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Watch Of The Week My First Vintage Dive Watch

A little less skin in the game.

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In Watch of the Week, we invite HODINKEE staffers and friends to explain why they love a certain watch. This week's columnist is our very own Senior Writer.

Let's go back a few years. To 2016. Beyonce's Lemonade is obliterating the charts, Hamilton has claimed a Grammy and most of the market's available Tonys. No one will stop talking about Stranger Things, and people are upset about a Ghostbusters reboot that I still haven't seen. In some ways, simpler times.

the skin diver on a piece of wood

In the world of watches, the heat is continuing to rise. Phillips sells a steel Patek Philippe 1518 for a little over CHF 11,000,000. Rolex launches the Daytona in steel with a ceramic bezel. AP drops the Royal Oak Concept Supersonnerie. And Journe makes waves with the quartz-powered Elegante 48.

And then there's me: 2016 Me. While I haven't yet made watches my career, I am an avid diver and obsessed with dive watches and I have convinced myself that it's time to get another one. Specifically, a vintage one. Wanting to be both realistic in my budget and my expectations, I push aside any fleeting considerations of 1665 Sea-Dwellers or tidy Aquastar Deepstars. I dig around some and find myself quite entertained by the lineage of the "skin diver" format, characterized by classic sizing, '60s styling, and a distinctive H-shaped case with strong lugs and simple lines.

the silvana on the author's wrist

As it turns out, picking a skin diver is a bit like picking a flavor at Baskin & Robbins, one is spoiled for choice, especially if you're willing to avoid vanilla.

Dive Watch Lite

Lots has been written about the dive watch sub-genre known as skin divers. Born in the late 1950s and meant to be less expensive alternatives to so-called professional dive watches (such as the Rolex Submariner or Blancpain Fifty Fathoms), skin divers were a more casual and cost-effective take that could still be used for diving and general aquatic adventuring (think: snorkeling and indeed "skin diving," which is pretty similar to what we now call freediving).

the silvana on the author's wrist

The idea here wasn't to make another watch that would be worn like the in-period equivalent of a dive computer, but rather as a sort of versatile vacation-ready everyday watch that had a sporty vibe and enough water resistance to get the job done. Classic operators in the space included brands like Longines and Aquastar, and the format was largely (but not exclusively) linked to the specific H-shape case, where each pair of lugs is defined by a squared cut-out that flanks the bezel edge (rather than curving with it).

Today, modern faux-vintage examples of the format are both common and quite popular, with models like the Seiko SPB143, the Longines Skin Diver, the Dietrich SD-1, the Baltic Aquascaphe, the Zodiac Super Sea Wolf 53 Skin, and the Doxa Sub 200 (to name only a few). But back in 2016, the pickins' were quite a bit slimmer.

Beneath the buzz of the most popular vintage skin diver options lies myriad examples from period brands that cranked out watches using a variety of shared elements, including cases, hands, dials, movements, and more. This is where I started my hunt – with brands like Technos, Wyler, Wittnauer, Vantage, Deman, Nicolet, Tradition, Waltham, and Yema (again, only to name a few).

the casback

My hunt lead me to an entry-level option from AnalogShift, a lovely Silvana skin diver with a mirror-finish countdown bezel, a handsomely well-worn case, and perfect dial/handset combination for an elegant take on the genre.

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Measuring about 37mm wide with a big unprotected crown, the Silvana is 13mm thick including the rise of its domed crystal and 47mm lug-to-lug. It wears beautifully, and, with drilled lugs, I could fit just about any 20mm strap. It was ideal on a vintage Tropic rubber, but performed well on a NATO, leather, or even a nice mesh bracelet.

the case profile of the silvana

The lume plots had been cooked by time and the hands had certainly seen better days, but I loved its glossy black dial, long hands, small markers, the internal date cyclops, and the light use of text on the dial (including the resplendent Automatique on the lower dial).

Ticking within was a cheap-and-cheerful ETA 2472 automatic that had been keeping great time since its last service – but did make me appreciate my more modern watches and their inclusion of quick-set dates.

Has The Ship Sailed?
the silvana's lume

Fast-forward to today and while skin divers are enjoying something of a reheat in the modern sense, vintage options remain easily available and still largely affordable. No, you won't see 1000x return on any of them, but a quick search of the usual spots will uncover a cornucopia of options in a wide state of condition. Find a tidy runner with relatively good lume (the kind that doesn't look as though it was applied with an old toothbrush) and go with God. Want to go the extra mile? Have it checked for basic water resistance and take it for a swim. I'm sure the old thing misses the water.

As an intro to the world of vintage dive watches, I don't think I could have done a lot better than my Silvana. I love the way it wears, how it looks, and the era it was made – an era when diving was still new and special, and seen as a casual vacation-friendly sport to be enjoyed by all.

the silvana on a piece of wood

Today, though both watches and diving have become more serious, more complicated, and entirely more daunting to beginners, more casual inroads do exist. If you want the watch equivalent of kicking off your sandals and grabbing a mask and some fins to splash about in crystal blue waters, one could say that there's plenty of fish in the sea.

