I can’t really explain why old style watches are so popular today, it may be because many online kickstarter businesses are popping up with internet stores with watchmakers wanting to show that they have been there for the journey. It may be because people believe the style back in the early to mid twentieth century was superior, fashion does reinvent itself. It may even be because people feel greater workmanship was built into these timepieces. I suggest watchmakers are happy to manufacture re-editions of a popular line because that is what the watch community wants. They are responding to the customer’s needs, I am sure market research is leading them to this conclusion.

Clearly dive watches can’t really go back to the early twentieth century, scuba diving really became popular based on the adventures of Frenchman Jacques Cousteau and his crew on board the Calypso. Maybe you feel like you are part of the discovery of the oceans, vintage watches are big business now, many people are purchasing second hand watches on online platforms such as ebay, Chrono24 or even auctions. All of a sudden, your grandfather’s watch was valuable, who would have known the watch the old guy wore daily was now a collector’s item – was the old guy really that cool?

The 42 mm Heritage Diver is a re-edition of the 1960s model, the advantage of a re-edition is a sapphire crystal may be fitted such as in the case of the Heritage Diver providing scratch resistance for the crystal. The watch doesn’t have 40 or more years of wear and you don’t expose large sums of money to potential fraudsters if you are purchasing online. I love vintage watches but I don’t want to part with my cash hoping that the person will send what I paid for; or worse, the watch is a fake or frankenwatch. This is a watch that has been either modified or serviced with non-standard components.

Once watches become vintage, you don’t want to take them diving because if they flood you have just destroyed a perfect vintage timepiece. After I had a 1967 timepiece refurbished at a watchmaker, he informed me that watches over 40 years of age shouldn’t be immersed anymore as they do not rate the water resistance anymore. The powerplant is the L633 self-winding automatic movement vibrating at 28,800 VPH providing 38 hours of power reserve. The three hand model shows hours minutes and seconds, the dial is a little busy with long minute markers; however, this is what people want and this is a popular rerelease.