Longines Heritage Diver – A History of Innovation
As a company which can rightfully be considered as one of the grandées of Swiss watchmaking, with chronicles dating back to 1832, Longines today is a thriving modern day example of a watch company who from their earliest days have been at the forefront of pioneering watchmaking.
Longines have heartily embraced the burgeoning demand for iconic retro timepieces and, in a range of models created to relive the designs and styles of classic pieces from the company’s illustrious past, the Longines Heritage collection is an extensive range of captivating true to original pieces, many of which marked important milestones in the Longines history.
Longines Heritage Diver Three Hands
This week, Longines added two smart new pieces to their popular Heritage collection; the Longines Heritage Diver and the Longines Heritage Diver Chronograph.
Longines Heritage Diver Chronograph
Longines Heritage Diver – These Divers Are Looking Well For Their Age !
The 2014 Heritage Diver models are a faithful tribute to Longines’ original sport divers watches first introduced in the 1970s and both versions share many details between them. Both are cased in a classic 43mm cushion style stainless steel case featuring in pride of place a cool, polished screw-in bezel which resembles a large dodecagon ring nut, brushed sunburst finish on the upper surface which gently slopes away from the sapphire crystal, down towards the highly polished flanks with screw-in crowns. The screw-in caseback is a solid steel piece and is engraved with a diver motif which adorned the original Longines Diver watches.
Longines Heritage Diver Three Hands
Longines Heritage Diver – A Shared Heritage
The Longines Heritage Diver Chronograph and its three hand sibling the Heritage Diver both feature a beautifully proportioned matte finished black dial, with applied Super LumiNova-filled steel hour markers and contrasting red markers on the rotating flange, as both models share a crown operated sub-crystal rotating bezel system with graduated minutes and a luminous centering marker at the 12, and although ultimately serving the same purpose of timing a dive, the two scales achieve their objective in slightly different methods with a lapsed time solution used on the Heritage Diver which has its operating crown at the 2, and a count-down variant on the Diver Chronograph whose crown is located at the 10.
Longines Heritage Diver Chronograph
Sporting two silver subdials for the small seconds and the 30-minute chrono register at the 3 and 9 o’clock positions and date window at the 6, the combination of colours Heritage Chronograph provides a nice contrast and a luminous filled red minutes hand and steel hour hand on the Heritage Diver stands out as a catchy detail so reminiscent of the stylish 1970s period.
Longines Heritage Diver – Cult Classics
Looking at these Heritage Divers I am strongly reminded of another cult classic, the Jaeger-LeCoultre Master Mariner Deep Sea ‘Barracuda’, and really, if that is a comparitor, then these Longines Heritage watches are in very good company.
These new/old Divers watches are offered on a choice of natural rubber strap with an expanding folding clasp or alternatively a water resistant textile strap with robust stainless steel tang buckle. The three-hand Diver is priced at $2,550 and the Chronograph comes in at $3,750.
