Blancpain is having a heritage year, and its latest release goes back to the water. To mark the 70th anniversary of the Bathyscaphe, the diving watch it created in 1956 as the everyday, civilian counterpart to the Fifty Fathoms, the maison has reissued one of the model’s most charming vintage expressions: a faithful reproduction of a 1968 Bathyscaphe, limited to 300 pieces.
Blancpain marks the Bathyscaphe's 70th anniversary with a 300-piece reissue of a 1968 model — a 37.4mm skin diver with a meteor grey dial.
The Bathyscaphe belongs to a specific moment. In the 1950s and ’60s, as recreational diving took off, a new kind of watch emerged, the skin diver: more compact, cleaner, and built for enthusiasts rather than navy frogmen. Where the 1953 Fifty Fathoms was a robust professional instrument at over 41mm, the first Bathyscaphe arrived in 1956 at a slimmer 35mm, the same diving pedigree in a form you could wear every day. It came from Jean-Jacques Fiechter, Blancpain’s then-CEO and the diver who created the Fifty Fathoms, and it took its name from Auguste Piccard’s deep-sea exploration vessel. As current CEO Marc Hayek puts it, “The Fifty Fathoms is not just one model; it’s a family. And one important model in this family is the Bathyscaphe.”
For the anniversary, Blancpain went to 1968. The new edition keeps that year’s balanced, understated proportions in a 37.40mm steel case, with a sunburst meteor grey dial, baton hands, and white-gold indexes glowing with vintage-toned Super-LumiNova that mimics aged lume. The steel bezel now carries a ceramic insert with lacquered numerals in place of the original’s black hesalite, while the mid-century Blancpain logo and a hand-stitched chocolate calf strap, which will patina with wear, complete the period feel.
The vintage look hides thoroughly modern watchmaking. Inside is Blancpain’s Manufacture caliber 1150, an automatic with a 100-hour power reserve, roughly four days, and a silicon hairspring for antimagnetic stability. The biggest departure from the 1968 original sits around the back: where that watch had a closed case back, this one is open, a sapphire crystal revealing the movement’s Haute Horlogerie finishing and an openworked 18K gold rotor whose design echoes the original Fifty Fathoms. It keeps the collection’s 300-meter water resistance, so it dives as well as it dresses.
Delivered individually numbered in a Peli case, the Bathyscaphe 70th Anniversary is priced at $18,300. It is the everyday, romantic side of Blancpain’s diving legacy, proof that the brand that built the first modern dive watch understands the appeal of the one you’d actually wear to dinner. Seventy years on, the Bathyscaphe’s founding idea- a serious diver’s watch you never have to take off- has aged as gracefully as its lume.
| Ref: 5903 1110 63A · Limited to: 300 pieces · Price: $18,300 · 5-year warranty |
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| Case: 37.40mm stainless steel, 12.30mm thick, 46.50mm lug-to-lug; 300m (30 bar); sapphire crystal and case back |
| Movement: Blancpain calibre 1150, automatic, 3 Hz, 28 jewels, 210 components, 100h reserve, silicon hairspring |
| Functions: Hours, minutes, seconds, date |
| Dial/bezel/strap: Sunburst meteor grey dial, baton hands and indexes with vintage Super-LumiNova; steel bezel with ceramic insert; chocolate calf strap, pin buckle |
