Watches are one of the men’s accessories that reflect their personality and sense of styles when worn it. Since the birth of wristwatches, different types of watches have made their entry into the market and when we talk about the modern timepieces, dive watches are one of them.
Water resistant is the minimum feature of dive watches that means you can wear them when doing some work under water or your job involves spending too much time with water. So, many of you must be curious to know the actual birth time and the story behind the creation of dive watches. Well, the history of water resistant watches started in 1920s but they became popular almost three decades later.
The first diving watch
Many big names from the watch industry claim to be the first to develop a dive watch but the actual name still remained unclear to us. Rolex says that they invented the first waterproof wrist watch while according to Blancpain, 1953 is the year when Fifty Fathom and Omega had created the first ever dive watch.
However, here are some important facts to look at:
First waterproof watches made their entry into the market in the 17th century but they were not popular among the wristwatch lovers until three centuries later. At that time water was one of the enemies of watches along with dust, magnetic fields, and shock. Then Hand Wilsdorf, the founder of Rolex changed the history of diving watch.
In 1926, Hand Wilsdorf developed a waterproof and dustproof watch named Oyster which was put on test in 7 October 1927 when Mercedes Gleitze, a British swimmer tried to cross the English Channel by swimming. She wore the watch on a chain around her neck during her daring swim. Everyone was surprised finding that the Rolex Oyster not only survived in the freezing water for more than 10 hours but also worked with accuracy.
Other great names like Rolex in the watch industry are Panerai, Omega and Blancpain.
Omega was the first name in the dive watch industry that industrially produced and commercially distributed the dive watches in 1932. Two years later, Officine Panerai began producing Panerai Radiomir in mass and this watch was the first underwater military watch. Blancpain, another well known name in the watch industry was not left behind in the race.
Success story of Rolex
In 1953, Rolex introduced Rolex Submariner which has a water resistant capability up to 100 metres. Later this number increased to 200 metres and then 300 metres. From 1963, Rolex Sea-Dweller was one of the best dive watches with the waterproofness of up to 2000 feet or 610 metres and earned the name Sea-Dweller 2000. The development continued and in 1978, Rolex introduced Sea-Dweller 4000 that has a water resistance of 1220 metres. Rolex Deepsea was developed after 30 years with a water-resistance of 12, 8000 feet.
Top dive watches names
Rolex Submariner which is one of the most popular & imitated dive watches, is water resistant up to 300 metres. Rolex Deepsea is another famous model from the brand.
Other popular names are Panerai Radiomir, IWC Aquatimer, and Oris Pro Diver.
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