Recently made into a reissue, the Nivada Antartic was originally worn on Operation Deep Freeze American missions to the South Pole.
HOW DO WE DATE THIS WATCH?
Operation Deep Freeze ran from 1955-1956, and was noticeable for several firsts including the first airplane to lane at the South Pole. It was also filmed for Walt Disney Studios. As you can see on the advert shown on Nivada’s own website the watchmakers made the most of the publicity, and it is only natural that this would happen just after the successes of the mission. In May 2020 the company revised the models and relaunched an Antartic range, but it shares little or nothing with the original.
CONDITION
The 1950’s were all about expeditions to the extremes of earth as much as the 1960’s were about space exploration, and watch companies quickly attached themselves to the exploits. Both Smiths and Rolex watches were worn to the top of Everest in 1953, and with those models in mind we shouldn’t be surprised to see what appears to be a dress watch worn on such a mission to the South Pole. Nowadays we would expect some 1000M 44mm divers watch, but Nivada adapted a more mainstream watch to show it could be done. So you have a screw on case back for added water resistance, automatic winding so you wouldn’t need to take gloves off to wind the watch up, and a tension ring crystal to keep everything tight on the top. After that nothing was altered, showing that you do not need half the things current watchmaker designs would have you believe.
This has a 20 micron gold plated case, which is not badly worn at all. The crystal has been polished, revealing a very clean dial. The hands when compared to the original advert look to be the same, as does the case with the flattened lugs. Our watch doesn’t have the numbers on the dial like that model in the advert, nor the date, but that is not an issue – there were bound to be different options available. The movement is an AS 1580, which is running well. This was first launched in 1955, fitting in perfectly with the timeline. The leather strap is new, and could be swapped for a different colour if preferred.
This watch will be supplied with our branded presentation box and our Certificate of Authenticity.
Please see the HD video for more detail. All photos and videos are part of the description and are of the actual watch unless mentioned. We do not photoshop any pictures, and the images are copyright of birthyearwatches.com and should not be used without permission.
SIZE
Width with crown 37.1 mm
Width without crown 34.0 mm
Between lugs 18 mm
Lug to lug length 42.0 mm
Case Thickness 11.2 mm
All sizes are approximate.
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