Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms

Alongside the Rolex Submariner and DOXA Sub 300 Series, the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms is without question one of the most important dive watch designs in history, and is often credited with being the first purpose-built timepiece with sub-aquatic usage in mind.  Designed by nageur de combat (“combat swimmer”) Captain Bob Maloubier, who sketched it with a pen and paper, the idea was first sent to French watchmaker LIP. But LIP dismissed the idea as a ‘portable clock without any future.’  So it was Blancpain, then — under the influence of Jean-Jacques Fiechter, the brand's new director — that ultimately believed in Maloubier's design and agreed to produce it. The first Fifty Fathoms debuted in 1953, unique among its contemporaries for its 42mm size and bakelite bezel. Fiechter, himself an experienced diver, decreed that the bezel would only rotate one way, thus making it impossible for the diver to misread how much air he had left in his tank. In order to guarantee water-tightness, Fiechter devised a system using rubber gaskets to seal the case. He also chose an automatic winding system rather than a manual one for the movement, because of the undue stress a manual winding system can put on the crown. Underwater explorer and oceanographer Jacques Cousteau was among the first to adopt the Fifty Fathoms, featuring it in his documentary Le Monde du Silence. Navies of France, Germany, and the United States chose the Fifty Fathoms for their divers. Since then, the model family has blossomed into one of Blancpain’s tentpole collections and constitutes a large part of the maison’s sales.  This particular Fifty-Fathoms, a contemporary Reference 50015-12B30-52B '500 Fathoms', is a bit of a monster. Coming in with an undeniably large 48mm titanium case, it features a sapphire crystal, a signed crown, a unidirectional rotating dive bezel with a luminous black sapphire insert, and a black and grey dial with luminous quadrant 'Arabic' indices and a matching ‘sword’ handset. This piece comes fitted to a signed black rubber-lined canvas strap with a signed steel pin buckle and is powered by Blancpain's Calibre 1315 automatic winding movement with a whopping 120 hours of power reserve and a wildly cool, engine-turned rotor in the shape of a propeller — as seen through the individually numbered sapphire exhibition caseback. This is a premium dive watch offering from one of the most respected watchmakers in the history of horology, and a direct descendant from what was debatably the very first purpose built dive watch ever. Underrated and often overlooked, you simply can’t go wrong with a Fifty Fathoms!