A Chunk of Timex History Regarding Diver Themes
What an odd and slightly academic title? It just came out. For years I have been thinking about and collecting various Timex models that are related to the concept of a Dive Watch. One of my favorite categories of watches is the the Dive Watch category. I am not a diver and am not an expert of dive watches, but I do enjoy studying them and have collected a few. Timex has been around, well, forever. Let’s just say since 1854, and dive watches are generally considered to have started appearing in the 1950s. I’d like to follow the trail of some Timex watches from the 1960s to the present day. I also question why Timex has not reissued some of these designs?
The Lure of the Sea
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jacques Cousteau, Sea Lab, James Bond, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Flipper, Shark Week; Dirk Pitt, you name it, I’m all in. To me the dive watch is about adventure and romance and nostalgia. I can remember, as a kid in the late ’60s-early ’70s taking my little 4” black plastic scuba diver with yellow tanks to the bottom of the deep end of the pool.
As a designed product, just the utility of a specialized tool watch is interesting and results in certain features and style. Dive-style watches have their own language. Even disregarding the function, they have developed a universal aesthetic.
Levels of Diverishness
Within the low end of the watch market there exists a lot of fashion watches that have the look of divers but don’t have specifications to perform as real dive watches. Real dive watches need to be able to remain water proof at certain depths, have good visibility in the dark and allow for timing intervals of a diver’s time spent at certain depths as well as being generally rugged of construction. All these things cost money. Fashion watches need to offer the romance of a diver but live in a world that really does not get wet.
Another large category of watch is what I will call the tweener or swimmer. These are watches that are mainly for style and everyday wear but have a level of toolishness that allows for light duty water sports such as swimming. There are a lot of these around.
I like to simplify the dive watch world into three main levels defined by water resistance (WR) rating. How many meters deep a watch will remain watertight for an extended period.
Diver-style – 30m to 50m WR
Swimmer – 100m to 150m WR
Diver – 200m + WR
This is arbitrary but it gives me a framework to discuss a variety of Timex watches. I don’t want to get technical here. Many consider 100m to be a capable diving watch. We could further consider recreational diving versus professional diving, but I don’t want to go there. For example; consider that the 1958 Zodiac Seawolf, a dive watch, was rated at 100m WR. For myself, I would not be comfortable swimming for long with any watch less than 100m WR. I would take a 50M watch for a quick dunk. Both of these situations, of course, depend on age and state of repair of individual watch.
What is a Diver
I don’t want to get into the bezel features or other diver certification aspects, but mostly I think a diver should have a rotating, elapsed time bezel. This is where labels get interpreted differently. Is it aesthetics or functions? There are lots of 200m WR watches without bezels, that are not considered divers, but you could use them while scuba diving. They just don’t have functions a bezel could provide. For this post I am choosing to not include some Timex “sportsquartz” watches that do have some water resistance or 100m WR triathlon watches as divers, while choosing to include the 100m WR Titanium models as divers even though they do not have a bezel.
What is so cool about watches is that you can find a dive style watch at any level in the range to suit your needs! Timex has dabbled in all levels over the years with sporty themed diver-style watches offering affordable products to meet your needs. I’m not really sure how I am going to do this because Timex has produced so many watches over the years. There are also versions from European and Asian markets I do not have info on. I’m going to take examples from mostly US market catalogs I like that highlight the range over the years. I will miss some, but hope to show the variety and rage of diverishness.
Timex Divers – Early Days
The earliest purpose-built diver I know of from Timex was the 12571 Skindiver of 1966. This was the age of the boom in recreational scuba diving. After WWII when the aqualung was developed for military purposes, the exploration of the under water world took off in the 1950s. This brought about the need for waterproof watches. The mid to late 50s saw brands like Rolex, Blancpain, Eterna, Yema, Zodiac and others leading the way. Scuba and snorkeling was hot. The 1960s saw an explosion of entry level hand-wound divers from many companies assembled from common Swiss-made components with custom branded dials. Timex had to get in on the boom.
The 12571 continued to 1968-69 when a date version came along. Then in 1970 the Electric skin diver, 94771, appeared. I have a few 12571s, in various states of working order. If you are familiar with Mid 60s to early 70s Timex watches, you know that they have their unique issues. With movements like the M25 and the cheap plating and plastic bezels, its hard to find one in good operating condition, much less diving condition. While pretty tough, they are not a Zodiac Seawolf in terms of quality, if you know what I mean?
