Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Military "3H Bund"

The Blancpain series of dive watches have a history that is just as storied as some of the more infamous and famous dive watches ever created making them just as iconic and desirable among the collector community. The vintage Blancpain dive watches are becoming increasingly hard as a result of very small production numbers by Blancpain and with increased awareness, within the vintage watch community. The Armed Forces were early adopters of Blancpain dive watches. Such forces included the French, American, and German Navy as were the early underwater explorers, such as Jacque Cousteau among many others which played a key part in adaptation and also the development of the Blancpain dive watch references which adds to the key historical elements that make these references so horologically important. Such is the case with Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Bundeswehr Kampfschwimmer issued watches. In the 1970s, the German Military required a watch for its Navy Combat Divers or more specifically the West German Bundeswehr Kampfschwimmers. They commissioned Blancpain to produce a special variant of the ‘Fifty Fathoms’ to meet the demanding and specific requirements of the Bundeswehr Kampfschwimmers.

(Bundeswehr Kampfschwimmers)

As you will notice this watch doesn't look like your stereotypical Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, which makes the reference quite unique. The watch was never available for civilian use and was only issued making them incredibly rare. Thes reference possesses a couple of key design characteristics unique to the reference based on the requirements of the German Navy.

For starters, as can be seen with other German Military issued watches from the same period the red "3H" that is printed on the dial is a military reference to the non-radioactive age tritium indexes and hands. The other interesting thing to note is what is commonly referred to as a "sterile bezel" that only posses a tritium triangle without any numerals or hash marks. During this watches service, the German Navy was deploying the usage of a closed circuit rebreather SCUBA systems that offered extended dive times rendering the usage of a typical dive bezel useless as hours were measured and not the typical minutes while underwater. In typical military dive watch fashion the 3H Blancpain design leverages a set of fixed spring bars which is commonly seen in military issued watches, but what is very interesting is the offset crown located at the 4 o'clock position of the Squale built case. As well as a bright orange and highly visible minute hand that is unique to the reference and takes a design cue from Squalie watches of the era.

This is an incredibly rare military issued Blancpain with key design references not seen outside of this specific reference making this watch not only rare but insanely important.