Squale
Squale Palombari Del Comsubin
© Squale
Squale (“Shark”) is a dive watch brand originally produced by Von Büren. The company supplied watch cases to others during the dive watch fad of the late 1960s and these sometimes included the Squale name or shark logo. The watch was designed by Charles von Büren and is said to have begun production in the 1950s.
By 1967, Von Büren were producing dive watches using the Squale name. These were available in “mini”, “tiny”, “medium”, “200”, and “300” models, the latter three with screw-down crowns. All featured rotating bezels and used the shark or crown logos which exist to this day.
In 1968, Squale introduced the Squale Master, with a waterproof case to 100 atmospheres, steel rotating bezel with various color inlays, and tritium hour markers. They also unveiled the Squale 600, which was warranted to 60 atmospheres, had a rotating bezel with 120 markers and a locking function, screw-down crown and double gaskets. The 600 was designed to be extra-rugged, with a larger case, and able to be used for helium mixture saturation diving, though it lacked an escape valve. The Squale 600 also featured both the crown and shark logo at 12 and 6 on the dial, respectively, a design that continued in some later models.
The brand fell out of use in the 1970s. Because “Squale” is a common word (meaning “Shark”) it was used by others from the 1980s through the 2000s, notably by TechnoMarine.
The Squale brand and trademarks were revived by 2015 on a new series of dive watches. The models are powered by automatic movements from Sellita.