All mine have a date wheel. I think that came in in 1969. They have the M25 manual wind Timex movement. As throughout their history, Timex did not really intend for these movements to be repaired. They are a specialty and many watchmakers don’t want to deal with them. It is hard to find people who can find parts and repair these movements.
They measure in at about 36mm and 43mm long, so right in the sweet spot for the period diver. The lug gap is 19mm, so you have some more limits as to what you can find than if it was 18 or 20. At least its better than 17mm! The snap-on back is not easy to get off! Date wheel issues are common with these too. They had a water resistance rating of 200ft or 60 meters. These snap-on cases are not easy to snap off!
Anyway, I love these watches. It has been kind of surprising to me that Timex has not done a reissue of these?! With all the Qs, Campers, Marlins and other reissues in the last 8-10 years, you would think that in a boom time for retro divers they would have done this?
Timex did do a 2018 collab with Greats that used a similar dial layout using a 43mm Allied Coastline platform. I’m on the hunt for one. The Allied Coastline series, 100m WR, were pretty cool and I have written about them earlier.
I could spend a whole post on the 12571 but I need to move on. That period from the mid 60s to the early 70s was a time when the people’s diver proliferated. Europe and Asia got another dial version of the 12571 that had a more “Swiss” look that reminds me of an Oris 65. The 12, 6, 9 positions had a trapezoid shape with number in side. They have the look but have a water resistance of only 60m(200 ft).
It really changes the look to a more modern skin diver. This is a good time to bring up a topic regarding vintage and neo-vintage Timex diver-like watches. There are a lot of models that look like divers but are mostly 30m WR or maybe 50m at best for later models.
The Diver Look
Timex has always been there to provide look-a-likes. They were meant to be affordable, reliable watches that looked more expensive. They could resemble a Rolex, an Omega or a Heuer; what ever look was trending. However, they were not going to compete with tool watches like Zodiac, Eincar, Doxa in the dive realm. The 12571s were a cheap snorkeling/swimming watch. After them, Timex sort of moved away from the water watches.
Another group you see often on eBay or other sites for sale listed as “divers” are the Sprites and Sportsters. The Sprites were a step down from the Marlins while the Sportsters were intended for kids and were smaller. The 70s ones have a nice look, but you want to keep them dry!
Into the early 70s Timex produced sporty watches with rotating bezels that looked great, but were not diver/swimmers.
Quartz Time
1972 catalog featured several rotating bezel watches from manual wind, to electric, to quartz and even automatic movements. There was a cool diver-style quartz watch that only had a 25m WR rating as well as more Sprites that really scream diver but also are 25m watches.
The nice looking Marlins above continued to be barely water resistant while having a great 70s chunky diver look. The Viscount automatic, with bezel was available, too. Still not a diver by specs, it had a bold sporty look as well as rubber tropic strap.
Timex at this time produced watches in the categories of Electric and Electronic. I can’t tell you much about what differentiates the two and don’t want to go into it here! Both use a battery. To over simplify: electric pulses cause vibrations with tuning forks and move gears. Electronic watches worked at higher frequencies and used transistors to replace mechanical components and were more accurate. Then quartz came along to improve the accuracy even more. From my experience, the electric watches go through batteries fast! Those willing to repair electric and electronic watches are few.
About 1973 more quartz watches started appearing for Timex. They were the new big thing – more costly than the electrics and automatics. This 979702 below was an $80 watch in 1973, so, like a $500 today. A pretty serious purchase. Though not a diver, it had the looks, again. It also had the plastic friction fit rotating bezel, day and date. A blue version of this appeared in 1974 with a 12-hour bezel. This style carried on for a few years. Notice the “Q” logotype.
This next photo is another Sprite for the France market in 1974. It has an automatic movement, great funky 70s diver looks, but is only rated with 25m WR! It even has a rubber strap.
This next 1975 model from the Viscount line has some nice contemporary diver looks with the same blocky angled case and a rotating diving bezel, yet is not even 50m WR. This is interesting to me how Timex at this time seemed to get out of the water watches and focused on fashion quartz.
