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.
______________________________________________________________________
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
