A Closer Look At The 1966 Girard-Perregaux Deep Diver

The year GP made history, they also built something tough.

Girard — Perregaux was founded in Geneva in the late 1700s, and by the mid-1850s moved to La Chaux-de-Fonds and established the brand which continues to this day. 1966 was an important year for GP, as it was then they released what was at the time the world’s most accurate production wristwatch movement.

This movement was called the ‘Gyromatic’ and was placed inside both dress and sports watches. The original Gyromatic was based on an existing A. Schild movement, but it was modified and upgraded greatly since it’s initial creation in the 1950s. It is an automatic movement, hence the ‘-matic’ in the name. There were many grades of the Gyromatic, and the dive watches received a 17-jewel, rhodium-plated engine built for reliability, not chronometer-level accuracy.

However, many GP dress watches from this year received a hot-rodded 36,000bpm Gyromatic movement that could be regulated to accuracy levels of less than a second per day. Over 600 of these movements received Chronometer certifications from the third party Bureau of Controls, 40 more kept for testing for over a month to earn Observatory Chronometer certificates. This was very much a sign of quality from the GP workshop.

So this watch is kind of a Lamborghini truck in a way; it came from a watch company that was obsessed with precision and speed, but also wanted to release something for heavy and tough users. (It also doesn’t hurt that their mid-sixties styling still looks pretty fly.)

1400 of these dive watches were made; and two versions exist. The first batch had thin hands with a bulbous square hour marker. 400 of these were built. The remaining thousand were fitted with wider, fatter hands among other small changes.

This example belongs to the first batch.

They are 39mm in size, and as of summer 2020 their average price from a dealer or auction house hovers around $5000, give or take condition.