Leonardo da Vinci - Data Sheets

Here are the first two data sheets for the Leonard da Vinci model:

 

With all this peering at small numbers I'm starting to have double vision!:



 

 

 





Welcome . . . and some Chronographs

Nivada was one of the Swiss watchmaking houses which became defunct as a result of the advent and popularity of quartz movement watches in the late 1970s/1980s, (although the brand name continues today for a line of watches made in Mexico.)   

My own affection for Nivadas from the 1960s/70s began with the Leonardo da Vinci model, a few of which I now own.  I also like the Automatic, Antarctic and Chronograph models. 

As I found when first acquiring Leonardos that information on Nivada – the company and the products – is hard to come by, I’m creating this blog as a collection point for such data.  I would welcome any contributions of information from other Nivadavistas.   

Details of 12 Chronographs recently found for sale or under review (lots more to come):





Four More Chonographs

This is sheet 4 of the (building) Nivada Nirvana catalogue of Chronographs:

 

This link will take you to an article by Oran Chan on Wound for Life about Nivada:

http://www.woundforlife.com/2015/07/29/lessons-in-wristory-whats-a-nivada/

 

. . . and this is a fabulous Nivada Grenchen Chronograph with a beautifully patinated panda dial on AnalogShift’s website: http://shop.analogshift.com/products/nivada-grenchen-chronograph-panda-dial

Some Nivada History

The following summary Nivada history is largely based on the article seen at http://www.invenitetfecit.com/modeles/chronographe-nivada-chronomaster_en.html. (Will move to the Time2Tell site shortly.)  Thanks to Joel Pynson for the use of Invenit et Fecit's material.  Joel, in collaboration with Sébastien Chaulmontet has recently published an excellent book: http://www.time2tell.com/catalogue/uncategorized/chronographs-for-collectors/ 

According to Wikipedia, Nivada was founded in 1879 in Grenchen, Switzerland.  In the late 1990s Salinas Pliego and its company, Grupo Salinas, bought the brand from its original owners in Switzerland.  The company was reformed and relocated to Mexico in 2000. The brand focus now is to sell entry level watches. 

In the 1920s Nivada was headed by Jacob Schneider, and subsequently by his son Max, who was still in charge in 1976.  In the United States Nivada was distributed by the Croton Company.  Watches can be found signed Nivada, Croton or carrying the double signature Croton and Nivada Grenchen. The addition of the name Grenchen to Nivada apparently resulted from a dispute with Movado in the United States – that company contended that there could be name confusion, to the detriment of Movada. 

In the 1930s Nivada was one of the first companies to mass manufacture automatic watches. Other watches found in the catalogues of the era were small ladies watches, watches with double dials and watches made in “stainless steel” - evidence that the company was interested in the innovations of the time. 

In the Fifties, within the framework of the International Geophysical Year, Nivada created a waterproof automatic watch called Antarctic.  This was worn by members of the American Navy’s Deep Freeze 1 expedition, 1955-6, to the South Pole.  Nivada continued to produce Antarctic models for several years subsequently. 

Nivada capitalised on the Antarctic’s reputation for robust, reliable performance in extreme conditions in the Sixties with the launch (1964) of the diver's watch, Depthomatic, the first watch with an indicator of depth, or bathymeter, and the following year by the launching of the Depthmaster model, able to withstand a pressure of 100 atmospheres, which corresponds to 1,000 meters depth. 

Also in the Sixties, the Chronomaster chronograph was launched (1963).  It shared some attributes with the diver’s watches, being waterproof to 200 m.  The model carries 3 designations: Chronomaster, Aviator, Sea Diver: truly a watch for mastery on ground/air/sea!  (The Space environment would be left for Omega’s Speedmaster!) 

This was a boom time for Swiss chronographs, in which Nivada was a strong participant.  Exports from the Swiss industry of chronographs went from 52,000 in 1964 to 173,000 in 1969. 

Nivada used Ebauches SA calibres as it did not make its own ébauches.  The most common movement in the early Chronomaster versions was the Valjoux 92, created in 1950.  It's a good column-wheel movement.  However, the more prestigious Valjoux 23 – also used by Heuer and Rolex – also featured, as did the lesser praised Landeron 210, 248 and Venus 210 movements. 

The Chronomaster was a considerable success and production continued up to the end of the 70s.  Its design was gradually evolved.  The dauphine and arrow hands were replaced by stick hands, with tritium, and the logo Nivada, an N in a shield, appears sometimes on the dial.  The Valjoux 92 was replaced by the Valjoux 7733 (non column wheel type movement).  The Valjoux 23 was used throughout and some models had the excellent Valjoux 234 calibre.  In 1977 a Chronograph Aviator Sea Diver model featured the Valjoux 7765, (a manual wind version of the Valjoux 7755.)

 

As the 70s progressed, cheaper quartz watches increasingly robbed the traditional Swiss mechanical watch manufacturers of market share.  Nivada attempted to maintain its position by broadening its range of products to include more Automatics and more ‘fashionable’ watches, such as the Leonardo da Vinci models, but the business was no longer viable by the early 80s.

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For Nivadavistas this thread on the excellent Watchuseek forum will be of great interest:
http://forums.watchuseek.com/f11/genuine-nivada-grenchen-aviator-sea-diver-arabic-numerals-2972370-2.html

as will this review of the Datomaster on Fratello: http://www.fratellowatches.com/tbt-nivada-grenchen-datomaster/

Thanks Matt (Date/Automatic)

Thanks to toomanymatts on Watchuseek for this contribution: