Croton CASD V92

Nivada hit a legal hurdle when trying to sell in the USA, thanks to Movado who felt that their names were too similar and would confuse consumers. A judge ruled that adding ‘Grenchen’ to the title would suffice, and so watches sold thereafter are labeled as such.

In 1940 Croton was formed to distribute Nivada watches to US retailers, and subsequent watches could be found bearing the name ‘Croton’, or ‘Croton Nivada’ or even ‘Croton Nivada Grenchen’.

The CASD is a classic 1960s diver going through several iterations (like the Omega Speedmaster), with tritium, radium, broad arrow and baton hands, brown chocolate aged dials etc etc. They now have a big following, greatly enhanced by the recent Chronomaster Only book in 2018. The model has recently been reissued by Nivada in both manual and automatic versions but retaining a faithful appearance to the original.

Our CASD is a last batch, 1st generation of the model, approximately from 1964.
The dial is deep black, with tritium hour markers and hands with an incredibly fascinating "pumpkin" patina.
It is driven by the famous Valjoux 92, a column-wheel chronograph sorting movement,equipped on very few units of this Ref.
The characteristic Broad Arrow spheres are embellished, in this case, by the red trotteuse that stands out on the dial.

The mounted bracelet is a truly rare steel beads of rice. The condition of the watch is museum-like, both in terms of coevidence and quality of preservation.