Croton Chronomaster Aviator Sea Diver - SOLD

This is a remarkable Croton Chronomaster manufactured by Nivada Grenchen for their USA market under the Croton brand. Nivada are a watch manufacturer who in their hey day rivalled Rolex ,Jaeger le Coultre and any other “top brand ” for adventurers watches.

This was proven by the fact that whilst Rolex was heading up Everest and Jaeger boarded the USS Nautilus nuclear submarine on its journey under the North Pole, Nivada made the watch that accompanied the expedition to explore the Antarctic in 1957 .

Seen under the Name Nivada ,Nivada Grenchen and in this configuration Croton. The various names were due to a legal battle with Movado over similar sounding names so Nivada had to change title and the simplest method was to add Grenchen -its home town or the name of its distributor Croton .

This watch has the true pedigree of an explorers extremely high quality divers chronograph , further demonstrated by the manufactures choice of movement ,the highly regarded mechanical winding valjoux 23, one of the most famous chronograph movements of all time, it is cased in a 39 mm (excluding the crown) solid stainless steel screw back case.

The watch is in stunning original condition, it has never been refinished and is just a perfect combination of vintage cool without showing excessive patina. The watch was supplied to us by the original owner, a US Navy Pilot, who was given it for his 16th Birthday and it then spent much of its life in a safe as he was also given an Ed White Speedmaster when he was 22, that said the watch served him from 16 until he was 22.

This example is from a watchmaker at its height using the best technology available and this piece represents that admirably

our stock number T168