In the late 1950s, Jean-Jacques Fiechter, longtime Blancpain CEO and originator of the brand’s now-iconic Fifty Fathoms divers’ watch, introduced a new innovation that enabled that timepiece to meet the strict standards for U.S. military use. That feature ? a circular water-tightness indicator on the dial ? has been resurrected in the new Tribute to Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC, the latest vintage-inspired take on the Fifty Fathoms.
The Blancpain Tribute to Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC revives a military-use model from 1957-58.
This watch’s historical predecessor made its debut in 1957-58, and was designed specifically to pass a battery of tests conducted on a variety of watches by the United States Navy, which was seeking a timepiece for use on underwater missions. The original Fifty Fathoms MIL-SPEC-1 shortly thereafter became standard issue equipment for American combat swimmers, including, eventually, the U.S. Navy SEALs’ elite Underwater Demolition Team (UDT). Future versions of the watch produced in the early 1960s, called the MIL-SPEC-2 and the Tornek-Rayville TR-900, were also used by the U.S. Navy, which by then had declared the water-tightness indicator as a requirement. The indicator, on a large disk at 6 o’clock that changed its color from white to red if liquid leaked into the case, was a follow-up invention to several others Fiechter and Blancpain had introduced in the Fifty Fathoms models ? among them the first interior O-ring sealing syst...