Blancpain Fifty Fathoms Rare LIPS-Blancpain - Fifty Fathoms / all original / 1950s. When we found this gem our hart started to beat a little faster. How often you find a double signed LIP-Blancpain in all original condition. Well worn and some radium spread on the dial but it makes it look tropical and all is untouched. This is such a great investment in our opinion and should shine in every dive watch enthousiasts collection. Way more unique then the submariners that came after and at a more affordable price.For the people that are into dive watches this is very close to a holy grail. With this being the consumer version of the blancpain dive watch that was issued to many european navies and US Navy Seals. It preceded the Rolex Submariner and introduced functionalities that are still in use today, such as the rotating bezel). So when you look at the history of dive watches, the LIP Blancpain fifty fathoms is a logical place to start.The fifty fathoms is the actual maximum dive dept of that time(91 meters). The watch started it's live only in a proffesional(navy) setting. The first time it was spoted in public was at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival where the French Navy Officer and soon to be filmmaker Jacques-Yves Cousteau was wearing one. Rolex by this time had already released the submariner but fame for the dive watch was still far away.Creating a watch for the general public was another challenge and Blancpain partnered with LIP and they made this watch with a smaller size(the original army version being 40mm and this was at the time way to big for civilians, smaller was better at that time).The movement is a Blancpain LIP calibre R108, which was originally developed by the French company Ebauches SA and was the standard movement for the fifty fathoms for over a decade.