Some of you know I have a bit of an obsession with Nivada in all of its forms. I’m hooked. For purposes of clarity, I’ll be referring to the brand as Nivada but the watch in question was likely branded Croton Nivada Grenchen for legal reasons in the US. You can read all about this in numerous articles on the brand so I won’t get into the details of that story, but basically Nivada was doing business as CNG in the US.

Most people today know the brand from two watches, the Chronomaster and the Antarctic but I’ve recently been trying to track down the real story behind the Antarctic.

It occurred to me recently that the Nivada and Croton Nivada advertising around the Antarctic was a little vague on the specifics of what the US Navy took to Antarctica during Operation Deep Freeze I and II for the International Geophysical Year 1957-1958. In other words, they leave a lot of room for interpretation which got me to thinking. In these ads, Nivada doesn’t state that the watch or watches were issued by the Navy, only that they accompanied the expedition. Their earlier advertising seems to elude to the fact that only one watch was was sent to Antarctica since it’s referred to in the singular. It’s my pet theory that Croton Nivada sent an ETA1256 equipped Aquamatic, with special low-temp oils, with one of the crew and told to report back. Nothing official, just a guy wearing a watch. I think this makes the most sense considering the wording of their advertising. Since then, this myth has developed that Nivada was heavily involved in the timekeeping during the early Deep Freeze exercises when it does seem they may have only sent one watch, and unofficially at that. Additionally, I don’t think the watch (or watches perhaps) were branded “Antarctic”, I think that came later. Think Rolex/Smiths/Everest.

Personally, this doesn’t take anything away from Nivada, at least for me. I like facts and I would love to get to the bottom of this story.

So what are your thoughts? I’d love to hear what others think, especially if I’m missing something here.

 

I can believe it. By the way, my dad's 1960 Croton 25-jewel Aquamatic is not marked Nivada anywhere.

 

Some of the Aquamatics weren’t marked Nivada at all, but the movement will usually have “COW” engraved.

 

Indeed it does!

 

Yep, this silly legal workaround really makes things difficult for collectors! Why they labeled one “Croton” only, and “Croton Nivada Grenchen” seems to have no rhyme or reason to it, but there are some consistencies if you look hard enough. The Chronomaster Only book is probably the most in-depth when it comes to explaining all this, but even they admit that some of it is guesswork.

 

For me the Antartic is kinda like the KonTiki, there's a dubious connection between the watch and the expedition but in both instances great watches were the result of that connection and the advertising that went along.

 

I think so. that’s a good example too; I hadn’t thought of that one.

I don’t doubt that CNG sent a watch to Antarctica, I’d just like to know if it was something the US Navy sanctioned or something that wound up on the wrist of a rating who came home and said “yep, it still works”

 

The period advertising seems to suggest some amount of "testing" went on: “They were subjected to prolonged immersion, extreme altitude and high-magnetism. They were dropped and knocked against ice. They were never wound. Through all these tests, Nivada’s Antarctics kept perfect time.”

 

I’m not denying they had at last one watch in Antarctica, what I’m wondering is what did they test. Was it the Aquamatic with special oils, was it something else?

 

One could read the word “tests” as used here to employ the word’s sense of “ordeals” or “tribulations” - if so, all the other descriptors could be read as merely a description of what the one guy wearing the watch was up to, incidentally.

 

Haha I agree.

Reporting back to CNG: “Yeah, I unloaded a lot of stuff from a ship, walked around a bit, it was cold as hell, got wet a lot, thing still works!”

 

Any idea what the "Compensamatic feature" was?

 

Yeah, Compensamatic was the term they used for their technology in the watch. Automatic, water resistant, temperature resistant etc. It was just a marketing term