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Blancpain fifty fathom.


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Guest zeleni kukuruz
Posted

Does someone have some pics that you could post here? Would love some pics and wrist pics.

Im thinking of getting one :)

Cheers.

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Guest zeleni kukuruz
Posted

Great, thanks for the pics but pleAs let em come!

Im thinking of a summer snorkel/dive watch and maybe i will contact davidsen :)

Guest zeleni kukuruz
Posted

Im just afried that it will be too big on the wrist. It's 41mm but it looks bigger, im used to vintage rollis so will this one be too big!

Guest zeleni kukuruz
Posted
Yes. This watch is too big.

Hahahaha

  • 2 weeks later...
Posted

Some very nice Blancpain Fifty Fathoms here. I need to get one myself at some point. Decided to initially just tip my toe in to test the waters. Here's my cheaper gateway drug version. :lol:

SeikoFFF_WC0-1.jpg

SeikoFFF_WC1-1.jpg

SeikoFFF_WC3-1.jpg

Posted

hi guys

what's the consensus on the best fifty fathoms rep? only two i know of right now are dsn and phong's, with a huge price difference, and according to some, a matching quality difference. anyone have any comments on this?

thank you

Posted

Ive never seen this watch in person and have also worried about the size on my wrist.

One thing bout them is the vintage aspect is similar to Rolex.

I landed on a cool website a couple years ago that had a huge display of them. All the variants over the years in high res pictures.

The collection belonged to an old diver. I just spent an hour trying to find that site with no luck.

The thing that really struck me was the aging of the dials...lume and tritium...all differnt colors and textures...very much like vintage Rollie's.

I've wondered why the guys with the reps, in general don't age them this way? I wish I could show some examples. Beatiful watch :)

Posted

what's the consensus on the best fifty fathoms rep? only two i know of right now are dsn and phong's, with a huge price difference, and according to some, a matching quality difference. anyone have any comments on this?

Apples and oranges, unfortunately, as they replica different models of the Fifty Fathoms. The DSN is more of a "composite" replication of the Fifty Fathoms from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. It generally tries to copy styling cues from FFs with thick/tall bezels, and small dials. In my opinion, the model the DSN case most closely resembles is the Tornek-Rayville TR-900. The early "No-Radiations" dial and the '53 LIP-Blancpain dial are good choices for DSN.

The Phong replicates the Aqua Lung, which is a smaller and slimmer watch, with a thinner bezel. Positives for the Phong BP include the period AS movement and the three-piece caseback. Negatives are the price, and the unconvincing bezel. It's too much money, in my opinion, for a watch that won't fool any Blancpain expert. You think vintage Rolex guys are paranoid? Any vintage Fifty Fathoms is presumed fake until proved otherwise!

Posted

Apples and oranges, unfortunately, as they replica different models of the Fifty Fathoms. The DSN is more of a "composite" replication of the Fifty Fathoms from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. It generally tries to copy styling cues from FFs with thick/tall bezels, and small dials. In my opinion, the model the DSN case most closely resembles is the Tornek-Rayville TR-900. The early "No-Radiations" dial and the '53 LIP-Blancpain dial are good choices for DSN.

The Phong replicates the Aqua Lung, which is a smaller and slimmer watch, with a thinner bezel. Positives for the Phong BP include the period AS movement and the three-piece caseback. Negatives are the price, and the unconvincing bezel. It's too much money, in my opinion, for a watch that won't fool any Blancpain expert. You think vintage Rolex guys are paranoid? Any vintage Fifty Fathoms is presumed fake until proved otherwise!

The T-R has one fairly obvious tell though... In gen form it was never released as a 'civilian' piece and thus didn't have external lug holes. The Mil-spec and the No Rad dials were released as both military and civilian versions and the LIP dial was civ only (I think) so, lug-hole-wise anyway, they are more accurate. All of DSNs have external lug holes.

That is just about the only thing I remember from my reading up on these a while ago, but with it in mind I think I'd go for the LIP and/or No-Rad as you also point out.

S

Posted

Ive never seen this watch in person and have also worried about the size on my wrist.

One thing bout them is the vintage aspect is similar to Rolex.

I landed on a cool website a couple years ago that had a huge display of them. All the variants over the years in high res pictures.

The collection belonged to an old diver. I just spent an hour trying to find that site with no luck.

The thing that really struck me was the aging of the dials...lume and tritium...all differnt colors and textures...very much like vintage Rollie's.

I've wondered why the guys with the reps, in general don't age them this way? I wish I could show some examples. Beatiful watch :)

here's blancpain's fifty fathoms tribute from 2010:

http://www.forum-mdp.com/t16583-exposition-blancpain-tribute-to-fifty-fathoms-lhistoire-de-la-ff

here's possibly the site you were trying to find:

http://www.watchdeco.com/Welcome.html

Posted

Apples and oranges, unfortunately, as they replica different models of the Fifty Fathoms. The DSN is more of a "composite" replication of the Fifty Fathoms from the 1950s to the mid-1970s. It generally tries to copy styling cues from FFs with thick/tall bezels, and small dials. In my opinion, the model the DSN case most closely resembles is the Tornek-Rayville TR-900. The early "No-Radiations" dial and the '53 LIP-Blancpain dial are good choices for DSN.

The Phong replicates the Aqua Lung, which is a smaller and slimmer watch, with a thinner bezel. Positives for the Phong BP include the period AS movement and the three-piece caseback. Negatives are the price, and the unconvincing bezel. It's too much money, in my opinion, for a watch that won't fool any Blancpain expert. You think vintage Rolex guys are paranoid? Any vintage Fifty Fathoms is presumed fake until proved otherwise!

thanks. and btw, you are absolutely correct about the FF guys; the polish navy issue is a good example, and i think the problem that made them all paranoid. a lot of polish navy fakes, and on top of that, they don't consider the 'gen' polish navy to be legit collector's pieces, bc no hard and fast provenance has ever been established for them. the non-fake pieces were all put together with NOS parts, but afaik, no one has found a well-used legit polish navy watch, let alone any documentation, only NOS ones. given all that, and the still pricey nature even of NOS polish navy pieces, i'd love to find a good rep.

Posted

The T-R has one fairly obvious tell though... In gen form it was never released as a 'civilian' piece and thus didn't have external lug holes. The Mil-spec and the No Rad dials were released as both military and civilian versions and the LIP dial was civ only (I think) so, lug-hole-wise anyway, they are more accurate. All of DSNs have external lug holes.

Good stuff! All I remember was that any Polish Navy FF with pierced lugs were considered suspect. Of course, given the points raised by luigi22, that might be moot.

The reason why I would choose the TR-900 option is the thick bezel the gen shares with the DSN rep. The later Bund and Polish Navy FFs also had thick bezels, but these were shaped differently. (The Precista PRS-50 is a good visual match for those later watches, I think.) Most of the "classic" FFs of the 50s and 60s had thin, fragile, bezels that no rep or homage has ever tried to copy.

I do wish the old version of watchdeco was still up, or that I'd saved more of its photos. Whatever happened to that comprehensive chart it used to have on its last page?

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