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MMMD
路I'm taking a page from the www.thesmokinggun.com playbook on this one...
I like divers from the 50's. Still saving my pennies for a Rolex Sub 6538, but I haven't made it to $45,000 yet. Heck, I haven't even made it to the amount of an offer that might reasonably be entertained...
And I had a little trouble coming up with $30k for the last 1950's Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Milspec 1 that came to market.
But I had an extra $400 lying around, so I scratched my early diver itch by picking up two Enicar divers - the Seapearl 600 (ca. 1957-58) and the Healthways 100 Fathoms (1955-56).
The Seapearl is in nice shape, with a tasty copper and black patina, running well.
("Ultrasonic" refers to the method used to clean the parts of the movement before assembly.)
The Healthways 100 Fathom is, well... a project:
The Healthways 100 is a co-branded version of the original Seapearl 600, sold in the U.S. The same model, branded "Seapearl 600," is believed to be the Enicar model worn by the members of the Swiss expedition that tackled Mt. Everest and Lhotse (the highest unclimbed peak in the world at the time) in 1956; after that, just about every watch that Enicar produced had "Sherpa" or "Sherpas" written on it somewhere.
*Curious side note: Albert Eggler, the Swiss expedition leader, refers to the watches in his account (or at least in the English translation) as "the Enicar automatic wrist-watches, some of them fitted with a thermometer" (p. 35). It is commonly held that the watches were in fact manual-wind Seapearl 600's.
Inside both the Seapearl 600 and the Healthways 100 Fathom beats the 17-jewel AR 1010, with a reputation for durability. "AR" for Ariste Racine, founder of Enicar (Racine spelled backwards). I wasn't able to wrestle the Seapearl's case open with my rubber ball, but I did pop open the bayonet case of the Healthways 100. The cases are Piquerez (EPSA) products, from the pre-Super-Compressor days. The Healthways is dated December 1955.
The back of the case looks as if it has seen a few decades in a junk drawer:
The Seapearl 600's case back is quite a bit more sharp, and includes the word "Sherpas" as a reference to the recent Everest expedition:
While researching these Enicar divers, I came across some interesting reports from the U.S. Navy.
In 1958, Bulova was developing a new submersible watch for the Navy. While the Bulova was being developed, two watches - the Rolex Sub and the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms - had been approved by the Bureau of Ships for interim purchase by the Navy. The U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit (EDU) tested these watches against the still-in-development Bulova. They also tested the Enicar Seapearl 600, because it was being used by some Navy divers and had received positive reports from the field.
A report entitled "Miscellaneous Comments on Several Submersible Wrist Watches" from May 1959 has been cited on other fora in posts about Enicar dive watches.
This report, available here, "supplements earlier tests previously reported" and gives the results of subsequent tests of the Enicar Sherpa Diver 600, a model with rotatable bezel. The report states that the Bureau of Ships had recently updated the list of approved submersible wrist watches, retaining the Rolex Submariner and Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, and adding two Enicar models, the Seapearl 600 and the Enicar Sherpa Diver 600.
Though the EDU felt that the Sherpa Diver 600 was preferable to the Seapearl because of its rotatable bezel and similar price, they had good things to say about the Seapearl:
The mention of the EDU Evaluation Report 1-59 inspired me to seek out that document, to see how the Seapearl 600 did against the legendary Rolex and Blancpain. After much poking around dusty corners of the internet, the Defense Technical Information Center directed me to the National Technical Information Service, and a few days later the following report - excerpted here for perhaps the first time on the internet - arrived in the mail:
The abstract had me hooked immediately:
What?! Delete the Rolex Submariner from the Navy's approved list? Add the Enicar Seapearl 600? Madness!
Man, that didn't come across in the "Miscellaneous Comments" put out nine months later. Let's dig deeper:
Amazingly enough, all the divers testing the watches said - all factors, including cost, considered - that the Seapearl 600 was their first choice.
Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. As we know from the "Miscellaneous Comments" of May 1959, the Bureau of Ships was too smart to heed the EDU recommendation to delete the Rolex from the approved list, so some Navy divers ended up with a keepsake that might fetch $45,000 fifty years later, instead of one that would be had for $227.49 on the 'Bay in 2013. 馃槈
Oh, I still want a Model 6538 Sub... and a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Milspec1 even more... but for now I'll wear the Seapearl 600 with pride...
