New here and Vintage Mares Dive Watch

[TernGully]

Hey all,

New here to the forum but I’ve lurked around for a while. I have been collecting watches for a few years and always really enjoyed the divers. My brother and I both collect them and get jealous of each other’s, etc.

I have a vintage diver that I picked up from a guy I know in Australia, he had it for a long time sitting in a box of old divers he had. I wish I knew more about it, but the watch was made by the Mares dive company and is class the “Oceano”. It has an automatic ETA 2824-2 movement in it and has a *Dixi case(*i have heard people mention dixi cases, but I’ve never found much history about them)

I know other brands like gruen, zodiac, nivada grenchen, and dugena all used Dixi cases. This one is rated to 30atm and really is an awesome vintage diver. If anyone knows more about it feel free to share! I’ve never seen another like it except for a dugena once that did use the same case and hands as this one.

Nice to meet you all! Link to pics is below

https://imgur.com/a/7qpH2

[Heuerville]

Hi Devin
Welcome to DWC. That's a nice little pick up, seems to come from an era where there were countless unusually named Swiss dive watches, so I can't offer any specific history on the brand. The type of handset was also common, and can't really be pinned down to a specific brand.
I've never heard of 'Dixi' cases. To me, I'd call it a cushion hooded lug case, which was common in the 70s.

[TernGully]

Hey Stewart,

Thanks for the response! My impression of the “Dixi divers” is that they made quite a few cases for different brands like squale, Favre leuba, gruen, nivada grenchen, etc. if you google Dixi diver watch it brings up a couple examples. They seem to be unique by having that internal nut steel bezel.

I also love the old scuba shop branded divers, my brother has a 500m Nautilus professional Quartz diver that I’m consistently jealous of. Good to meet you!

[poppydog]

I use Mares reg's. So Dixi made cases that another company used to make up a watch for scuba brands like Mares?

[River Rat]

Welcome to the forum. Never heard of that company before so can't help you there.

[TernGully]

Thanks! Yeah the impression I got is that Mares may have gotten ahold of some cases made by Dixi and used them to make a dive watch under their “Mares” brand. I’ve seen some other Mares watches that were sold with the same “Oceano” model name as well.

It’s a pretty obscure little watch, but I figured this would be the place to ask about it! I appreciate everyone’s comments and welcome

[TernGully]

Also I anyone is interested the link below has another Dixi cased diver sold by Dugena, this case is the exact same as my Mares diver, but it’s the only other example I’ve found that uses the exact 30atm case, I think I may have seen some nivada grenchens that used it as well at some point

http://www.chronocentric.com/forums/chr ... d;id=75953