The Murky World of First Diver Bezel Watch

[namor]

Everyone seems to accept without question that the first wristwatches that were water resistant and had a rotating timing bezel appeared in 1953. There is a fair amount of dispute, though, on who made the first of these. The claimants are Rolex with the 6202 Turn-o-graph, BlancPain with the Fifty Fathoms, and Zodiac with the Sea Wolf. Unable to afford either a 6202 (or even the 1954 6204 Submariner) or a BP FF, I started hunting for a Zodiac in the hopes of finding one at a relatively modest price.

What puzzled me was that all of the really vintage Zodiacs I found were the 722-946 model, which came out right around 1959-60. You can find plenty with a manufacture date of 1960, but none earlier. Then I stumbled onto this:
https://perezcope.com/2024/03/09/debunk ... -sea-wolf/

Its a very interesting and well researched article, the gist of which is - the Zodiac debuted in 1957/8 beyond any reasonable doubt, and the well-known model with triangle hour markers came out as a V2 in 1960. The multitude of articles and references that cite 1953 are simply repeating a marketing lie perpetuated by Zodiac...

So the true title holder is - unsurprisingly - Rolex with the twins, 6202 and 6204. Now if only someone had one for less than the cost of a small Mercedes I'd be a happy buyer!

IMG_1748.jpeg

[gwells]

the 1960s zodiacs are still pretty cool little watches. i now have an early 60s seawolf. even if it's not first, it's still a cool watch.



and i just picked up what is *technically* seiko's first dive watch (even tho it's just 50m).



this is as close as i'll get to "first" dive watches.

[aikiman44]

His research is phenomenal. His latest article is about Omega. That’s a doozy.