Let me close this year’s blog with a recap on the highly anticipated Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary lineup brought to us by Blancpain. It’s my utmost pleasure to show all protagonists side by side for the first time, so I hope you enjoy this last essay in 2023.
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This year Blancpain devoted a large part of their communication and novelties to the anniversary of their legendary and iconic dive watch. It was not only the 70th anniversary of the Fifty Fathoms that was meant to be celebrated, there were two other milestones linked to two new timepieces, and on top of it a real surprise. Let’s take a look back to the introduced watches in chronological order:
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Celebrating 20 years of the modern Fifty Fathoms
On January 10 Blancpain introduced a timepiece that reflects on the 2003 Fifty Fathoms 50th Anniversary, the watch that featured the today characteristic sapphire bezel for the first time. For Blancpain this timepiece marked the starting point of the modern Fifty Fathoms.
The new timepiece named Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary Act 1 finally made the long wished for medium size come true: the polished stainless steel case measures 42.3mm.
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We find the sublime caliber 1315 in the timepiece, featuring a platinum rotor as a reference to the 70 year anniversary. The pencil hands are another differentiating aspect of the watch. The package is a bit frugal, at least when compared to the 50th Anniversary FF: reference 5010 comes on a Nato strap only.
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The FF 70th Anniversary Act 1 mirrors the numbering and geographic allocation of the reference timepiece with 3 series (EMEA, Asia Pacific and Americas) having 70 timepieces each, totaling 210 watches for the world. Distribution however was different to any Blancpain before: reference 5010 was available online only: orders were taken on January 10, delivery took place approximately 6 months later in July.
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Celebrating 10 years of sponsorship for Laurent Ballesta’s Gombessa expeditions
In February the second act in the celebrations took place: a coordinated worldwide launch directed from Rangiroa, the location of the latest Gombessa expedition in cooperation with the Mokarran Protection Society. The goal of the Tamataroa initiative is the better understanding of the Great Hammerhead Shark. Here’s a very interesting video on the Tamataroa initiative:
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The 10 year anniversary of Blancpain‘s Ocean Commitment initiative supporting Laurent Ballesta and his Gombessa expeditions over the years is captured in this exceptional clip:
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In the clip you already got a glimpse of the new timepiece, a joint development of Marc A. Hayek and Laurent Ballesta. The Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa comes in a brand new look, the first new case design within the FF family since 2013.
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The titanium watch is meant as a professional tool for rebreather diving, but can of course also work as beautiful all day sports watch when your wrist circumference is at least 17.5cm.
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The 47mm Fifty Fathoms Tech Gombessa is not a limited edition but will most likely see an annual production of maximum 100 pieces. In addition to Act 2 I really hope to see other iterations of this new design, it is a very intriguing new chapter in the history of the Fifty Fathoms.
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The Blancpain x Swatch Scuba FF
Well, these 5 timepieces introduced on September 9 are actually not Blancpain but Swatch products. Nevertheless the Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms powered by the automatic winding movement Sistem 51 of course belongs in this recap of 2023.
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The colorful interpretations actually pick up the case dimensions of the FF 70th Anniversary Act 1, making the newly introduced 42mm size available to a very broad audience.
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The Blancpain and Fifty Fathoms brand names, well known to the established watch enthusiast community, now got introduced to a far wider group of people and possibly quite a few new future Blancpain collectors. So the release of the Scuba FF collection was very well timed to take place in the anniversary year 2023.
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Celebrating 70 years of an iconic dive watch
In late September Blancpain hosted a remarkable event in Cannes to release the Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary Act 3, a limited to 555 pieces bronze gold Milspec with very close aesthetic ties to its predecessor from the 1950s.
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This third modern re-edition of the Fifty Fathoms Milspec follows a similar idea like the 2019 Air Command: case, bezel, crystal, dial and hands are designed almost true to the historic inspiration. In the case of the FF 70th Anniversary Act 3 this approach extended to the case back and movement finish as well.
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The choice of case material though is very unusual: Blancpain has not made a watch in a 9ct gold case before and may not use this material again. For a celebratory timepiece it seems a very appropriate (and beautiful) solution.
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Conclusions
Let me start this section with a group shot of the three 70th Anniversary Fifty Fathoms to illustrate the broad aesthetic scope Blancpain offered us:
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I think Blancpain has given us not only some beautiful timepieces but also a preview on the next years. There’s the new 42mm Fifty Fathoms which will most likely not be restricted to the Act 1 and the Scuba FF, so a standard collection Fifty Fathoms in that size doesn’t seem unrealistic.
The new Fifty Fathoms Tech will hopefully see further models. This unusual type of case is a very welcome new type of FF, perfectly suited to be used as a diving instrument and therefore deeply embedded in the roots of the model line.
The FF 70th Anniversary Act 3 also features a brand new case, here absolutely focused on the historic models. There’s a lot of opportunity to use this type of re-edition going forward with historically inspired watches, most likely limited collector editions.
Personally I enjoy my Fifty Fathoms 70th Anniversary Act 1 a lot, actually I consider it the best Fifty Fathoms made so far. There’s a perfect harmony between all components with this watch which can’t really be described with words or captured in photos. Read more about this timepiece here in the blog.
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The FF Act 2 Tech Gombessa is also a very tempting timepiece, but a bit too large for my rather small wrist despite the comfortable integrated rubber strap. You find the full essay on this watch here in the blog.
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I got myself one of the Blancpain x Swatch Bioceramic Scuba Fifty Fathoms models and I enjoy the fun aspect of it, as I have to point out the very nice execution of the timepiece. Maybe I will add one of the two no-date models in the near future if the opportunity comes up. All 5 models are featured at length here in the blog.
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The FF 70th Anniversary Act 3 is a very beautiful and captivating timepiece, no doubt. For me this 41.5mm timepiece is too large, simply because of the long lugs. I now had my second encounter with it, again only under artificial light conditions. So I hope that someday I can provide daylight photos of this special anniversary watch. Until then you can find my initial impressions from Cannes here in the blog.
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You find a beautiful overview on the 70th Anniversary timepieces here on the Blancpain website, the Scuba FF is featured here on the Swatch website. Some of the photos in this essay have been made against the background of the brand new Lettres du Brassus No. 23, a fantastic read as always.
I wish to thank all of my readers for the ongoing support! Have a peaceful holiday season and a good start into 2024.
Cheers
Henrik