It’s the late 1960s, early 70s. You are a serious diver. What watch would you have chosen? Rolex? Perhaps. Or what about the Jenny Caribbean? One of the first timepieces to be guaranteed to a depth of 1000 metres. Jenny patented their case in 1964 and only a few years later licensed its design to many other brands including Monnat, Jacquet Droz, Fortis, Heuer, Squale and….Philip Watch Chaux de Fonds. Why was it special?? A case made from a single steel monococque, with no removable caseback. To access the movement one had to remove the bezel, the crystal, hands, dial and crown. This is what gave the watch its reputation amongst serious divers of the day.

Our watch is a beauty…..

The specs are as follows: an excellent case with indexed black and yellow bakelite enamel bidirectional rotating diver’s bezel, signed ETA Swiss automatic movement with quickset calendar function, excellent original matte black dial with luminous markers, luminous arrow hands with sweep seconds, unsigned original screw down crown. The unique Jenny patented monocoque stainless steel single piece case on this vintage diver measures a large 39x45x15mm, and is in great condition with minimal wear. The acrylic crystal is in excellent condition. The crazy bezel made of yellow and black bakelite, is also wearing well. I’m not sure how practical those small numbers were for divers trying to calculate their decompression stops at 30 metres. But this was long before dive computers!

The caseback is also signed, “Philip Watch, Chaux-de-Fonds, Caribbean, Super Waterproof, Automatic, Incabloc, Full Steel, Brev.+ Dem. 1588/63, 708, 41863. It is possible that this means this watch was made in 1963, a year prior to Jenny’s patent. So it could be a prototype or demonstration model. We are not sure but our research is ongoing! If not, and probably more likely the watch comes from around 1970.

The steel bracelet and clasp (signed) shows some stretching but still has room for adjustment/tightening on the clasp. And it comes with a Philip Watch box (sadly no papers).

As vintage divers go, this is as good as it gets. That crazy case, the dial looks great through the domed crystal, the beads of rice signed bracelet. Mmm, do we really want to sell this? It’s definitely a keeper!