Even though Blancpain’s Fifty Fathoms has been in production since the early 1950s, scholarship regarding this fascinating model continues to be written. The story of its origins are well known, rooted in solving the needs of an elite branch of the French Navy – the Service de Documentation Extérieure et de Contre-Espionnage – tasked with underwater espionage and other covert operations. The head of this unit was Captain Bob Maloubier, and he personally sketched out the watch that would one day be fully realized as the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms. Maloubier found a champion for his project in Blancpain’s CEO Jean-Jacques Fletcher - a passionate diver himself. Fletcher named the watch after the greatest depth that a combat diver was believed able to withstand at the time.

The watch combined cutting edge features such as an anti-magnetic and water-resistant case, a screw-down case back, a "double O-ring crown system", an automatic movement and a rotating bezel. Extremely robust and reliable, it was truly designed by military professionals and was soon selected by other militaries around the world for their diving units, including the U.S. Navy. The earliest examples such as the present lot have what collectors have dubbed the "Luxor" minute hand, referring to the small separation between the tip of the hand, resembling the obelisks of Luxor Temple in Egypt.

The present Blancpain Fifty Fathoms has an early case number and the beautiful 3 / 6 / 9 / 12 dial layout typical of Fifty Fathoms and Aqua-Lungs of the era, with puffy luminous material that has aged beautifully over time, an exceptionally well-preserved case, and a perfectly intact Bakelite bezel. Correct for an early, pre-1960s example, the luminous material is radium and has high Geiger reading. Furthermore, the inner case back features the designation “Patent-pending” which classifies the present example as one of the very earliest specimens, realized when the patent was still in the process of being granted.