This Reborn 1970s Diver Flips the Script on Vintage Watch Reissues

By now, I think we’re all familiar with the formula when it comes to vintage watch reissues.

A brand — often one that’s been resurrected after decades of dormancy — faithfully recreates one of its watches from the mid-twentieth century, swapping in modern materials and movements but otherwise keeping the original design intact.

There’s nothing wrong with this strategy, and it has proven quite popular as it provides contemporary buyers with watches that look and feel vintage but offer far greater reliability and durability.

Aquastar, one of those aforementioned reborn brands, has utilized this blueprint many times since resurfacing in 2020, and to great success. But for the latest reimagining of one of its mid-century dive watches, the brand has taken a slightly different approach.

Aquastar’s latest take on the Benthos diver imagines what might have been. Aquastar

Aquastar has already produced a couple of pretty straightforward reissues of its iconic Benthos 500 chronograph diver from the 1970s with the Benthos 500 II chronograph and the time-only Benthos Heritage I.

But for its latest take on the Benthos, Aquastar’s designers asked themselves a simple question: What would’ve happened if the brand hadn’t gone extinct during the Quartz Crisis?

The resultant watch is the Benthos Heritage II, which takes its design inspiration from recently discovered archival sketches made by the original Benthos 500’s creators. Notably, the watch depicted in the drawings features only three hands instead of the Benthos 500’s four. What’s more, it uniquely incorporates a dual-crown layout while also featuring an external rotating bezel.

A recently discovered archival sketch of an unreleased Benthos. Aquastar

For the Benthos H2, Aquastar’s designers decided to turn that mysterious second crown into a helium escape valve to transform the watch into a true saturation diver. With the first helium escape valve appearing on the Rolex Sea-Dweller in 1967, this feels like a perfectly logical inclusion for a hypothetical late ’70s-era Benthos.

The brand also decided to shrink down the size of the watch from the 42mm case size of the Benthos 500 and its existing reissues to a more mainstream 40mm size, lining up with the dive watch genre’s wider acceptance as an everyday watch following its military watch origins.

The watch features twin crowns, but neither is used to operate the rotating bezel. Aquastar

The water resistance on the Benthos H2 has also been reduced from 500m to 300m, which is still more than enough for the average person (or diver) but allows the watch to be slimmer at just 11.9mm thick.

The rest of the watch largely follows the playbook of the Benthos H1 in its use of modern materials and technologies. This includes a fully lumed 120-click ceramic bezel, a premium 904L stainless steel case, bright Super-LumiNova X1 on the hands and indices and a Sellita SW200 automatic movement.

A helium escape valve is incorporated into the crown at 4 o’clock. Aquastar

In keeping with the brand’s modern strategy, the Benthos Heritage II is pleasantly affordable. For non-EU customers, the watch has a pre-order price of just $1,190 on a rubber strap ($1,290 on a beads-of-rice bracelet), which is a pretty tremendous value for a heritage-packed diver with these kinds of specs.

That price jumps up to $1,490 if you miss the pre-order window, which is a pretty strong incentive to purchase one of these watches early if you’re interested. But in case you need any extra incentive, the watch is also limited to only 500 pieces, meaning there’s a pretty strong possibility it will sell out.

Aquastar