Longines has long been at the forefront of the heritage craze, starting out strong some years back with the Legend Diver (which is now also available in a 36 millimeter case, but that?s another story for another time). At Baselworld this year, Longines reached into their past once again to bring back a legendary (no pun intended) diver that is both well-known and highly coveted by lovers of vintage dive watches. That historical watch, the Nautilus, is a single-crown Super Compressor produced in the early 1960s (not dissimilar to the more famous dual-crown Super Compressor that inspired today’s Legend Diver). Longines’ modern take on that watch has been dubbed the Heritage Skindiver. The original Nautilus is extremely rare. It features an external, bi-directional friction bezel made of plastic that is somewhat fragile and prone to breaking, which makes it even more difficult to find a complete and original example of the watch today. I admit that I am a huge fan of the Nautilus, and I pretty much lost it when I saw the first few images of the new watch a few weeks back. The original Longines Nautilus. Image via Matthew Bain.

The new Longines Heritage Skindiver is a faithful reproduction of the original. The stainless steel case measures 42 millimeters wide with what appears to be a relatively long lug-to-lug (we saw the same thing on the Legend Diver), although as of this writing I do not have an actual measurement to share. The original Nautilus is some...