Croton chronograph circa 1970’s in stainless steel
| BRAND: |
CROTON |
|
MODEL: |
CHRONOMASTER – AVIATOR – SEA DIVER |
|
YEAR: |
VINTAGE |
|
MATERIAL: |
STAINLESS STEEL |
|
SIZE – DIAMETER EXCLUDING WINDING CROWN: |
38MM |
|
SIZE – LENGTH INCLUDING LUGS: |
46MM |
| CONDITION: |
GOOD |
| BOX: | NO |
| PAPER: | NO |
| PRICE: |
$2,750 |
Croton chronograph circa 1970’s in stainless steel
Vintage Croton with round black dial and baton marking each hour. On the outer you have a ring for the tachymeter graduated up to 600. The dial has two sub-dials with 3 o’clock minutes indicating the first 5 minutes in red and 9 o’clock for seconds. At 6 o’clock it is engraved “Chronomaster aviator sea diver”. It is a T Swiss Made T model. The hands are in steel with baton style and red second hand. The watch has a be-directional diving bezel graduated up to 55. It is a screwed back case with engraved outside “All stainless steel – Waterproof – Shock resistant – Swiss Made -903006 – 106 - 27694” and inside “Croton Watch Inc. - Swiss”. It is a manual winding movement with caliber Landeron 248 and 17 jewels. The watch comes with a rubber band and width between lugs is 18mm.
History
One company that went all-in for explorer-connected watches is Nivada, yet they are all but forgotten today. Once a major Swiss watch company, Nivada was early to bring an automatic watch to market, enjoyed success in chronographs and dive watches, and produced a successful line of chronometers. Nivada was unable to sell under their own name in the United States after the threat of a name-similarity lawsuit by Movado. They added their home town of Grenchen to the dial and struck a deal with the Croton watch company for distribution. So these watches are often known today as “Nivada Grenchen”, “Croton Nivada Grenchen”, or just “Croton”, if they are known at all.
In time for International Geophysical Year, Nivada supported the US Navy “Operation Deep Freeze” with a durable waterproof, anti-magnetic watch they named “Antarctic”. This would become one of their signature products, alongside the solid Chronomaster chronograph line.
Technical details
Landeron manual-wind chronograph movement with caliber 248, 17 jewels, 18,000 A/h and 41 hours of power reserve.
Measurements
Diameter excluding winding crown: 38mm
Length including lugs: 46mm
