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Le Monde du silence | The silent world | Die schweigende Welt – Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Concept 2000
"Le Monde du Silence"
Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Concept 2000
"In summary, the experience with Blancpain's twelve diving watches during Operation HARDTACK has resulted in almost complete satisfaction. [...] Not the slightest suggestion for improvement of this watch is possible."
1959 US Navy final test report s./E.H. Lanphier
1953, the year in which it all began?
Here the answer can and must be yes and no. In any case, it is a fact that Blancpain and Rolex launched the Fifty Fathoms and Submariner watches in 1953, which are probably considered the archetypes of the modern diving watch.
But it is also a fact that waterproof watches suitable for swimming and diving existed even earlier, as evidenced by the Rolex Oyster, with which Mercedes Gleitze became the first woman to (almost) swim the English Channel in 1927, the various Canteen Watches developed for the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Ships, and the Rolex-produced Panerai Radiomir worn by Italian combat swimmers during World War II. The first industrially produced diving watch is considered to be the Omega "Marine" launched in 1932.
Independently of each other, but each with a military mandate, Blancpain and Rolex then developed the modern diver's watch in the '50s, as we know and wear it today. While Rolex received the development order for the Submariner from the British Royal Navy, the French Marine Nationale Française was behind the development of the Fifty Fathoms.
The Blancpain Fifty Fathoms:
The development and design of the first Fifty Fathoms can be traced back to Capitaine Robert "Bob" Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud of the French Marine Nationale, who needed a watch for the French military's combat diving corps that was easy to read even in the dark and in poor visibility.
Thanks to Maloubier's good relationship with the then CEO of Blancpain Jean-Jacques Fiechter, who was also a diver himself, the small watchmaker in Villeret agreed to carry out the project for Les Nageurs de combat, and so the "Fifty Fathoms" was born, its name derived from the 50 nautical fathoms (300 feet or 91.45 meters) of water resistance required by the combat diving unit - the (or one) legend was born.
Unlike the equally legendary Rolex Submariner, whose design was only cautiously changed over the decades, the Fifty Fathoms was subject to a wide variety of fashion trends, and the watch also featured a wide variety of movements.
In the '60s and '70s, the German Navy was also a customer of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, equipping its combat swimmers and weapons and mine divers with the watches from Villeret. What is curious here is that the watches issued from 1960 under the supply number 6645-12-129-8664 did not have the typical black dials and bezels, but were instead blue and orange. The orange watches were assigned to mine divers because since the watches were not fully anti-magnetic, they had to be taken off before approaching a mine and the orange helped the divers retrieve their watches after their mission.
The legendary diving watches Fifty Fathoms and Submariner differed also in another respect: in price. Until the Blancpain brand fell asleep during the quartz crisis and was revived in January 1983 by Jean-Claude Biver and Jacques Piguet, the timepieces, which at times also went by the brand name Rayville - a phonetic anagram of Villeret, the then headquarters of Blancpain SA - were always cheaper than the watches from Geneva. It wasn't until 1997, with the introduction of the Trilogy series, that the ratio reversed.
The Fifty Fathoms also achieved a certain notoriety when Jacques Yves Cousteau and his divers wore a Blancpain Fifty Fathoms diver's watch on the cover of the February 1962 issue of Skin Diver Magazine during the filming of the underwater movie "Le Monde du silence" ("The Silent World"), which won the Palme d'Or at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for best documentary in Hollywood in 1957, and TV star Lloyd Bridges.
The "Trilogy" and "Concept 2000" series:
Blancpain, the oldest Swiss watchmaker (founded in 1735), unveiled the reinterpretation of their legendary diving watch in Basel in 1997: the Fifty Fathoms "Trilogy" series.
The series, as the name implies, consists of three models meant to represent the sea (Fifty Fathoms), the earth (Fifty Fathoms GMT) and the air (Fifty Fathoms Air Command). Although the "Trilogy" series was initially not part of Blancpain's regular collection (Leman, LeBrassus and Villeret), but was listed under "Specialties", the very sporty designed watch series was very successful.
Just two years later, Blancpain then presented the "Concept 2000" series, which was based on the Trilogy series.
Technically, the watches were identical, visually they looked very similar, and yet they were as different as they could be. While conventional materials (steel, gold) were used for the case and band of the Trilogy, the Concept 2000 was more innovative: the rim of the bezel, the crown and the center links of the band were made of rubber, or rubber elements reinforced with fiberglass. The watch cases and the outer links of the strap were optionally made of stainless steel, white or yellow gold (the last in combination with blue rubber) or platinum. Special series were also issued for the London jeweler Asprey and the Monaco Yacht Show.
The brochure:
The watch:
I saw the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Concept 2000 for the first time when it was presented in 1999 in a German watch magazine and suddenly I was hooked. The careful look at the price tag sobered me immediately: with 13.700,00 DM the watch cost almost as much as a brand new 90 HP Opel Corsa 16V or two and a half Rolex Submariner Date and far more than I could afford. So this love remained unfulfilled and the dream faded with time....