I’m sort of skimming through the years here, showing some interesting models with these cool diver looks. However, its getting to be irritating for me to keep saying they are not much of a water watch. “Water resistant” in Timex speak is translated as 25M of 80ft? So, a quick splash or dunk, maybe.
As you can see in the picture above, pretty cool looking manual wind, watches with rotating bezels, on rubber straps, but not really divers. One thing I really like about the Marlin here , though it is hard to see, is the hooded lugs; the case/lugs is just a straight line from the top. Splashers? As I mentioned earlier, it seems Timex was not interested in the “skin diver” at this point?
Vintage Timex Watches
That same year we have the Viscount line diver-looking 47970 with automatic movement. Again, love that straight hooded lug. I have written about the “field-looking” version of this Viscount. Still that 25m WR rating…There was no electric or quartz with diver style this year.
1979 featured a couple of interesting diver-style watches; the 37561 auto which was like the 47970 above form ’78 and the cool quartz 58367 which is basically where the 2020 Todd Snyder version of ultra successful reissue of the Qs in 2019 came from.
As you can see from the above photo it was a pretty direct reissue. This particular Q reissue is not as diver-like as the original 2019 Q release TW2T80700 type of Q (below). While the case/bezel is the same the dial without the dot hour markers seems less dive-like, if you know what I mean?
I suppose now is a good time to discuss the 2019 Q reissue and its diverishness, as well as its origins. These new Qs, now six years old, are still available on Timex site! With a 50m WR the are again, not a diver, but are usually describes as a “diver” because of the rotating bezel and dot/bar hour marker layout. Timex never called it a diver but the general public now seems to use that description. Reissue is misleading because there was no specific 1979 watch that looked like this. This dial layout is similar to the 276701 of 1971 shown above, then again in 1982 onward. The modified Mercedes hands did not appear on a Timex diver-style until maybe 1992?
The case design surely resembles the case of the 1979 58367, or 761702 electric of 1978, but a dot/bar/triangle hour marker type of Seiko-like dial did not appear until the 90s. The “hair-puller” bracelet is not like any 1979 bracelet I have seen. The snap clasp is right for ’79 but the bracelet design is more a modern interpretation of the ’81-’84 bracelets seen on the dressier digitals? This 2019 Q “reissue” dial and hand combination cannot be linked to a specific single historical Timex release. It is a modern fusion of many different period elements. It is not really a reissue of any specific 1979 model. The 2020 Todd Snyder Q, on the other hand, is a direct reissue(copy) of a specific model from 1979. Even that 1979 58367 dial/case was seen before in a 1978 Electric 761702 and again in the quartz 68502 of 1977 and 1978. I think Timex just picked 1979 to go with a 40 year anniversary with 2019.
The 1980s
1980 continued the same with manual, mechanical Marlins and higher priced automatics, but still 25m watches with no electric or quartz with rotating bezels. The 27918 Red/black Marlin has been reissued as the T2P2249 in 2014(?), early in the Q revival years.
What I like about the reissue T2P2249, is that it is a 100m WR watch, that fits with its looks. Its a proper swimmer. I don’t really like the red/black look, but it is a nice looking watch. It is now a quartz, but it looks a lot like the original and has been bumped up in size from 38mm to 40mm. That is something that happens with most Timex reissues, or any brand, really.
I want to throw in the 1981 Marlin 28131 because it was a alternative to the red/black look. It was more subdued with black /grey/silver. This well-used example below shows the black case. It came on a rubber strap, but was still a 25m WR watch.
Evolving case
Something new as far as case shape, shows up in the 1982 catalog, but the water resistance has not improved. Now we are looking at a more modern “diver” shape – not so much a “skin diver”. Is that crown guards I see? Notice the dot/bar type hour markers.
A big addition to the Marlin line is this case/jubilee bracelet combination. The 24517 above is quite a change. This is also the beginning of the “red dot” watches with the red lollipop second sweep. I’ve tried to look back at 1980-82 to figure out the inspiration for this look. I don’t yet know anything this was copied from directly, but it has some Submariner and Omega, even Seiko details. Also, it keeps the plastic solid black skin diver bezel, with no insert. The manual wind 24517-24567 would have a six-year run until 1987!
