These self-winding wathces are all water-resistant, shock-resistant, antimagnetic, which is why, it is said that Admiral Byrd relied on this timepiece during the entire tenure of Operation Deep Freeze. One of the most robust offerings from Nivada Grenchen is the Nivada Antarctic series, built to withstand high altitude, extreme weather conditions. For instance, after a vintage watch collector reposted a photograph of a rare Nivada Grenchen F77, the brand decided to reissue the model in 2021. Having previously worked in the marketing departments of Zenith, Girard-Perregaux and Jaeger-LeCoultre, and on his own brand-William L 1985-Laidet, in 2015, has a youthful, interactive game plan towards marketing Nivada watches by focusing on e-commerce, pre-orders and social media. The French duo announced the launch with a book titled Chronomaster Story, a 300-pager on the brand’s history and special focus on the Chronomaster Aviator Sea Diver. Four decades later, Laidet and Chabrat took a risk in staking ownership in 2018 and decided on a Swiss-made reissue of the brand’s two heraldic models: Chronomaster Aviator Sea Diver and Antarctic. But the past glory of their spearheading collections such as Antarctic and Chronomaster refused to die out in public memory. Then the ‘quartz crisis’ hit, and the brand went kaput. The 1957 Croton vintage print advertisement titled, 'The watch that went to the Antarctic.' It is why iterations produced back then feature the signature of either or both brands, such as ‘Croton Nivada’, ‘Croton Nivada Grenchen’, and even just ‘Croton’. As the brand’s sole distributor in the US, American company Croton watches insisted on getting recognition in the branding.

Nivada became Nivada Grenchen in the 1960s after the other Grenchen-origin watch company, Movado, felt the phonetic similarity in the brand names could become a case of mistaken identity among the masses. In 1926, Nivada was operative as Wüllimann Schneider Nivada SA in Grenchen. One quirky piece of trivia about the brand is the multiple instances they’ve had to change their name. By the time of Nivada Grenchen’s 100th anniversary in 1979, Jacob’s son Max had assumed ownership, while the watches were running on ETA and Phénix SA movements. On its heels was the Depthomatic in 1964, which became the first dive watch with the ETA 2472 movement that provided a depth gauge or bathymeter, water-resistant upto 1,000m. Their gamechanger was (and is after resurrection) the Chronomaster series of three iterations-Chronomaster, Aviator, and Sea Diver-that offered 200m of water resistance. Their first automatic water-resistant iteration in 1950, a compact 35mm Nivada Antarctic, made a big splash in horological history when the polar explorers of the US Antarctic expedition titled Operation Deep Freeze I (1955-56) to the South Pole wore the timepiece on this expedition. Four years after inception, the brand became one of the pioneering manufacturers of automatic watches. Nivada Grenchen originated in Grenchen, a Swiss municipality at the foothills of the famed Jura mountains. Pictured here: Chronomaster Panda Reverse A Brief Timeline Of Nivada Grenchen The gamechanger for Nivada Grenchen was (and is after resurrection) their Chronomaster series-Chronomaster, Aviator, and Sea Diver-offering an impressive 200m water resistance. Read below for Nivada Grenchen history and top collections. “Nivada Grenchen has no shortage of sleeping beauties waiting to be revived,” Laidet was once quoted saying about their modus operandi of reissuing the brand’s popular models. While they are still addressed in past tense on popular platforms such as Wikipedia, Nivada Grenchen has been resurrected after 40 years under gallant entrepreneurs Guillaume Laidet, the current chief brand officer, and his cofounder, Rémi Chabrat of the Hong Kong-based watchmaking Montrichard Group. Launched in 1879 by watchmaker Jacob Schneider from Grenchen, Switzerland, the brand had gained repute for producing robust, purpose-built tool watches, namely the Antarctic, Depthmaster, Datomatic, and the absolute star-Chronomaster Aviator Sea Diver. The ‘quartz crisis’ from the 1970s to early 1980s had derailed the Swiss mechanical watchmaking industry, and shut down successful Swiss watchmaking brands, such as Nivada Grenchen.

Croton chronomaster aviator sea diver