Pre-Owned Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms 48mm Titanium Limited 500 | Black Tag Watches

Pre-Owned Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms 48mm Titanium — Limited Edition of 500, Full Set Dated 2010 (Ref. 50015-12B30-52B)

In 1953, Captain Robert Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud of the French Navy’s Nageurs de Combat approached Blancpain with specifications for a watch their combat divers could trust underwater. The result was the Fifty Fathoms — one of the foundational modern dive watches. The 500 Fathoms extends that specific professional lineage to a thousand metres of depth.

Available now at Black Tag Watches (Aventura, Florida), this 2010 example — reference 50015-12B30-52B, Limited Edition of 500 — is cased in 48mm titanium, rated to 1,000 metres, powered by the in-house 5-day calibre 1315, and offered complete with its full original delivery and numbered Limited Edition certificate dated 2010.

What Is the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms?

The 1953 Military Lineage

The Fifty Fathoms dates to 1953, when Blancpain’s then-CEO Jean-Jacques Fiechter — himself an avid diver — collaborated with Captain Robert Maloubier and Lieutenant Claude Riffaud of the newly-formed French Navy Nageurs de Combat (Combat Swimmers) to develop a wristwatch purpose-built for military diving. The specifications were specific: automatic winding to minimise crown wear, antimagnetic case protection, luminous markers legible underwater, a sealed crown construction, and — the Fifty Fathoms’ most consequential and widely-credited horological contribution — a lockable unidirectional rotating bezel with a graduated dive-time scale to track elapsed bottom time without accidental displacement. The resulting watch was adopted first by the French Nageurs de Combat and subsequently by military dive units across the world.

The Extreme-Depth Extension of the Line

The 500 Fathoms, launched in 2009 as the extreme-depth professional extension of the modern Fifty Fathoms line, carries that lineage to a 1,000-metre depth rating in a 48mm titanium case, limited to 500 examples worldwide, powered by the manufacture calibre 1315. For collectors of pre-owned Blancpain dive watches, the 500 Fathoms sits apart from the broader 300-metre Fifty Fathoms 5015 production — it is the specifically scarce, specifically extreme-depth configuration within the modern family. This 50015-12B30-52B is offered full-set with original box and papers dated 2010.

Case & Dial Design: 48mm Titanium, 1,000-Metre Construction

Saturation-Diving Case Hardware

The 48mm case is rendered in brushed titanium and stands 17mm thick — purpose-built proportions for a 1,000-metre-depth-rated professional instrument that reads with unmistakable presence on the wrist. The construction carries the specific hardware a serious saturation-diving instrument requires: a screw-down crown with Blancpain’s double-sealed construction, a decompression (helium escape) valve integrated into the case band to vent gas safely during saturation-diving ascent, a sapphire crystal caseback revealing the movement, and a lockable unidirectional rotating bezel in the direct lineage of the 1953 original. The caseback rim carries the limited-edition engraving “500 Fathoms – No xxx/500” that identifies each example within the production run.

The Black Instrument Dial

The black dial reads with the pared-back professional-instrument discipline the Fifty Fathoms line has carried from its 1953 origin: large luminous applied hour markers at every position for underwater legibility, broad luminous sword-shaped hour and minute hands, a luminous seconds hand sweeping the periphery, a date aperture between 4 and 5 o’clock, and the Blancpain signature at 12 o’clock. The matching bezel insert carries graduated minute markings 0–60 with luminous indices at the first 15-minute interval for standard dive-time tracking. The composition is instrument before ornament — every element exists to be read underwater.

Movement: Manufacture Blancpain Calibre 1315 — Three-Barrel, 5-Day

The Three-Barrel Architecture

Inside the 500 Fathoms is the manufacture Blancpain calibre 1315 — an automatic movement of 35 jewels comprising 227 parts, running at 28,800 vph (4 Hz) with an exceptional 120-hour (5-day) power reserve, developed and produced entirely by Blancpain and specifically engineered for the maison’s serious sport and dive-watch applications. The 1315’s defining architectural credential is its three-barrel construction: three series-coupled mainspring barrels working in sequence to deliver the five-day autonomy, substantially more than the conventional 42-to-48-hour reserve of most single-barrel automatic sports calibres. For a professional dive instrument that may be set aside between use cycles without manual rewinding, that five-day reserve is a practical functional advantage, not a specification for its own sake.

A Canonical Modern Blancpain Calibre

The movement carries a signed 18K white gold propeller-shaped oscillating weight visible through the sapphire caseback, with Côtes de Genève decoration on the bridges and perlage on the mainplate. Blancpain is one of the few Swiss houses that has maintained continuous in-house movement production across the modern era, and the 1315 — which also powers the broader Fifty Fathoms 5015 and Bathyscaphe 5000 references — is one of the maison’s canonical modern sports calibres. Its presence in the 500 Fathoms confirms that the extreme-depth reference is built on Blancpain’s serious manufacture architecture rather than a specially-adapted one.

