold to create this patented material creates a bezel display that can be polished in different ways. The process further ensures perfect legibility at all times.
Powering the watch is a Blancpain Caliber 1315, in-house, automatic with a central oscillating weight. Spec. includes an anti-magnetic Si (silicon) balance-spring a beat-rate of 28,800vph and an autonomy of 120hrs AKA 5 days.
Thoughts? I think it’s pretty darn sexy; just enough gold so as to be tasteful and still tough enough to be the tool diver that it was originally designed as. But what do you think?
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