Diving watches. They are fun. In fact they are in my opinion the most attractive watches to collect.
Often large in case and attractive in looks, diving watches are a sought after category among collectors. Especially if you’re talking about the first diving watches to appear in the market in the 1950s and very early 1960s. We have found one of the rarest and most original examples of an early 1960s diving watches coming up for sale at auction in NY tomorrow at Christies.
It is a JLC or better said Le Coultre Deep Sea Alarm.
While Rolex together with Blancpain pioneered the diving watch category, Jaeger Le Coultre also played an important role in shaping the diving watch category when it started.
Jaeger Le Coultre issued the Deep Sea Alarm for the European market with a plain dial, for the US market, the company was only allowed to market themselves under the name Le Coultre. This is why when watches only appear with the name Le Coultre- it was a watch often meant for the US market.
The US version is also more attractive than the European version in our opinion due to the playful writing of ‘Deep Sea Alarm’ on the dial. The watch above is a rare US version, a Le Coultre DSA ‘Deep Sea Alarm’ from the 1960. Since these DSA were diving watches, most of the bezels and often dials are in very poor and beat up condition. It is rare to find a bezel as in good condition as the one above. Often Deep Sea Alarms were also serviced and thus the hands and winding crowns were changed and not original anymore. This watch is an exception here as well. The hands are original, the minute as well as the hour and second hand. The lower winding crown is original as well with only the upper winding crown being replaced.
This is an overall very good example of an extremely rare diving watch. It is estimated that only 1000 examples were made. These watches don’t come up for sale very often, the last one at public auction was at Antiquorum almost a year ago and it fetched $27’5oo including buyers premium (we wrote about it last year here). The estimate of this watch is $20-30′ooo which is market correct.
I would not be surprised if this watch fetch a higher result.
(For more information on this watch being auctioned by Christies in New York on June 11th, 2014 see here.)