Movement Specifications

Specification

Detail

Calibre

Blancpain 1315, in-house automatic

Components

227 parts, 35 jewels

Barrels

Three, series-coupled

Frequency

28,800 vph (4 Hz)

Power reserve

120 hours (5 days)

Rotor

Signed 18K white gold, propeller-shaped

Caseback

Sapphire display

Condition, Provenance & the Limited Edition Certificate

A Full Set with the Numbered Certificate

Condition is mint. Provenance is complete: the watch is offered with its original Blancpain Pelicase presentation box (noted with some peeling to the interior lining), the original Blancpain leather document wallet, the original instructions, the numbered Limited Edition certificate identifying this piece within the 500-example production run, and the original warranty card dated 2010. For a numbered limited edition where the Limited Edition certificate is the specific document that identifies and authenticates each individual piece within its series, this is the strongest possible provenance configuration a pre-owned example can occupy. The interior lining condition on the Pelicase does not affect the box’s functional protective purpose or the completeness of the original factory delivery.

Condition and Accessories

Detail

Information

Condition

Mint

Box

Original Blancpain Pelicase (minor lining peeling)

Papers

Leather wallet, instructions, numbered LE certificate, warranty 2010

Primary strap

Original black canvas (sail-cloth)

Additional strap

Rubber with tang buckle

Extras

Blancpain strap-change tool cradle

Buckle

Titanium double-folding

Full Specifications — Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms 50015-12B30-52B

Specification

Detail

Brand

Blancpain (Villeret, since 1735)

Collection

Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms

Reference

50015-12B30-52B

Limited edition

500 pieces worldwide

Launch

2009

Year

2010

Case

Brushed titanium, 48mm

Thickness

17mm

Water resistance

1,000m

Crown

Screw-down, double-sealed

Decompression valve

Helium escape at 9 o’clock

Bezel

Lockable unidirectional, 60-min scale

Caseback

Sapphire display, “500 Fathoms – No xxx/500”

Dial

Black, applied luminous markers

Date

Between 4 and 5 o’clock

Movement

Blancpain calibre 1315, in-house automatic

Components

227 parts, 35 jewels

Barrels

Three series-coupled

Frequency

28,800 vph (4 Hz)

Power reserve

120 hours (5 days)

Rotor

Signed 18K white gold propeller

Primary strap

Black canvas (sail-cloth)

Additional strap

Rubber, tang buckle

Buckle

Titanium double-folding

Condition

Mint

Box & Papers

Full set, numbered LE certificate, dated 2010

Why Buy a Pre-Owned Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms?

A Specifically Scarce Extreme-Depth Reference

The Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms 50015-12B30-52B occupies a specific position in the modern Blancpain secondary market — recognised by collectors who read the extreme-depth professional-instrument credential as the substantive horological argument the reference exists to make, and distinct from the broader Fifty Fathoms 5015 production that dominates the collection’s visible catalogue at the 300-metre depth-rating tier. The 48mm titanium case was described at launch as “an unusual size for Blancpain” by the maison itself, and the limited-edition production run of 500 pieces worldwide positions the reference as a specifically scarce configuration within the modern Fifty Fathoms family.

Full Set, Numbered Certificate, Below Original Retail

Original retail at launch was approximately €19,550 (approximately $24,700 at the time of release in 2009), and full-set examples with the numbered Limited Edition certificate are the specific configuration the collector market tracks for this reference. Against contemporary professional-dive-instrument retail — and against the current Blancpain catalogue, which still produces the broader Fifty Fathoms line as one of serious watchmaking’s canonical dive-watch references — this 50015-12B30-52B offers direct entry into one of the most specifically-engineered extreme-depth professional instruments the maison has produced, with the full numbered Limited Edition certificate and complete original delivery intact, at a level that reflects the substantial depreciation from the original €19,550 retail.

Available at Black Tag Watches — Aventura, Florida

Black Tag Watches is a pre-owned luxury watch dealer based in Aventura, FL, specialising in rare, certified, and fully documented timepieces from Blancpain and the world’s leading Swiss manufactures.

View the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms 500 Fathoms — Full Details & Pricing

A titanium 500 Fathoms with the 1,000-metre depth rating, the five-day in-house calibre, and the full numbered Limited Edition certificate from the 500-piece production run — the Fifty Fathoms lineage carried to its extreme-depth professional end, offered full-set from the original 2010 delivery.

Posted in Black Tag Watches Blog.
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