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The "Fifty Fathoms" name goes back well over 50 years when Blancpain developed divers watches for combat use.
I already had lurked at the Fifty Fathoms after visiting the "X Fathoms" exhibit at "La Cité du Temps" in Geneve early 2012.
Unfortunately, as my wrist is 16.5cm only, I had to give up on the idea of ever wearing one.
All this started again while reading SenorCoveyy's thread about vintage Blancpain watches here ...
I searched again for a Blancpain that could fit my 16.5cm wrist and finally stumbled on pics of a Fifty Fathoms Bund 3H.
That model has, among Blancpain divers watches, a specific history :
During the late 1970s, the German Military required a watch for its Navy Combat Divers or more specifically the West German Bundeswehr Kampfschwimmers.
They commissioned Blancpain to produce a special variant of the "Fifty Fathoms" to meet the demanding and specific requirements of the German Army Combat Swimmer (Bundeswehr Kampfschwimmers).
The result was the 3H Bund Fifty Fathoms, that doesn't look like the stereotypical Blancpain FF ... which makes the reference quite unique.
It was never available for civilian use and was only military issued making that model incredibly rare.
Moreover, and happily for me, the Bund 3H is a relatively small watch among the Fifty Fathoms.
In addition to its relatively reduced size the FF Bund 3H possesses some key design characteristics unique to the reference, some based on the requirements of the German Navy and some based on the specific production conditions.
The red "3H" printed on the dial :
That characteristic can be seen with other German Military issued watches from the same period.
It is a military reference to the non-radioactive age tritium indexes and hands.
The "sterile" bezel :
That bezel, thought being a divers rotationg one, only shows a tritium triangle without any numerals or hash marks.
It's due to the fact that, during this watches service, the German Navy was deploying the usage of a closed circuit rebreather SCUBA systems that offered extended dive times.
This rendered the usage of a typical dive bezel useless as hours were measured and not the typical minutes while underwater
The "Squale" case :
The 42mm case was produced by Von Buren that made it very similar to Squale’s current 1521 case, although much thicker at 15mm.
That case is much more angular than the usual Fifty Fathoms cases and has a crown at 4:00 ... something really unique among the FFs and much more "Squale" than "Blancpain".
As typical military designed watches the FF 3H has drilledlugs with a set of fixed bars
Here are some pics of an original one ...
I already had lurked at the Fifty Fathoms after visiting the "X Fathoms" exhibit at "La Cité du Temps" in Geneve early 2012.
Unfortunately, as my wrist is 16.5cm only, I had to give up on the idea of ever wearing one.
All this started again while reading SenorCoveyy's thread about vintage Blancpain watches here ...
I searched again for a Blancpain that could fit my 16.5cm wrist and finally stumbled on pics of a Fifty Fathoms Bund 3H.
That model has, among Blancpain divers watches, a specific history :
During the late 1970s, the German Military required a watch for its Navy Combat Divers or more specifically the West German Bundeswehr Kampfschwimmers.
They commissioned Blancpain to produce a special variant of the "Fifty Fathoms" to meet the demanding and specific requirements of the German Army Combat Swimmer (Bundeswehr Kampfschwimmers).
The result was the 3H Bund Fifty Fathoms, that doesn't look like the stereotypical Blancpain FF ... which makes the reference quite unique.
It was never available for civilian use and was only military issued making that model incredibly rare.
Moreover, and happily for me, the Bund 3H is a relatively small watch among the Fifty Fathoms.
In addition to its relatively reduced size the FF Bund 3H possesses some key design characteristics unique to the reference, some based on the requirements of the German Navy and some based on the specific production conditions.
The red "3H" printed on the dial :
That characteristic can be seen with other German Military issued watches from the same period.
It is a military reference to the non-radioactive age tritium indexes and hands.
The "sterile" bezel :
That bezel, thought being a divers rotationg one, only shows a tritium triangle without any numerals or hash marks.
It's due to the fact that, during this watches service, the German Navy was deploying the usage of a closed circuit rebreather SCUBA systems that offered extended dive times.
This rendered the usage of a typical dive bezel useless as hours were measured and not the typical minutes while underwater
The "Squale" case :
The 42mm case was produced by Von Buren that made it very similar to Squale’s current 1521 case, although much thicker at 15mm.
That case is much more angular than the usual Fifty Fathoms cases and has a crown at 4:00 ... something really unique among the FFs and much more "Squale" than "Blancpain".
As typical military designed watches the FF 3H has drilledlugs with a set of fixed bars
Here are some pics of an original one ...
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