LE FORBAN 100 ATU
This here vintage Squale brother belongs to MattS (@mattsworldwatch on Insta). And a very interesting piece it is too. The case is unmistakeable: a 1521 Master... there is no doubt of that! All dimensions and bevels are spot on. But beyond the case... things get a little more interesting.
While Squale did produce orange/black acrylic bezels with identical luminous markers, they did not come with the 15min highlight design featured here. I have seen it on a few other Squale brothers, though, such as on the Darwil branded 100 atmos pieces.
And then we come to the hands and the dial, both of which have similarities to early Squale Masters, but they are delivered in a very unique way. And, most interesting to me, instead of the Squale tradtion of using 'atmos' as the depth rating, here we have 100 'ATU' and on the caseback '1000 metres'.
The brand who 'produced' this was Le Forban Securite Mer - a company founded in 1969, in Brest, France, to sell watches to the Marine Nationale, Coast Gaurds, and Sea Rescue units. So it's of no suprise that Le Forban turned to Squale for assistance in producing waterproof watches capable of surpasing their needs and expectations.
Its a fine watch, and one I have never seen another example of.