The “Q” is in the room, and with 100M WR to boot. Lumed markers and hands, sliding clasp 3-section tapered bracelet, screw-down crown and back. Interesting choice of arrow head on second hand. Date window at 6 o’clock. Notice the plated friction-fit bezel with insert. Retailing for about $70 compared to $40 for the manual Marlin. This 58347 was top of the line for Timex. Things stayed the same for a couple of years. I might note though, that the next year, 1983, was the introduction of the famed plastic case manual wind Camper.
1984 brought us a blacked-out version of the Sport Quartz diver, 58367. Heuer had been making black case/bracelet divers for a couple of years, so I can see the motivation. From quick catalog scans it was only around for one year? After this they seemed to continue a line of black plastic Black Max models along the lines of Casio. That 1984 finish might not have been too durable or popular? As stated in the catalog below, it featured a M137 movement with Quick-set date button(QuickDate) for the 6 o’clock date window. Maybe there were some issues with that movement?
I haven’t been able to find a photo of this model other than a dial for sale! I am not really a black watch guy, but this is an intriguing model. The mechanical 24517 changed to a 24567 and picked up a new set of paddle-style hands.
1985 brings back the Silver cased 58347 but with the Quickdate on a jubilee bracelet. The Quickdate button is interesting. It is a bit stiff and is designed to be depressed with some type of pointed tool, rather than a finger tip. The Quickdate was only used 1985-87. I think this is a sharp-looking watch and worthy of a reissue. I have one of these Quickdate versions, but can not determine which year it was made. I see no date code on either side of case back. Still available is the 24567 mechanical with paddle hands. Notice both share the spear-style second sweep. No red dot.
Quartz and digital are the focus in the mid-eighties. Sporty Casio-like, water resistant styles were more emphasized than the classic diver models. I also think that these diver styles starting in 1982 became more modern, following industry trends, but also more generic. 1985 had 100m WR digitals, but I don’t include them with diver-styles, mainly because of aesthetics and intended use. The idea of a “digital diver” had not occurred to me until getting into this, but it is something I will have to cover.
Below is a Black Max type that became available in numerous styles for men and women. These no-bezel analog watches typified the casual SportQuartz that moved away from metal cases, bezels and straps. They were still mostly 25m WR. Not divers, but cheap, durable all-around outdoors watches like the “Camper” if you did not want to go digital.
1986 was more of the same with the mechanical 24567 and quartz 58347(pictured above earlier) diver-style still being available. However, the new general Sportsquartz offerings became the focus. With plastic cases and rubber straps, and quartz movements, as will as 25m water resistance, they felt more modern and on-trend for more of the public, who were not specifically looking for classic divers. They were targeted at those who wanted the carefree convenience of quartz (no winding) and light water duty for boating, camping, etc.
The new look Sportsquartz models above, 30161 and 30151, really change things up. I don’t know where to start? In a way it is a style that could be released today in 2025? I could see a carbon version of this? It is a diver concept but departs from traditional divers. It even departs from the BlackMax line. They are cataloged in the women’s section, probably about 27mm. Timex never puts size in catalogs as if size was inconsequential. Its interesting because this style is not available in a bigger men’s size. Several Timex watches, like the Black Max for example, had similar styles for men and women in different sizes.
The above men’s Camper and Blackmax models have a more traditional look to them than the women’s counterparts. There seems to be a “Camper” and a “Diver” look for each set. Again, these are from 40 years ago, but would not look out of place today? They would be better made today with more advanced materials and processes. They would need to be 100 or 200m WR. I bet a “reissue” of these would work today?
The above 58347 with Quickdate was available from 1985-87. See Quickdate button at 4 o’clock. Friction fit bezel. The pictured jubilee bracelet is not the original, but a similar(even cheaper!)type. Its hard to find bracelets to fit the price/quality level of the original; either complete junk or too nice. The watch came on an after market rubber. I wanted to get the original look, but this bracelet is pretty junky. Also the original bracelet is 22mm wide to match case width with 18mm connection. The pictured bracelet is only 18mm. Compare to image of 1988-89 58347 below.
At this point in time it seems all the creative work was in this type of watch rather than the metal diver that stayed the pretty much same as previous years.
Titanium, Baby!
Now I’m getting to one of my favorite Timex watches. 1987 brings a new diver concept to the table. Say hello to the Tiny Tuna. I’m not sure how this came to be but I guess Timex wanted to shake things up. Their diver-styles were getting stale.
