1971 Fortis Marinemaster ref. 8001 Diver’s Chronograph (Valjoux 72)

Fortis was founded in Grenchen in 1912 and debuted the world’s first self-winding watch in 1925 at Basel. Fortis developed timepieces for the navy and space travel. From 1994 onwards, Fortis was the official watch supplier to the Russian cosmonauts as well other military air squadrons around the world.

The Fortis Marinemaster 8001 is a diving chronograph from the early 1970s. The combination of a diving watch with a chronograph is quite rare.  This watch is powered by the same movement as the first Rolex Daytona. The legendary Valjoux 72 is a three register column wheel manual wind chronograph movement which traces its origins back to the 1930s. It was used in the Daytona Paul Newman and many other high end watches.

The case and dial also draw some familiarities with the famous and highly expensive Daytona, but with 2mm larger and with 4 times the claimed water resistance!   The lugs are simple yet wonderfully chamfered with nice matte lines on top and, really do give off a Rolex vibe.

A highlight of this watch are of course the yellow-circled sub-dials. The 30-minute counter is additionally divided into three red areas. The hour and minute hands have a beautiful design featuring steel borders and magenta inlays. There is also an execution with blue sub-dials and hands. The central seconds hand is white. Both the hands and the hour markers contain tritium lume, which is original in every single element of this watch. The dial has a tachymeter scale.  

Those magenta hour and minute hands are bold and very 70’s but clash marvelously with the other colors on the dial. The choice of an orange and yellow alternating scheme within the 3:00 register gives nice contrast on what is likely the most used measuring area. Simple black needle sub register hands ensure that the yellow rings remain star of the show.

Condition:

• Overall the watch is in excellent & untouched, original condition. 

• The entire dial is almost immaculately preserved.

• The stainless steel case measures 39mm and has sharp edges and is unpolished.  Lug width is 20mm.

• The Fortis logo, model reference and water resistance are still engraved deep on the case back. The chronograph works perfectly as you would expect from a Valjoux 72 movement. The brand name “Fortis Watch Ltd swiss” and the serial number can be read again on the inside.

• The case is unpolished.

• The bezel has some scratches & small indentations (common in most examples in the market).

The movement has been professionally cleaned and serviced by our in-house watchmaker. 

IMPORTANT NOTES FOR BUYERS:
1. For shipping purpose: we will mark lower values at the Buyer’s request. We ship with discrete packaging.
2. We use DHL Express for international shipping. Shipping to most destinations is normally 2-3 days.
3. Preferred payment method is via bank transfer/wire.