Aroxana Sea Lion Divers Watch, circa 1960s

Dealer description — Vintage Watch Specialist

A Stainless Steel Aroxana Sea Lion Divers with Rotating Bezel - HMT Calibre 0231 - c.1960s Aroxana is not a name most collectors will know. The mid-1900s watch boom produced hundreds of small private labels, which bought generic Swiss movements (ebauches) and cased them under their own names. Many vanished in the quartz crisis of the 1970s and early 1980s, and Aroxana appears to be one of them, with very little documented online. This Aroxana Sea Lion closely resembles the design of the Smiths Astral Diver (c.1960s): https://vintagewatchspecialist.com/products/smiths-astral-diver-with-date-original-lume-c-1960s?_pos=1&_sid=e5110e5ef&_ss=r. When researching the Aroxana Sea Lion, it often gets confused with the Pantor Sea Lion. This is likely because dive and sports watches of the era commonly used generic marine-themed names (like Sea Lion, Sea Hunter, or Skydiver) to emphasise water resistance. Aroxana and Pantor evidently landed on the same name, yet the former has largely slipped from the record. That obscurity is part of its appeal. What we have here is an extremely unique piece, making owning one, even seeing one online, a rare opportunity indeed. What's On Offer We are delighted to offer this Aroxana Sea Lion diver, dating from c.1960s. At 37mm across, it has the broad, tapering lugs of a proper tool watch, and a thin bidirectional bezel with an orange luminous pip at twelve. The stainless-steel case shows very minor scratches and brushing consistent with its age, and it sits on a black rubber strap. The black dial is extremely well preserved, with large peppermint green Arabic numerals marking the even hours and batons in between. The Aroxana signature sits below twelve with a script "Sea-Lion" underneath, and "17 Jewels" is printed above 6 o’clock. The handset features an oversized arrowhead hour hand, a long sword minute hand and a slim seconds hand, all filled with the same lume as the numerals. Bold Arabic numerals separated by dots are etched into the black bezel insert, exposing the stainless steel bezel underneath. Inside is the manually wound 17-jewel HMT movement, base calibre 0231, which has approximately 38 hours’ power reserve. The watch has been tested on our timegraph and appears to require servicing. Rated at 8.5/10 condition, this is a characterful diver with an unusual pedigree, and a fantastic appearance on the wrist.