Invicta Pro Diver

This is my new watch. Invicta was a Swiss watch company that started in 1837 but was ultimately bought by an American investment group in 1991. It now manufactures its designs in Thailand. Rolex was a British company which started much later (1905) and moved to Switzerland in 1919, where it now produces arguably the highest status watches in the world.

In 1954, Rolex released a diver's watch which came to be known as the "Submariner". Some opinion has it that the design was based on a slightly earlier model from Blancpain called the "Fifty Fathoms" buuuut leaving all that aside, Rolex's Submariner has become just about the most desirable and iconic single watch model in the world ... for diehard mechanical watch aficionados, at least. It is available in stainless steel, gold, platinum and combinations of all of the above with almost any bezel colour you can think of.  Rolex seems unable to manufacture (yeah right) enough "Submariners" to meet demand and so they are frequently sold way above list price so that customers can get their hands on them.

Needless to say nearly every major watch manufacturer has since produced a model very similar to the Rolex Submariner.  In the trade such models are known as "homages".  Anyway some while back, Invicta designed an "homage" which many watch fanciers insist crossed the line and became an outright copy.  So much so that Rolex (we are told) was more or less pushed into altering their own design which came to include enlarged indices and a ceramic bezel etc.

This is the offending watch in its gold tone/steel variation.  It is called the Invicta Pro Diver and is as close as can legally be got to a "pre ceramic" Rolex Submariner including the original coin edged bezel design and the typeface of the bezel readout.  Of course the gold coating is not real but the watch is officially rated to 200 metres of water resistance, it does feature the famous cyclops date enlarging lens, it does have luminant indices and it does employ the iconic "Mercedes" hands etc. Legend has it that Rolex was not able to sue Invicta as being a producer of fakes because Invicta had engraved their name and logo over just about every spare square millimetre of open space on the crown, the dial, the bracelet and the case and has never actually suggested to anybody (yeah right) that this is a real Rolex.  One other major difference is the mechanism. The nice hacking/windable automatic movement has been manufactured and supplied in this instance by (guess who) ... Seiko.

This has decidedly more bling appeal than any of my other watches and (thus far) I am very pleased with it. This is my option when I feel like being a mug lair. Given that I can't afford the $12,000 for the original Rolex Submariner I thought this might be a worthwhile (if controversial)  compromise. Now of course if you'd like to start a good "high band width" (i.e. loud) discussion, mention the word "Invicta" to a bunch of Rolex fanciers but make sure that I have had enough time to leave the building.