Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe

The Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe took its first dive to depths of the sea in the late 1950s, with Swiss manufacturer Blancpain the genius behind the watch. The brand is one example of high-quality workmanship in watchmaking.

The deep sea was shrouded in mystery up until the 1950s when Swiss scientist Auguste Piccard reached record-breaking depths in his bathyscaphe Trieste. The word bathyscaphe comes from the Greek words bathos and skaphos, meaning "deep" and "vessel" respectively. The explorer reached a depth of 3,150 meters in the bathyscaphe. Then, on January 23rd, 1960, the Trieste reached the ocean floor of the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, the deepest known point in the ocean. The vessel submerged to a depth of 10,916 meters, shattering world records. The diving watch Fifty Fathoms Bathyscaphe shares the spirit of those exciting moments and serves as a reminder of this incredible feat. The watches in the Fifty Fathoms series by Blancpain feature trend-setting technology, much like the submarines in years past. The name Fathoms comes from the word fathom, a unit of measurement for determining ocean depth.

Jehan-Jacques Blancpain founded his watch company in 1735 in the Swiss town of Villeret in the canton of Bern. Blancpain is one of the oldest Swiss watch manufacturers and has accumulated more than 280 successful years in the industry. Next to their world-famous diving watches, they also brought the first automatic wristwatches to the market in 1926. Blancpain is likewise well known for their mechanical watches with grand complications, which feature perpetual calendars, tourbillons, and minute repeaters.