7 of the best 1970s watches from the grooviest of decades

Borna Bošnjak

The 1970s were renowned for their difficulty when it comes to the traditional watch industry, being thoroughly disrupted by the introduction of the Seiko Astron just before the turn of the decade. Picking up where the 1960s left off, the 1970s continued the boom, with the advent of video games and cassettes, and two little-known companies by the name of Microsoft and Apple being founded. American and Japanese watch companies ushered in new technologies such as LED and LCD, but it was also a time during which numerous established Swiss manufacturers died out. Only the most well-established few weathered the storm of the quartz crisis, but would go on to redefine luxury watchmaking forever.

Hamilton Pulsar P1

These days, a new watch may be launched at a fancy presser or at a trade show, but that’s not how Hamilton chose to present the first LED watch. The company was still headquartered in Pennsylvania at the time, so what more American way to launch a new product than present it on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson? Though Carson absentmindedly threw the watch away, believing it would never replace the traditional watch, the Pulsar ushered in an era that would define watches until today. It would take Hamilton another two years after that 1970 Tonight Show appearance to actually bring the Pulsar to completion, the first solid gold models costing a mind-boggling US$2,100 – almost US$16,000 today. Gold-plated and steel models followed, as well as other digital watches from other brands, eventually becoming all but disposable and ending the craze of the 1970s. Even before the decade wrapped up, Seiko would purchase the rights to the Pulsar name and continue to use it to this day. But the Hamilton Pulsar was first.

Omega Seamaster 600 PloProf

You thought developments in the dive watch space were limited to just the 1950s? Think again – as Omega did with the Seamaster 600 Plongeur Professionnel, famously dubbed the PloProf. Mind you, Omega already had the Seamaster 300 in its catalogue, a watch more than capable of being submerged for prolonged periods. Conceived by Omega’s Marine Unit in the late 1960s, the Seamaster 600 was developed alongside the larger Seamaster 1000, though only the former was attributed the PloProf name. Aesthetics clearly weren’t the primary consideration, as Omega sought to create a watch that could be used for saturation diving at extreme depths. Through the brand’s testing, the watches failed at well past a kilometer due to the deformation of the crystal. The monobloc case was a rarity at the time, as was the utilitarian bezel locking system by the way of the red button, but the real advance was in the use of Uranus steel, today known as 904L. Omega’s modern PloProf is titanium, a material that was in such short supply in the 1970s that the US secretly had to buy it from the Russians to build the iconic SR71 Blackbird. All in the name of progress, hey?

Rolex Explorer II ref. 1655

Certain watches are designed to fulfil a unique purpose, and the connection between tool and job makes perfect sense. When Rolex released the Explorer II reference 1655 in 1971, the brand claimed that this was a watch made for spelunking, hence the bright orange hand that would tell you the time in a 24-hour format when spending long periods underground. While this may seem a bit far-fetched today, the 1970s were also a time when recreational caving became much more popular thanks to technological developments that made it safer for those less-experienced. With its orange hand fixed to the hour hand, and a non-rotating bezel, you couldn’t actually track another time zone with the 1655 – though this is something Rolex would address later. Now highly sought-after by collectors as the Explorer Freccione, the 1655 is also known as the Steve McQueen, though it’s not confirmed that the King of Cool ever actually wore one.

Audemars Piguet Royal Oak ref. 5402ST

If the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak was the first watch you thought of when clicking on this article, I’m guessing you’ll be in the majority. It is, after all, the watch that redefined what luxury Swiss watchmaking meant, and kickstarted the Genta era of watch design. The 5402ST “Jumbo” launched in 1972, with a total of 4,288 original examples produced during its 15-year production run. It reportedly took Gérald Genta a single night to come up with the design, the initial brief for a high-end steel watch coming from the SSIH (later ASUAG, now Swatch Group), given to Genta at 16:00 the night before Baselworld 1970. Audemars Piguet built much of its future on the success of this model and its subsequent developments, and that’s unlikely to change any time soon.

Patek Philippe Nautilus ref. 3700/1A

The Patek Philippe Nautilus doubled down on the idea that was started by the Royal Oak four years prior.  The first reference, the 1976 3700/1A, was also a Genta design, taking for inspiration the portholes of ships rather than diving helmets, giving the Nautilus its iconic “ears”. Just like the Royal Oak, it featured an ultra-thin automatic calibre derived from JLC’s legendary 920, but surrounded with softer case lines, most notably in the bezel and rounded case links. It was just as expensive as its Le Brassus competitor, with Patek being famously uncoy about the whole thing, advertising it with the tagline: “One of the world’s costliest watches is made of steel.”

Vacheron Constantin 222

The last of the trio of watches that were likely the catalyst for the term Holy Trinity being used in watchmaking is the Vacheron Constantin 222, unveiled a year after the Nautilus in 1977. While the integrated bracelet design and mech-like bezel might suggest this was yet another Genta masterpiece, the 222 was actually penned by a German designer Jörg Hysek. Commissioned as a celebration of Vacheron Constantin’s 222nd anniversary, the 222 is powered by that same JLC 920 ébauche, making for a wonderfully sleek design. Until the runaway success that was the revived 222, vintage examples remained relatively under-the-radar, something that’s changed drastically over the last few years – so make sure to stay alert for any 222s hiding in your sock drawers.

Piaget Polo

So, we know the 1970s were clearly the era of the mechanical, steel, integrated-bracelet sports watch, a move that would save the luxury watchmaking industry etc. etc. Piaget was on board with only a part of that statement, instead making the Polo in solid gold and equipping it with a self-developed, ultra-thin quartz calibre. The 7P was a result of Piaget being unhappy with the bulkiness of the doomed Beta 21, deemed unsuitable for the elegantly gadrooned case of its latest model. With a crown hidden on the caseback and a hidden clasp, Piaget actually marketed the Polo as “a watch bracelet, but first, a bracelet”. This changed significantly for the model’s recent revival of the gadroon case, though the hefty gold construction will always be recognisable.