... unless there's a chance it might get wet, in which case:
馃榾
I like divers from the 50's. Still saving my pennies for a Rolex Sub 6538, but I haven't made it to $45,000 yet. Heck, I haven't even made it to the amount of an offer that might reasonably be entertained...
And I had a little trouble coming up with $30k for the last 1950's Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Milspec 1 that came to market.
But I had an extra $400 lying around, so I scratched my early diver itch by picking up two Enicar divers - the Seapearl 600 (ca. 1957-58) and the Healthways 100 Fathoms (1955-56).
The Seapearl is in nice shape, with a tasty copper and black patina, running well.
("Ultrasonic" refers to the method used to clean the parts of the movement before assembly.)
The Healthways 100 Fathom is, well... a project:
The Healthways 100 is a co-branded version of the original Seapearl 600, sold in the U.S. The same model, branded "Seapearl 600," is believed to be the Enicar model worn by the members of the Swiss expedition that tackled Mt. Everest and Lhotse (the highest unclimbed peak in the world at the time) in 1956; after that, just about every watch that Enicar produced had "Sherpa" or "Sherpas" written on it somewhere.
*Curious side note: Albert Eggler, the Swiss expedition leader, refers to the watches in his account (or at least in the English translation) as "the Enicar automatic wrist-watches, some of them fitted with a thermometer" (p. 35). It is commonly held that the watches were in fact manual-wind Seapearl 600's.
Inside both the Seapearl 600 and the Healthways 100 Fathom beats the 17-jewel AR 1010, with a reputation for durability. "AR" for Ariste Racine, founder of Enicar (Racine spelled backwards). I wasn't able to wrestle the Seapearl's case open with my rubber ball, but I did pop open the bayonet case of the Healthways 100. The cases are Piquerez (EPSA) products, from the pre-Super-Compressor days. The Healthways is dated December 1955.
The back of the case looks as if it has seen a few decades in a junk drawer:
The Seapearl 600's case back is quite a bit more sharp, and includes the word "Sherpas" as a reference to the recent Everest expedition:
While researching these Enicar divers, I came across some interesting reports from the U.S. Navy.
In 1958, Bulova was developing a new submersible watch for the Navy. While the Bulova was being developed, two watches - the Rolex Sub and the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms - had been approved by the Bureau of Ships for interim purchase by the Navy. The U.S. Navy Experimental Diving Unit (EDU) tested these watches against the still-in-development Bulova. They also tested the Enicar Seapearl 600, because it was being used by some Navy divers and had received positive reports from the field.
A report entitled "Miscellaneous Comments on Several Submersible Wrist Watches" from May 1959 has been cited on other fora in posts about Enicar dive watches.
This report, available here, "supplements earlier tests previously reported" and gives the results of subsequent tests of the Enicar Sherpa Diver 600, a model with rotatable bezel. The report states that the Bureau of Ships had recently updated the list of approved submersible wrist watches, retaining the Rolex Submariner and Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, and adding two Enicar models, the Seapearl 600 and the Enicar Sherpa Diver 600.
Though the EDU felt that the Sherpa Diver 600 was preferable to the Seapearl because of its rotatable bezel and similar price, they had good things to say about the Seapearl:
The mention of the EDU Evaluation Report 1-59 inspired me to seek out that document, to see how the Seapearl 600 did against the legendary Rolex and Blancpain. After much poking around dusty corners of the internet, the Defense Technical Information Center directed me to the National Technical Information Service, and a few days later the following report - excerpted here for perhaps the first time on the internet - arrived in the mail:
The abstract had me hooked immediately:
What?! Delete the Rolex Submariner from the Navy's approved list? Add the Enicar Seapearl 600? Madness!
Man, that didn't come across in the "Miscellaneous Comments" put out nine months later. Let's dig deeper:
Amazingly enough, all the divers testing the watches said - all factors, including cost, considered - that the Seapearl 600 was their first choice.
Thankfully, this story has a happy ending. As we know from the "Miscellaneous Comments" of May 1959, the Bureau of Ships was too smart to heed the EDU recommendation to delete the Rolex from the approved list, so some Navy divers ended up with a keepsake that might fetch $45,000 fifty years later, instead of one that would be had for $227.49 on the 'Bay in 2013. 馃槈
Oh, I still want a Model 6538 Sub... and a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Milspec1 even more... but for now I'll wear the Seapearl 600 with pride...
... unless there's a chance it might get wet, in which case:
馃榾
