Squale Medium Diver Q

It all began when a jet-set member from an entrepreneurial family, Charles von Büren, started assembling his own watches in 1946. In the fifties, scuba diving quickly became popular, both as a leisure activity as well as professionally. Charles got into the hobby, diving close to his home in lake Neuchatel. In 1959 he decided to focus on creating dive watch cases under a new name: Squale, Italian for “shark”.

Back in those days, it was much more common for watchmakers to specialize and combine parts from different manufacturers. Von Büren found an eager clientele for his cases in a.o. Blancpain, Heuer and Doxa. Oftentimes, the client-brand would place its logo at the twelve ‘o clock position. Squale, as the case maker, would place its own logo at the six ‘o clock position. This is why in current Squale watches, there are two logos on the dial. The main logo at twelve, in which you can spot Von Büren’s initials, and the curved shark at six.

Besides making cases for others, Squale also sold their own complete watches, which became particularly popular among divers in the late sixties. They were involved in several free diving record attempts and often given away as prices at such events. Furthermore, the watches were adopted by several special forces, among which the Italian navy and the French “Berets verts”
When Von Büren retired, the business was handed over to the Maggi family, who still operate it today.

We treasure a close relationship with the Squale brand. Sometimes this leads to special opportunities. Like the time we were invited to browse the rich archives (meaning vaults) of the brand. We stumbled upon a small batch of diving watches from the 1980s, new old stock. We jumped on the opportunity and bought the entire batch. So these beautiful mid-size divers are only available through Amsterdam Watch Company. A Swiss quartz movement is housed in a slim 36mm case. Being slimmer than the famous 1521 and Matic models, these cases still provide an impressive 20 ATM or 200 meters of water resistance. The long hour markers feature Tritium lume and the dial is graced by Squale’s old logo. These rare, classical divers come with the original box and warranty.