OceanicTime (best of 2010)

By TLex 2010 has been a great year for dive watches. OceanicTime has presented no less than 150 new divers models and introduced some 25 new watch companies. I hope you have had as much enjoyment seeing them all as I have had sharing them with you.

Covering such a broad spectrum of dive watches that has included models from pretty much every sector of the market; Boutique, and Private Label to High End and Manufacture; the obscure Artisan watchmakers to the mainstream, the mass-produced and everything in-between; highlighting and summarizing them all has been no mean feat.

What were the watches that were presented on OceanicTime in 2010 that were the best received and the most desirable? And which were my personal favorites? I have selected 5 divers from the luxury watch market and 5 from the rest, that for me stood out from the crowd and were not only interesting, but inspirational material and the muses for some of my most enjoyable blogs of 2010.

TOP 5 LUXURY SECTOR



CORUM Admiral’s Cup Deep Hull 48 CORUM’s first attempt at a professional divers watch asserted themselves as a luxury watchmaker, who are every bit as capable of producing high-end professional divers watches as any of the other houses that have been producing them for the last 50 years or more. They delivered a diver that not only stayed true to its heritage, but has begun a new and exciting era in CORUM dive watches.



ETERNA Super KonTiki 1973 Heritage Limited Edition. No re-edition has been made with as much as integrity as the Super KonTiki 1973 Heritage LE.



AUDEMARS PIGUET Royal Oak Offshore Diver The Successor to Royal Oak Offshore Scuba models that were traditionally only released as limited editions. The ROO Diver, which is now a part of Audemars Piguet's collection benefits from improved functionality and AP's latest in house Caliber. It’s the most coveted and arguably the most desirable diver released this year.



PORSCHE DESIGN P’6780 Diver Porsche Design’s first dive watch in more 25 years; the P’6780 is a highly engineered watch. It utilizes a special case housing. The first seen real world images were posted on OceanicTime. Stay tuned for an in depth review in June of 2011.



LINDE WERDELIN Oktopus Moonphase Complication. The first ever watch to use a photo-realistic moon-phase, LW continue to surprise and innovate.

TOP 5 of THE REST An eclectic selection of divers there is not, they probably make little sense to the average man on the street, but were watches that for me presented a rare and refreshing departure from the typical divers watches that we see released year in year out.



MOLA 923 This rare gem from Germany has a distinct point of view and great story.



HELSON Sharkmaster Boutique release of the year! A tribute to a dive watch icon. HELSON, working only form pictures masterfully pulled off an almost exact recreation of the OMEGA Seamaster 1000m; doing more than justice to the original. [Shown image from Hounddoggie of the Homage Forum].



AZIMUTH Deep Diver Avant garde designs intended for the deep. I am yet to see a production model, but if the prototype was anything to go by the production Deep Diver will be an amazing watch.



Vintage Daily Beater VDB I Artisan watch making at its best, handcrafted cases, vintage movements and a rugged sensibility that quickly found favor among connoisseurs.



LOWIN Cologne No Limits More Artisan watchmaking; this time mixing things up with a contemporary 2'000m depth rating and a not so contemporary dial complete with Roman numerals.

Wishing you all the very best for 2011! Stay glued to your screens and tuned to OceanicTime for it will bring you in the new year . . .