Oris recently came out with one of those hollow tube depth gauges..... claims to be a first! The above Nivada, my Bulova, the old Pierce from the fifties and one other oddball I've seen makes four predating Oris's "new invention"!!!
1942 US Navy underwater demolition team watch. UDT later became the SEALS, this has got to be one of the original dive watches as it predates scuba tanks. The crystal is soldered in!
A couple of Tag Heuers from the 80s.
An 840.006 Super Professional
And a 180.123, the only full size automatic night diver in the lineup
I challenge anyone to find another example of this watch. Images from the eBay listing recently don’t count. It had a badly cracked crystal when I found it. I can’t find a single watch from this brand let alone the same watch. It’s actually not the worst quality. And the bezel did once have numbers. And Rito Mundo who designs modern watches is NOT the guy. He was born in 2002. This watch is from the 1965 to 1975 period, I believe.
These were very popular in the Asian market in the 1970s, and are probably similar in quality to the generic 5 atm diver-style watches made using Swiss components at the time, just with Japanese-made components. Not actual dive watches or skin divers obviously.
That is a far better watch than that - it has a full stainless compressor style case, inner rotating bezel, and is a legitimate dive watch:
https://omegaforums.net/threads/orient-king-diver.34998/
Wow, that's interesting. What is the depth rating? I understand that it's SS, but what do you mean by compressor style case exactly? I am familiar with the EPSA patents.
Ha - turns out that water resistance wasn't actually very good - 40m rating. But still decent watches. Here's some info that Fratello wrote on them when Orient did a King Diver reissue:
https://www.fratellowatches.com/hot-take-orient-king-diver-70th-anniversary/