... until one day a member of a German-speaking watch forum waved his Concept 2000 in front of my nose. Of course, his watch was not for sale, but the old fire was rekindled and so inevitably the check of the usual sales platforms took place: Few offers and despite the high age still high prices - but doable.
With a lot of discipline, but doable.
The discipline should then but still turn out to be a problem, because there are still sooo many other interesting watches.
At the end of May, I finally found two Concept 2000 watches on my favorite portal, one in Riga, Latvia and one in Warsaw, Poland.
The watch from Poland seemed to be the better offer and after a few questions were clarified with the seller, we quickly came to a trade agreement and the Blancpain was mine.
After nine interminably long days of waiting - the package arrived from Warsaw to Frankfurt am Main within two days and then got stuck in the DPD warehouse for 5 days - the courier finally showed up at my door and handed me my watch.
My Fifty Fathoms was given to the first owner in July 2006 by Jewelry and Watches Mercury in Moscow, to me it came with an original, but not to the watch belonging box and all correct papers. The condition of the watch was excellent and also the water resistance was checked before shipment and proved by a protocol. Since I was not aware of the maintenance condition of my 15 year old Fifty Fathoms, I gave it a complete overhaul at Blancpain in Munich.
The specifications
Case:
Material: 316L stainless steel, 316L stainless steel combined with rubber bezel
Crystal: domed sapphire crystal, anti-reflective coating on both sides
Case back: screwed and engraved case back
Dimensions: Ø 40.50 mm, height: ↕︎ 13.00 mm, length (lug to lug): ↔︎ 45.00 mm
Weight: ⚖︎ 122 g
Water resistance: 𓆟 waterproof up to a pressure of 30 bar (300 m | 1000 ft | 164 Fathoms).
Features: external unidirectional rotating diver's bezel (120 clicks) made of stainless steel and rubber, signed rubber coated crown at 3:00 o'clock
Dial and hands:
Color: "Black Sun" black, glossy black exterior, sunburst center, polished hands covered with Swiss Super-LumiNova®, imprinted logo.
Hour scale: applied numerals and indexes covered with Swiss Super-LumiNova®, imprinted minute scale
Hands: polished sword hands, set with Swiss Super-LumiNova®, trapezoidal date window at 4:30
Movement and functions:
Caliber: hand-decorated and finished manufacture caliber BP 1151 with automatic winding, Frédéric Piguet base, 21,600 A/h (3 Hz), 185 parts, Triovis fine adjustment according to Valdar S.A., double barrel, center second, 29 jewels, Glucydur balance, Nivarox-1 flat hairspring, Kif-Flektor shock protection, no stop-seconds, regulated in 5 positions.
Power reserve: approx. 100 hours
Function: hours, minutes, seconds and date
Bracelet:
Material: stainless steel and fiberglass reinforced rubber, 20.00 mm wide at the lug side, 18.00 mm wide at the buckle side
Color: silver and black
Clasp: signed stainless steel double folding (butterfly) clasp, button clasp, no diver extension
List price (2000):
DM 13,700.00 | € 7,005.00 | $ 8,295.00
Conclusion:
The Concept 2000 is the third dream watch from the early days of my watch passion after the IWC Aquatimer and the Ocean 2000, and like the other two, it is definitely one of the keepers in my modest collection.
The watch is incredibly light and wears extremely comfortably, and after Blancpain elevated the Fifty Fathoms to the Olympus of luxury dive watches with the "Trilogy" series, the quality of materials and workmanship are of course beyond reproach and all details are superbly executed. The typography of the dial, date disc and lunette match, the hands are sufficiently long and the date disc has a background color that matches the dial. These are certainly points that can be expected from a premium manufacturer, but not everyone delivers them by a long shot. I also like the trapezoidal date window at 4:30 o'clock with the numerals on the date disc matched to the cutout.
As a very big bonus point, I see the fact that, like the Aquatimer and the Ocean 2000, the Fifty Fathoms Concept 2000 is also not a watch about which there is a lot of hype. So it's pretty certain that there won't be a Concept 2000 or more or less well-made clones of it dangling from every other wrist in the pedestrian zone.
Thanks for reading.
References:
Blancpain SA | "Armbanduhren - Wristwatches - Montres Bracelets" by Christian Pfeiffer-Belli and Gisbert L. Brunner, 2006, Könemann Verlag Köln, ISBN 978-3833125591 | Blancpain "A Tradition of Innovation" | Blancpain "Edition Fifty Fathoms" | Chronos Special Blancpain | Blancpain Brochure "Concept 2000" | Blancpain Catalog 2000 | Blancpain "Lettres du Brassus" Issue 18 | "Militäruhren" Konrad Knirim
Image sources: Picture 1: Omega SA | Picture 2: Rodale, Inc. | Picture 3 to 10: Blancpain SA | Picture 11 to 20: own work
Le Monde du silence | The silent world | Die schweigende Welt – Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Concept 2000