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I have looked everywhere for this watch and cannot find it. Is it that rare?

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The green dot at 12 😍

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Skin diver types work really well for me, full size divers get a bit cumbersome occasionally and I have had a couple where parts of the bracelets chafe due to the weight. Skin divers no such issues! Well off to ebay it is then...

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I loved this article and this watch. For some reason these vintage watches always capture my heart and mind even more than a fully-spec'd-out modern watches. Well, I like them both I guess, but I never miss an article about a vintage piece. The aspect of the "artifact" has a romantic appeal to me I suppose. You wonder about the life it had before its life with you ; )

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Nice article James. Congrats on a very cool vintage watch. Love it on the mesh. In my experience, looking for any mid 20th timepiece like a skin diver can be akin to going down a rabbit hole. For the past couple years I’ve been on a hunt for a particular vintage Benrus from that period and I’m still patiently searching. You did good ! Cheers.

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Very nice watch and article! I am wondering where did you find and can we buy the Milano steel bracelet you have on some pictures? Julien from Biarritz

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🤤

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Thank you, James, for a great read about the skin divers I have a couple. time to get one serviced

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Thank you for the great article. As a diver who took it up as a mid '70's FL high school student, I bought a Seiko Capt. Willard. It is one of my watch collection foundations and I still wear it occasionally. I also have several other vintage and newer divers as well. They're great fun to shop and collect.

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Inspired by James talking about this watch on TGN, I bought a vintage Andre Rivalle diver a few years back. It was rather cool, but I quickly realized that "vintage diver" doesn't fit any of the ways I wear watches. Too tooly (especially on nylon or rubber) to wear like a dress watch; too fragile to wear like a tool watch. I sold it after a few months for what I paid for it. Every now and then I look at pictures and think "I really should have kept that" and have to remind myself why I sold it.

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Great article, great watch!

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Nice read! The old skin divers offer so much character and fun for not much cash. I have an old Gruen with a gilt cross-hair orange dial and a Wittnauer with bakelite bezel. Both watches have bi-directional friction bezels as do most of these old skin divers.

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Supercool, and bonus points for non-tritium lume. Dead H3 has always been a sticking point for me when I'm considering vintage...I like to tell the time in the dark once in a while. I do wonder, though...can an old watch like that ever be made water resistant enough for a swim? Just finding gaskets that fit can't be easy.

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I wondered the same thing!

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That's a great looking watch! Nicely done. I'm a big fan of 70's skin divers. My Waltham B339 gets a lot of wrist time. I have a Sheffield All Sport as well, and recently sold a Whitney to cull the herd a bit.

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Like it.

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Lovely writing. Now to the watch at hand. The Silvana has a wonderful classic appearance. Since the the trend has swung back to smaller case sizes, it would be a revelation for designers en masse to begin producing smaller thinner bezels relative to the dial size. The visual balance is unmistakable.

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lovely old watch. just don't get it anywhere near water.

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Slick watch dude!

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JS stories always get the first click.

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It’s cool that you still have it! Hope it gets a little wrist time now and then.

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Excellent!

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Nice one, James. That watch is a James Stacey special right there.

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Nice

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Just bought a 37mm Rado Captain Cook in grey. It’s the ultimate neo-vintage skin diver. I absolutely love it on my dainty wrists.

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Superb acquisition ! Nicely done!

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Cracker of a story and cracker of a watch. Very entertaining.

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Nice nod with the ole Orthoceras cephalopod Big soft spot for skin divers My go-to recommendation for newbish watch friends looking for something vintage that's somewhat durable and sporty - a lot of joy for a reasonable price. Inevitable question: where's the mesh from?

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I'm betting that's the Heimdallr "NTTD" mesh!

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Ahh, thank you my Japanese Balaeniceps Rex Master Ornithologist friend

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I also find no date (cause non-quickset is a PAIN) manual wind vintage Wittnauer and Waltham dress watches from the 60/70s to be a good bet - not as durable, to be sure, but generally speaking durability isn't what one gets from most vintage watches, including divers, and the service costs are very low.

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Ooh, that is really nice! I can see where perhaps Etienne at Baltic took inspiration...

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Thumbs up. I like it.

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Nice little article. Cool little watch.

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Nice Lume !

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It glows like that for... maybe 2 seconds. haha

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Is this a watch you'd take in a swimming pool?

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If it passed a pressure test, absolutely. Without? I would leave it with my book and drink at the pool's edge.

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When you returned, there would not be the watch nor the book to greet you.

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True, but the drink would still be there, so, glass (hopefully) half full.

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Foods & drinks are not to be trifled with during global pandemics.

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I see what you did there

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