Let's Talk About The Caribbean!

I'm going to take a few excerpts from Erik Slaven's excellent Feb 2019 article from Monochrome (located here: https://monochrome-watches.com/jenny-watches-may-be-a-brand-youve-never-heard-of-but-theyve-left-a-significant-mark-on-dive-watch-history/)

"JENNY Watches (pronounced as yen-ny), produced dive watches from day one. The relatively unknown brand beat all of the major players to 1,000 metres of depth over 50 years ago (that includes Rolex - my addition).

Established in 1963 as JENNY & Cie S.A. in Lengnau, Switzerland (by Paul G. Jenny, son of original company founder Gustav Jenny), it was the first brand to produce a 1,000-metre water-resistant dive watch, known as the JENNY Caribbean 1000 (see image in the header - my addition). In addition to its own portfolio, it also produced watches for competing brands, including Fortis, Ollechs & Wajs and Aquadive, among others. Doxa became a victim of the quartz crisis of the 1980s but was bought by the Jenny family in 1997 and Sub dive watches were again produced under the Doxa brand. Production of watches under the Jenny brand also stopped for many years but was revived in 2012/2013 with the Jenny Caribbean 300 to mark the 50th Anniversary of the company’s founding. Jenny Watches is certainly more obscure than brands like Omega and TAG Heuer, but with patents on both a one-piece case construction (MONOBLOC Caribbean Triple Safe) and a unique decompression bezel design, it’s a force to be reckoned with in the world of dive watches."

Jenny has in 2022 again reissued its famous Caribbean (available from PurchaseDirect) in four colors: Orange, Yellow, Blue and Black.

So there are the 1960s Caribbean monobloc models with 1,000M, the late 1960s/early 1970s Caribbean models with 100M-300M, the anniversary issued Caribbeans of 2012/2013 with 300M, and now the 2022 reissued Caribbeans with 300M.

There are also some "NOS" Caribbeans from a dealer in Germany who apparently has access to the Caribbean cases and dials and uses NOS period-correct ETA movements in the assembled watches purportedly good to 300M.

Jenny white-labeled the Caribbean for a vast variety of brand names including: Aquadive, Caribbean, Dugena, Eisenhardt, Festina, Fortis, Haste, O&W, Phiegied (owned by Philip Watch), Philip Watch and many more.

Here are some Caribbeans that I have in my collection from across the years (in chronological order) - you can tell the true early vintage models by the metallic paint used for the dial - the modern reissues and "NOS" creations have flat paint on the dial:

If you have a Caribbean, please add to the discussion. It would be great to see more models and brands.

Enjoy!