I like so many things about this watch, but I will start with the obvious bad thing; its small. Now, I like “smaller” watches like 36-38mm, but this men’s comes in at 34mm and the women’s 27mm! For dressier styles this probably would not be a concern, but even for 1987 things were getting bigger? I could understand maybe the 60s or if the 31911 was a “youth”, but it is a men’s watch.
I’m guessing the cost of the titanium caused Timex to downsize because their diver styles were not going this size direction even though they had smaller women’s versions. In the 80s their men’s divers were in the 38mm range. This might be a fun “reissue” in 38mm? I also want to point out another interesting thing about this watch and Timex at this time – 1987-88; I have three examples of the 31911 from these years and each one was assembled in a different country! One assembled in the Philippines, one in Thailand and one in Korea. I don’t think I have ever seen a Korea-assembled Timex?
There were no other new divers for the year. All the previous year’s models mentioned were still in the catalog. Timex must have decided to get some interest by showing it could keep up with the trends from the greater diving watch market. Seiko had the titanium tuna since the 70s, and it was round with no lugs. Casio was making some funky titanium divers in the mid 80s. Heuer had titanium divers in ‘ 86 and ’87 with bezel cutouts that could have inspired this unusual shape?
This pair of Heuer divers are sized at 34.5mm and 28mm, so the Timex sizes are similar. The Timex design has no bezel, which is interesting. Probably another cost saving move and not having to deal with more titanium manufacturing issues? The rubber straps shown in the image of the 87711 and 31911 above are not the original Timex straps, but are period aftermarket straps. The original rubber strap had a narrow horizontal segments and a prominent spine the fit the notch cut in the lugs. Most of the preowned sample yo will see will be without the original spine strap.
I don’t know of any watch that looks like this Timex 31911 case? Those pill-shaped depressions in the curved bezel do look nautical in a way. The short hooded lugs have a notch cutout which changes the late ’70s -early ’80s silhouette. The screw-in crown at 4:30 is coated a dark color and not easy to grip next to the lug. There is a red line around the connection between crystal and bezel. The long slim white hands are not familiar. The red dot second hand returns. The dial layout could be from the late 70s by style but the choice of only a 24 hr track. Also, the fine, wide Arabic numbers are rotated on a radial axis from the center pinion and flipped on the lower half of dial. With the grid, it all has a modern late 80s feel.
That original strap for the titanium 31911 and 87711 is hard to find now. On the men’s it was 18mm tapering to 16mm. Most examples of the watch I see have a replacement of some kind. It was a stiff rubberized plastic that had a unique look. The “100 meters” was actually molded into the strap. Also, the unique keeper was molded to match the contours of the strap. It looked good but had a cheap feel to it.
1988 brought the titaniums and Black Max along with it. There were some changes happening in the other core diver-style lineup. The Marlin manual wind 24567 did not return. The Sportsquartz 58347 was back but without the M137 Quickset date movement. It was still the top of the line Timex Diver with 100m WR. This might be the year the ratchet bezel was added?
Two new designs based on the the classic diver-style appeared. The first is the 40511 Sportsquartz that was pretty straight forward looking very Seiko-like with the bar hour markers and sort of skin diver shaped polished case/lugs. Black and white dial with cricket paddle hands. It came on a tapered, segmented rubber strap.
This watch was a classic diver/swimmer to me. Compared to all the “odd” Timex designs, this styling seems to be what people think a diver should look like! Sized at 37.5mm x 45.5mm, it is perfect for me. It had about a four-year run. It had a nice looking case, 50m WR with screw-down back and screw-in crown. The bezel was friction fit, bi-directional. Lume was on hour and minute hand only. It was the lower priced offering, so had to give up some features. The 50m WR was the weak point. It was priced at $40 in 1988. The 58347 was the higher priced at $70, and a better spec model, but I prefer the curvy look of the 40511 with pointy crown guards. It has a more mid-century skin diver or Seiko look where the 58347 leans more towards a Rolex Submariner look. The 58347 picked up bigger lume pots for the hour markers and a ratchet bezel in 1988. The “Q” at 12 o’clock was dropped, too. By now quartz was established and expected, so the Q reminder seemed superfluous.
