The watch world’s new Bronze Age marches on, with yet another divers’ view emerging in a new instance made of bronze, a metal historically used in maritime equipment owing to the anti-corrosive properties. The latest timepiece outfitted in the material is a retro-look timepiece out of Longines’ watch Heritage set, the Legend Diver, which matches up the bronze case using a sea-green lacquered dial.
Longines Legend Diver in Bronze
The Longines Legend Diver, that joined the collection in 2007, is a modern re-issue of a sailors’ watch Longines produced in 1960, Its 42-mm stainless steel case replicates the traces of the original and is renowned for both crowns — one for winding the eye, another for running the inner rotating sailors’ bezel. These two crowns, in addition to the caseback, are screwed, helping to ensure a water immunity level of 300 meters. The internal rotating bezel, which serves as the flange of the watch, may also be locked in place by its committed crown, thus ensuring a diver wearing it knows precisely how long he’s been underwater.
The design harks back into a 1960s Longines dip watch.
Under a box-shaped sapphire crystal, the lacquered dial has a gradient effect, with emerald green at the centre radiating to black in the outer edge. It’s punctuated by indices, numerals, and hands coated with Super-LumiNova; the 12, 6, 3, and 9 Arabic numerals are implemented in transparent, blocky typography for maximum legibility. Super-LumiNova has also been applied to the rectangular and square markers aligned with the hour indices in addition to the hour and second hands.
The caseback is made of titanium and features a relief engraving.
Inside the watch, below a good titanium caseback using an engraving of a diver, ticks the movement, the automatic Caliber L883.3 (a modified ETA A31.L02 produced only for Longines), with 21 jewels, a balance frequency of 25,200 vph, and a power reserve of 65 hours. The watch — that like all bronze-cased watches will develop its own personal patina after a period of wear — comes on a brown leather strap completed with a beige top-stitching. Also included is a green nylon NATO-style strap and a tool for easy changing of those two wristbands. The price was unannounced at press time, but is very likely to be comparable to the steel ($2,650) and black PVD ($2,700) versions of the Legend Diver watch releases in recent decades.
Each watch comes with an extra green NATO strap plus also a quick-change tool.