Vintage watch experience 古董手錶: Aquastar deepstar watch

I have found an unusual vintage Aquastar deepstar watch as below. For every Rolex Submariner or Sea Dweller, Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, Omega Seamaster, there were scores of other lesser-known watch brands that nevertheless merit consideration from the vintage watch enthusiast. One of such watch is the Aquastar.

Aquastar is one of the many watch companies that proliferated just before the Japanese Quartz Watch Crisis. Founded in 1962 by veteran SCUBA diver Frédéric Robert, Aquastar—as the name suggests—took the needs of aquatic sportsmen as its guiding principles. Drawing on a patent filed in 1958 by Aquastar’s parent company, JeanRichard, Aquastar introduced the brand’s first dive watch: the JeanRichard Aquastar 60. Aquastar is one of the many watch companies that proliferated just before the Quartz Crisis.

Watches produced by JeanRichard under the Aquastar line were retailed under many brand names, from JeanRichard to Duward, which was primarily used in Spain 7 Europe; which the line became so successful that it became the brand name by which the watches are best-known.

The company would go on to produce a varied line of purpose-built aquatic timepieces such as the the first regatta timer, but there’s another watch that attracts the attention of vintage chronograph collectors, not least of all for its connection to Jacques Cousteau.

That would be this watch, the Aquastar Deepstar chronograph which has both the diving function plus that of a chronograph. With its rotating bezel and stainless steel case rated to 100 meters, the Deepstar combined these dive watch features with a chronograph, making it the first of its kind. That added functionality soon attracted the attention of professional divers—including Cousteau.

Although Cousteau was a proponent of the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms and the Rolex Submariner—and later became a vendor of the DOXA Sub300t through his company, U.S. Divers—Cousteau and his crew were by no means married to any particular watch. However, Cousteau’s relationship with the Aquastar Deepstar was certainly quite long-lived. It started in 1965 and lasted for nearly ten years. Cousteau and many of his crew on the Calypso could be seen sporting Aquastars in his landmark television series, The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. While these watches surface occasionally on the vintage watch market, they’re rarely in such good condition as the one we offer here, due to the hard use that they were invariably subjected to throughout their lives.

The below watch looks like a gilt dial plus having a Maxi dial. The markers are also without the usual steel surrounding the markers.