A very rare 1950s Blancpain Fifty Fathoms diver's wristwatch, circa 1955. Case numbered 1323. The 17 jewel automatic movement is an AS calibre 1361N, signed Blancpain. In circular stainless steel case with rotating bezel with black insert, case 41mm diameter. The black enamel dial signed ‘Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Rotomatic Incabloc’. The watch is accompanied by an extensive history file of service receipts with documentation and photographs detailing the restoration carried out by Blancpain in 2017.
Provenance: This watch has a charming history as it has been owned by the vendor since 1957. We have his notes which give a brief history of the watch.
Norman Malthouse was training to be a deep sea diver and, as a young man, he would save up his money to make his journey from Brentwood in Essex and travel on his Lambretta to the South of France each summer to Club Alpin Sous Marin in Cannes between 1954 and 1957. He recalls "During the summer of 1957 I was staying with friends and brushing-up my diving skills with one of the 'Club Alpine Sous-Marin' dive monitors having been instructed by him in '56. We were joined by two more people who were known to my friends as experienced divers and we set off in a small boat and headed for the rocks local to the Antheor lighthouse. All the chatting was in French of course, when one of these gentlemen turned to me, and in perfect English, said that he noticed that I did not have a dive watch. Next to no time he was taking his own watch off and offering it to me saying that he 'made them' and I could have this one at Factory price, this was an offer that I could not refuse." (The gentleman who gave him the watch was Jean-Jacques Fiechter, owner of Blancpain).
Sold for £20,000
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Auction: East Anglian, Antiques & Fine Art, 30th Apr, 2024
Reeman Dansie’s East Anglian, Antiques and Fine Art sale was a great success, with sustained interest and several exciting moments throughout the three-day sale. Day one began with a single-owner collection of 18th century porcelain figures, where the highlight was a rare 18th century Meissen group, fought over by three phone bidders from Germany and eventually selling for £12,500 (lot 10). Among the other ceramics, a fine pair of Royal Worcester fruit-painted vases made £4500 (lot 211). Silver, jewellery, and watches followed: a 1950s Blancpain diver’s watch sold for £20,000, almost 70 years after the vendor was given the watch by the founder of Blancpain (lot 625).
Day two saw East Anglian Art and other works of art go under the hammer, with good results for single-owner collections of portrait miniatures, antique maps, and Japanese lacquerware. There was also a great deal of interest in the David Thomas Turner collection of fossils, with the top price going to a Jurassic period Plesiosaur paddle (£3900, lot 904). As always, there was strong competition for the East Anglian part of the sale, with works by John Moore of Ipswich and Thomas Smythe selling well. At the more contemporary end of the spectrum, two works by Hugo Grenville made £2500 and £3100 respectively (lots 1139 and 1140), while the highest price of the section was achieved by an oil on canvas by Reginald Brill, which fetched £4100 (lot 1029).
Furniture and rugs were sold on the final day of the sale; garden statuary proved popular, with a range of urns and fountains selling for above estimate, the most noteworthy being a large stone urn removed from Berechurch Hall after the Second World War (lot 1557, £4400). The most eagerly anticipated lot of the day was a superb Chippendale-style mirror, which saw several phone bidders steadily drop out of the race until the hammer fell at £5600 (lot 1460).
We’d like to thank everyone who attended the sale, both online and in the room, and we look forward to welcoming you back to our next Fine Art and Antiques sale in July. Before that, we will be holding a host of other sales, which you can find listed on our website.
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