Sunday, July 26, 2009

Longines Legend Diver


This is indeed bad, but I seem to be moving towards wanting to get one of this. What is it? Well it is the Longines Legend Diver. I have no idea why but maybe it is the history behind the watch, or maybe it is a true reissue of the watch issued in the 60s. I have been told and from what I have seen (photographs on the Internet), it is indeed a 99% reissue of the original 1960 compressor diver.

A bit on the history of the Legend Diver. The origins of this watch dates back to the 50s. This was when deep sea exploration was a new science. It was during this time that manned submersible vessels called bathyscaphes (developed by French deep-sea explorer Auguste Piccard) were developed. These vessels could withstand huge pressures and could allow the explorers to go very deep into the sea.

Longines supplied instruments for one of these vessels, the Trieste. Why does this name seems familiar? Well, the Trieste set the world depth dive record in 1953, carrying two to the depth of 3,150 meters.

Back to the current. I guess I do know why I am attracted to this watch. Why? Well it shares the same or rather similar design characteristics to 2 other watches that have also been reissued. The watches being the Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Tribute to Polaris and the IWC Vintage Aquatimer. All 3 watches share the 2 (well 3 in the Jaeger) crown and internal rotating bezel design.

Anyway, the basic specifications for the Legend Diver:
Model Reference: L3.674.4.56.2
Case: stainless steel, diameter 42 mm, lug width 22 mm
Crown: 2 screw-down crown
Crystal: domed scratch-resistant sapphire crystal
Movement: L633 automatic movement, 28,800 A/h (based on ETA 2824/2)
Functions: hours, minutes and seconds
Water resistance: 30 ATM
Power reserve: 38 hours

For more information:


The Longines Legend Diver


Photograph: Longines

The IWC Vintage Aquatimer


Photograph: IWC

The Jaeger-LeCoultre Memovox Tribute to Polaris


Photograph: Jaeger LeCoultre

6 comments:

  1. Hello Ivan

    The Longines Legend Diver is growing on you it seems... :-)

    As you may remember I'm selling mine in order to finance my next purchase. So, feel free to contact me in case you want to make you an offer. It's a great watch and mine is like new with box, papers and an international two-year warranty.

    Great blog, by the way!

    Cheers, Valentin

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Valentin,

    Thanks for the offer. I have both the date and non date version available here. It is just to decided which to pick up.

    Regards,

    Ivan

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  3. Am I allowed to ask the cost of the non-date version?

    thanks & regards,
    rob

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Rob,

    Welcome to the blog. The retail price for the non-date is NTD66,500 or around USD2,000. Hope that helps.

    Regards,

    Ivan

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