First dive watch

The Omega Marine wasn’t a purposebuild divewatch. Only the Marketing team at Omega make this claim. And non purposebuild WP watches were already made by Rolex and Cartier. Hence, the first real purposebuild diver is the Fifty Fathoms

The Omega Marine WAS the first commercially available dive watch -

https://www.omegawatches.com/chronicle/1932-wet-and-dry-precision

Here we go again…

We just need that guy who wants us all to sue Rolex to give us a lecture as to why it’s Waltham, and to buy his book which is an irony not lost on me. I’m not one for “boiling the ocean”, which I think is quite apt as an analogy here as well, but let’s go...

I've seen claims from Zodiac

Anyone who made a watch and has seen water has a claim. Only the hardcore give a f**k, whilst also not washing their hands with anything less than 200m WR.

Didn’t Panerai actually do it first for Royal Italian Navy divers before Blancpain?

From the same guy who busted Panerai for downgrading/faking their movements, I’ll just leave this here and grab the popcorn.

Debunking the Fictitious History of the Fifty Fathoms

If this is a Rolex / Blancpain question, why is it in the Omega section?

Rolex built those Panerais between 1930’s and 50’s.

Guess it depends on one’s definition of ‘diver’. If it’s depth rating then the Rolex/Panerai Radiomir 3646, Zodiac Seawolf, and the Rolex Turnographe (and the subsequent Submariner that was based on The Turnographe) had deeper depth ratings than the FF’s 91m (I’m not sure about the Omega Marine’s). If it’s the dive time bezel, the Seawolf had a more useful dive bezel than the FF, with the first 15 minutes on its unidirectional bezel being fully graded, unlike the original FF. Either way — even if one ignores more recent evidence that strongly suggests that the Submariner predates the FF — I don’t think the FF can lay claim to bring the first ‘diver’ since the Seawolf may have been unveiled at the same time and was more capable, and the Rolex-Panerai Radiomir predates them both… and then we have the debatable granddaddy Omega Marine to consider as well. Given all of that, I’d personally swap out the FF in the OP’s meme for either the Radiomir or the Seawolf.

Thanks for this. Fascinating article. Always good to see research on such topics rather than simple acceptance of company marketing.

“Omega” Marine

… yeah, no idea

Jesus walked on water, but no one suggested he was the first hovercraft

I fail to see the relevance my man…

My understanding was that Rolex only made the movement in those…

Richemont would certainly like you to think that, but no, they were designed and manufactured by Rolex for Panerai; in fact they’re derivatives of the Rolex Oyster 2081 (manufactured in the 1920’s), and Rolex supplied Panerai watches well into the ‘50’s — in many a sense, Panerai is the house that Rolex built; those early Panerai were stamped ‘Rolex’ on not just the movements but the cases as well (though the early movements were Rolex-sourced Cortebert movements), and some Radiomirs even had the Rolex logo on the crown. I was recently in Qatar and had the pleasure of seeing a Rolex collector’s amazing collection of vintage Rolex that included one example of a Rolex 2081 and the lineage is evident — I was planning on posting the brief video I took later this week, watch this space! A lot of collectors of these vintage pieces even refer to them as Rolex-Panerai. Moving on from the Radiomir, even the precursor to the Luminor and its iconic crown guard was designed by Rolex (it was still branded Radiomir but featured the iconic crown guard). The much-later-added aluminum sandwich dials were all Panerai. I personally love the linked rich history of the two brands (questionable political history aside) and think Richemont’s obfuscation of this history has been one of many missteps they’ve made with the brand.

Some bookmarked reading:

https://thewatchbuyersgroup.com/stories/first-rolex-dive-watch-italian-navys-panerai/

https://www.rolexmagazine.com/2008/09/book-review-100-superlative-rolex_431.html

https://perezcope.com/2021/06/05/rolex-panerai-carabinieri-the-origins-at-phillips-hong-kong/

https://perezcope.com/2019/05/27/rolex-panerai-3646-service-invoice-from-1955/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panerai

Perezcope disagrees, patents filed state otherwise.

https://perezcope.com/2023/09/09/debunking-the-fictitious-history-of-the-blancpain-fifty-fathoms/

Ah so the Submariner was first, makes sense. I just wanted to protest against the stupid claim by Omega that the Omega The Marine was the first diver, simce that is ridiculous amd false