In just a few years since its revival, Nivada Grenchen has become a serious contender in the ~$1,000 price segment.
The brand has become a leader in the entry-level vintage watch industry, creating a range of finely detailed, impressively authentic reissued watches drawn from its own glorious 20th-century history. Much of this success is simply due to old-fashioned charisma - many of the brand's watches have a charming old-school character that larger brands' vintage revivals simply cannot convey due to their fame. In other words, half the fun of many Nivada Grenchen watches is discovering delightful, perfectly aged vintage timepieces that you've never seen before in a store or at a show.
Perhaps no watch in the brand's lineup demonstrates this better than the compact, cushion-cased, and ultra-powerful dive watch, the Depthmaster. For one of its latest releases, Nivada Grenchen has reimagined the orange variant of the Depthmaster from the 60s with modern build quality, creating an attractive, summer-ready watch with immense capabilities. The Nivada Grenchen Depthmaster Orange impresses with its compactness and affordability, combining a playful and vivid color scheme typical of old-school divers with a finely thought-out, authentic vintage design and a water resistance of 1000 meters.
Despite its immense water resistance, the Nivada Grenchen Depthmaster Orange's stainless steel case is surprisingly small and balanced on the wrist. With a width of 39mm and a thickness of 13mm, this cushion-shaped design gives the wrist an old-school, squat look while remaining comfortable for wear on smaller wrists. The overall case shape echoes the other models in the Depthmaster family: a softly curved main cushion-style case "baby Panerai" is complemented by an unprotected screw-down crown, a tall coin-edge bezel, and sturdy straight lugs positioned at a slight angle. The cushion shape impresses with its abundance of nuances: the sloping top surface of the case has a clear radial brushing and smoothly transitions into a continuous polished chamfer around the entire case.
Combined with the lushly rounded polished side surfaces of the case, a sense of brightness and subtle elegance of the Depthmaster Orange emerges, breaking through utilitarian bulkiness. Of course, the helium valve at 9 o'clock is a modern deviation from the 60s inspiration, but on the wrist, it serves as a fun reminder that this quirky little diver is capable of serious saturation diving. Meanwhile, the lug design gives the watch a square, short, yet strong look when worn, significantly impacting its overall character. While the Depthmaster series by Nivada Grenchen uses various bezel designs, the bare radial matte steel bezel with engraving perhaps best matches the overall style of the watch.
The tone-on-tone steel construction further visually minimizes the watch on the wrist, and the open rounded design of the engraved lacquered numerals gives the charms a delightful 60s diver feel. On the back, the massive caseback is engraved with the Nivada Grenchen logo on a matte background. Of course, what this caseback truly excels at is durability: thanks to this caseback and the flush-set sapphire crystal, the Depthmaster Orange can achieve an impressive water resistance of 1000 meters.
Given Nivada Grenchen's fanatically precise approach to creating vintage-style watches, it is no surprise that the Depthmaster Orange's dial is almost identical to its 60s predecessor with two exceptions. The first and most obvious change is, of course, the lack of a date: the date window at the "3 o'clock" position is replaced by a simple rectangular hour index. On the other hand, the second dial design change requires a keen eye - instead of the "T Swiss Made T" inscription framing the 6 o'clock dial of the original 60s Depthmaster, the new model uses the "L Swiss Made L" inscription. This signifies that the dial uses Super-LumiNova luminescent paint rather than tritium, which is used in the luminous markers and hands.
The dial design is simple, graphic, and very legible: a combination of large rounded Arabic numerals and rectangular hour indices surrounded by a classic black minute track. Interestingly, the hands Nivada Grenchen uses for the Depthmaster Orange are unique to this model: a mid-century style hour hand with a spear tip is paired with a narrow, tapering Roman sword minute hand. With thick glossy black outlines, these hands stand out effectively against the main dial surface, and the khaki lume hue used for the hands and dial offers an attractive compromise between lume efficiency and foxtrot warmth. Of course, the real star of the show is the semi-gloss tangerine hue of the dial itself.
Thanks to the texture and tone, the dial appears lovingly aged right out of the box, and this old-school diver colorway makes the Depthmaster Orange a bold and stylish companion for any warm-weather style. It is a textbook "summer watch" design that should feel at home both in the ocean and on the street at a chic café.
Like many other three-hand models, Nivada Grenchen equips the Depthmaster Orange with the automatic Soprod P024 movement. In recent years, the P024 movement has increasingly been used as an alternative to the familiar ETA and Sellita, and its characteristics are largely comparable to these competitors. However, although the 28,800 beats per hour frequency and overall accuracy of the P024 are quite competitive in the modern market, the movement's 38-hour power reserve seems clearly outdated.
Nivada Grenchen offers the Depthmaster Orange model with a wide selection of leather straps and stainless steel bracelets, but perhaps no strap matches the character of this small, sturdy vintage-style diver better than the optional black rubber tropical strap. With classic crosshatch texture, sufficient ventilation for comfortable wear on a hot summer day, and a lightweight, flexible construction, this is a convenient and durable strap option that fits seamlessly into the 60s-inspired design.
In recent years, Nivada Grenchen has truly mastered conveying the look, character, and feel of wearing unusual vintage watches at a reasonable price, and the brand's hot streak shows no signs of slowing down. However, in terms of capabilities and personality on the wrist, the Depthmaster line may be its best offering, and the recently released Nivada Grenchen Depthmaster Orange is the warmest, most attention-grabbing, and simply fun iteration of this line to date. While it's still too early to declare the official "Watch of the Summer" for 2024, this is a strong contender for the win.
The Nivada Grenchen Depthmaster Orange is available now through the brand's e-commerce platform. As of the review's publication date, the price for these watches is $995 USD. For more information, visit the brand's website.