The other new diver style to emerge in 1988 was the 00311. It added a pop of color and borrowed from the titanium case and the 58347 dial. I’m not sure where Timex was going with this one? Another price point ($55) between the 40511 ($40) and the 58347($70), maybe?
One way to describe the 00311 could be it is a 58347 without the bracelet and ratchet bezel. The rubber strap is a wider version of the titanium series the way it fits the notch in the lugs. The most distinctive feature it is the bright blue rehaut with the 24 hr scale. It adds a bit of fun to modernize the black and white look. It’s 100m WR is a step up from the 40511. It will have a two-year run then morph into the 00317 getting a new case and bracelet in 1990 when the 58347 is dropped.
The 31911 Titanium and the top of the line diver 58347 continued through 1988. With this line up Timex could offer three 100m WR divers. If you wanted to pursue more modern technology there was also the 100m digitals like the Atlantis line.
1989 was a quiet year for Timex in the diver category. The usual suspects in Black Max, Diver-style and Sportsquartz lines with from 25m to 100m WR carried on. I have a 58347 from 1989 and it has a unidirectional ratchet action bezel, not the friction fit. The ratchet bezel might have started in 1988? There was however one change in the Ladies diver was foreshadow of things to come. Quietly in the 1989 catalog, in the Ladies section the added the 33911 which really was a smaller version of the men’s 40511 with polished case. They got away from the new plastic bezel/case 30151. However, its solid black bezel hinted at the F1 look to come.
1990 Splash
Tag Heuer was the mass market dive watch leader in the 80s and 90s and every other watch brand followed their lead. They introduced the new concept Formula 1 line starting in 1987 then dramatically increased the range in 1988. Timex did not waste time copying that look. Below are the 1990 Timex Ladies version for the F1 look.
Wow! A pretty straight up copy of the F1 look? Similar case shape, bezel, dial, Mercedes hands, long strap with trim marks….Described as diver-style they were only 30m WR, so didn’t really serve as a water watch. I guess they are approx. 28mm wide. I think the women’s titanium was left out of the 1990 catalog sl that left only the 50m 33911 for the women.
Of course the men got the F1 look too in 1990, with a bigger 38mm size an a grey swapped for the pink.
I find it interesting that Timex released these F1 looking watches but didn’t even get them up to 50m WR. Like the women’s version, they were more for fun that actual water sports. The Timex F1 copies were not long for this world . They would be gone by 1990. Probably some legal issues with Tag Heuer? The core divers like the classic 40511 (50m), the titanium 31911 (100m) were still available.
There was a change or evolution of the 00311. It got a reshaped case and the jubilee bracelet becoming the 00317. It effectively replaced the 58347.
The change of combining the 00311 and the 58347 makes sense. They were both 100m dive-styles with a similar dial. They were competing with each other though one was on rubber, the other a bracelet. The new look is a blasted finish rather than the polished look of the 58347. Seems to be a good-looking watch but I haven’t seen one in the metal.
Final thoughts
I need to wrap this one up! As I wrote at the start, I was not sure where this was going because there was a lot of ground to cover. But, I had to get it out of my system. Now I know there will have to be a Part 2 covering something like 1991-2015? My initial feelings are that there were some strange Timex watches released during those years.
What started this years ago is that I thought Timex had a history of making some interesting diver-style watches. I’ve also wondered why some these never made the reissue cut? I really started looking at Timex watches closely around 2017, the got deep into them in 2020. In that Archive era there were lots of great 100m WR capable Allied and Navi watches, as well as many other diver-style looks. There was always the 50m and 100m WR watches coming from the direction of the Expedition lines, too. Then, as I started to get into tool watches and micro brands, I wondered why Timex had not done a 200m classic diver?
By the time the 41mm Deepwater line was released I had been thinking about this post for over a year, so I had to get it done. At this point I am still a little disappointed with the state of Timex divers. Their 200m divers all seem a bit odd and clunky? Timex doesn’t seem to have been able to meld the nice aesthetics of some of their older styles with the specifications of the new models. I guess I’ve been hoping for a reissue of a 58347, 40511 or 31911 or 12571 with tool watch specs. I’ll have to think about this some more as I work on Part 2.
Acknowledgement
Many thanks to Heritage1854.com for providing scanned Timex catalogs on their site. I have used them extensively for research and images.
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