Super Dive “Polish Navy”

“Polish Navy?” you will ask, “wasn’t Poland behind the Iron Curtain when Enicar was big?” Yes indeed, but since good Dive watches were scarce to not existing in the Eastern Hemisphere, all kind of East European Countries used Swiss watches, especially for Military purposes.

The Polish Navy, or in Polish “Marynarka Wojenna” aquired Enicar Sherpa Super Dives in the 1960s and Blancpain 50 Fathoms in the early 1970s. Thanks to the markings on the watch, we can narrow down this date even further.

All markings start with the letters MW, standing for “Marynarka Wojenna” (Polish Marine). After that, in case of the Enicars, it is followed by 66 or 67, and 2 or 3 more numbers. The first two digits are the date. In our case 1966 and 1967 which corresponds with the production date of the watches (see caseback inside date “9-66”). Since the Blancpains where issued in the early 70s, they have 73 to 76 as first numbers (1973-1976).

The following numbers seem to be in chronological order. The earliest Polish Super Dive I found has the number 6612, the latest of the 1966 batch 66248. I think its not wrong to say that the Polish Navy aquired around 300 watches in 1966 and a few more in 1967.

But how did they aquire them? Mateusz Piechnik, a researcher for Polish Dive watches in general once stated: “According to my knowledge, there was no official order from the Polish Navy to Enicar. The purchase was informal, probably through some jeweler or store.”

This was not uncommon in the Eastern block, where you also could get Rolex (East-Germany) or Heuer watches (Hungary), when you had the money.

The only thing that doesn’t make sense is the polished caseback, where in most of the cases of the Polish watches the Seapearl is erased. Often you can find the MW Number here, but not allways. The following Casebacks are known:

• No Seapearl and Markings on the bottom
• No Seapearl and Markings in the middle
• Seapearl and Markings on the bottom

Since I havn’t seen any non Polish watches yet with an erased Seapearl, this is something to research further. In case of the Blancpains it was confirmed by the Polish Ministry if Defense, that they ordered them from Blancpain (directly?). Maybe it was done in the factory, maybe not.

As mentioned, often you find the MW Number on the caseback, but not allways. The other possibility is the MW number on the caseband side, opposite to the crowns. In general it looks like the same tools were used as on the caseback to stamp the number in. Beginning from later serials, such as 66194 and all the following, the Number wasn’t stamped in, but engraved with a engraving pen. Often these were called out fakes, but since they just appear in a specific Serial range I would call them legit too.

Like with all Military watches ou can find a mix-up of parts, caused by handling during service. Thats why you will sometimes see watches with different caseback and caseband numbers. A reputable source at MW wrote: “ALL of these watches had a similar treatment to the Heuer Bunds in that they were mass refurbished in the 1990s in Germany by a single source (similar to what Sinn did with respect to the Heuer Bunds).

Watches with Numbers on caseband AND caseback are rare. That makes me believe that a) one of them was added later, maybe at service or b) the responding part went lost or was mixed up during service and changed for a spare.

Also interesting is the choice of handset-dial combination. In my aquired list of 27 watches, just 3 of them have the Dauphine handset, the other the well known Tuning-Fork hands we all remember from the ultradive or OPS. I read in some military forums that this automatically makes it a “Fake”, since these hands were not good for visibilty during diving. But since these hands are well documented on (non-Military) Super Dives, and all three watches are in a narrow band of 24 numbers, I think they are legit as well.

I hope that this sums it up in a good way for you. I had some fun digging through these watches and thanks to Mateusz we even have a pic, that clearly shows the Super Dive in Polish Service in 1974.

Since we started our Journey together with Blancpain, I’d like to share an anecdote of a former German watchmkaer with you: “We bought and serviced and sold these from the Polish Navy in the early 90’s. They valued the Enicar higher than most of the MW Blancpains from the same period. Together with a Polish Partner , who was a Watchmaker in Poland, we bought over 100 BP’s . Their Water resistance was not as good …” 😉

Overview of the known Polish Super Dives (will update them when new Serials are known)

MW	hands	Engraving	Style	Seapearl	Comment
6612	Tuning Fork	Bottom	punched	No
6628	Tuning Fork	Bottom	punched	No
6632	Tuning Fork
6650	Tuning Fork	Side	punched	No
6662	Tuning Fork	Bottom	punched	No
6665	Tuning Fork	Bottom	punched	No
6674	Tuning Fork	Side	punched	No
6677	Tuning Fork	Bottom	punched	Yes
66105	Tuning Fork	Side, Bottom	punched	No
66108	Tuning Fork	Side, Bottom	punched	Yes
66115	Dauphine	Bottom	punched	No
66120	Tuning Fork	Bottom	punched	No
66127	Tuning Fork	Side	punched	No
66129	Dauphine	Bottom	punched	No
66133	Tuning Fork	Side	punched	No
66136	Tuning Fork	Side, Bottom	punched	Yes
66139	Dauphine	Bottom	punched	Yes
66144	Dauphine	Side	punched	no
66145	Tuning Fork	Side, Bottom	punched	No
66194	Tuning Fork	Bottom	by hand	No
66221	Tuning Fork	Bottom	by hand	No
66224	Tuning Fork		by hand	No
66248	Tuning Fork	Side	by hand	No
6703	Tuning Fork	Side	by hand	Yes
6706