The Truest Skindiver On The Market

Personally I love the skin diver genre of watches and I'm always on the lookout to another addition to the collection.

So what's a 'skindiver', well back in the day they were the less capable watches you could go in the water with, you had the 'proper' dive watches from the likes of Rolex, Zodiac Blancpain (of course) later on Doxa, and a host of others, all boasting world beating specs and build quality that stands the test of time and are very sought after today.

But in the dive watch world there was a sub genre of 'wet capable' watches, the skin divers. These watches could get wet, do most of what they're more illustrious big brothers could do, but they were made to a cheaper price, so less depth rating, cases were often plated base metals and movements were of a lower quality, often a manual wind low or no jewelled movement. Just watches to be used, no babying , abused and then thrown away (or in a drawer, to be forgotten about for many years, till ebay). Proper cheap workhorses/tools.

Now as a collector you can go down the vintage route. But (and there's plenty been written about staying away from these) there's the usual vintage problems and they are multiplied in this genre because of the design brief as a cheap, generally use n throw away watch, they didn't get serviced, the movement's once wear sets in are scrap, plated cases corrode and loose they're shine, bits fall off etc. Yep finding a good one can be a proper unicorn hunt. Yes ebay and the like is full of well worn examples with seized bezels, more brass than chrome cases, cracked plexiglass and Russian roulette movement's. Even if they look good externally are they good inside, and to compound the problem every man and his dog made them from the big vintage names to local jeweller's who bought cases n movement's and put them together. And yes I've a few..

All the above problems along with some botched re luming (done by a blind man on the back of a motorbike going down a bumpy road) vintage charm, patina or a road to watch madness.

Luckily the modern watch world has cottoned on to the skindiver, and there's a plethora of modern recreations fom the likes of longines,oris and many more. But there's a catch, yes you get the looks, the feel (bigger of course) a warm vintagey glow coming from your wrist. But the PRICE, a skindiver was cheaper, a cheap watch to be enjoyed of course but a tool a watch for the working man, that could do its job but not cost into 4 figures.

Here's a nice example of an old skindiver, Sheffield allsport, a brand that died out many years ago.

Now there's a guy called Jay Turkbas

Who's resurrected the Sheffield brand and had bought to the market what I believe a truest interpretation of the skin diver.

The Sheffield allsport skin diver, inspired by a watch from his childhood. And he's delivered a cracker, great specs and at a fantastically affordable price, a true skindiver.

There's no expensive Swiss movement just an honest NH35,the watch made in the far east (he hasn't hidden that fact) but has sapphire crystal, stainless steel case

comes on a generic tropic strap, drilled lugs and 200m of water resistance.

Oh and the lume

Oh it's good, glows like a "Gud Un" and considering it houses an NH35 not too thick at 13mm and the 40mm case doesn't wear too big.

Compare it with some of my other modern resurrected skindivers

Even Gus approves (Gus has a stone and if you pick up the stone, you've got a friend for hours and hours)

G dog remarked, "at the price wasn't expecting much, a lot better as I thought it would be really WOOF" (sorry 🤣)

Now there's always some things that I can moan about (always)

Yes there's a blob on the crystal, hate em. But to be fair it keeps the cost down (the origonal had an internal cyclops in the plexiglass) and its sort of in keeping with the look, so yes a moan but a minor one.

But those crown guards, oh for all that is watch holy WHY??? just a nice large crown would have sufficed

Ooh I'm tempted, very tempted...

But let's celebrate the good stuff, the dial is absolutely spot, like the original deep black with coffin shaped indices filled with that glorious coloured lume and the bezel, oh the bezel it looks factory fresh from 1973, aluminium with a gloss insert. It looks like a bigger version of the origonal that's been kept in a time capsule. And as you can see I've given it some strap love a bit of 'up vintageing' and got rid of the generic tropic and put it on a period NOS rallye/tropic (the rallye versions are 1/4 of the price of full tropics).

Of course no reveiw of mine would be complete without an expert opinion. Now I did call 'Bob the skin diver' but as it's only in single figures in early spring in the northern hemisphere, he declined to make an appearance as he takes his 'skin diving' very seriously to the nth degree (I can remember last August bank holiday when he emerged from the local parks goldfish pond, skin all a glistening as the water run off in the summer sunshine and the screams of the kiddies and the local mum n toddler group as they caught sight of his deformity😱) and the subsequent court apperance😖 (Yes you've dodged that bullet, you really really have😜).

Oh I haven't mentioned the price have I, well as mentioned skindivers of old were capable tool watches at an affordable price. And this is...£178 all in, watch, delivery, taxes. You get a faithfull reproduction of a watch from yesteryear and a great price, modern build, good movement and at an affordable rate a watch to be used and enjoyed. And that is why I state its the truest skindiver on the market, true to its roots, and damn good looking as well, ok a few things I'd personally change but I'm probably being a bit purist (anal😒) about the crown guards but on the whole as a skin diver fan...I LOVE IT😍.