Dear all,
As a diver's watch enthusiast I would like to share with you the story of the KONTIKI, which has lead to a great and understated collection of diver's watches. I was lucky to find a nice Eterna Kontiki Mk II so I decided to share with you. All enthusiasts are welcome to bring any additional information and material to this thread.
The KONTIKI collection is the Diver's range from the brand ETERNA. The story started with the idea of a Norwegian anthropologist and explorer named Thor Heyerdahl. While conducting his research, Heyerdahl found some similarities between the statues that can be found in the Pacific Islands the Tikis and the statues in south America from the great Empire of the Andes. He made a theory that the people from the Pacific Islands could originate from South America and could have reached the Islands diverting with the currents on some wooden rafts. In order to prove his theory, Heyerdahl founded an expedition with 5 other men, left the coasts of Peru in 1947 on a wooden raft that they named KONTIKI to reach the atol of Raroia in polynesia after 101 days of navigation. I can only encourage all fans of these kind of adventures to read the book.
I borrowed some of the pictures on the net and want to thank their authors.
Below some pictures of some statues
Here is the map of the incredible expedition and a picture of the Raft
Within the equipment that Heyerdahl took with him for the expedition were ETERNA watches that proved to perform very well and survive the expedition. The Kontiki watch collection was introduced in 1958 to celebrate the expedition and ETERNA has been producing divers watches ever since within the Kontiki collection.
ETERNA has always been very low key in terms of communication and Heyerdahl has always refused any kind of marketing activities which I suppose explain the fact that the story and the watch collection have always remained confidential, especially compared to some other famous brands...
The Kontiki watches are divided into explorer type watches simply called Kontiki and the diver watches called Super Kontiki.
I will focus on the Divers. Here is a Mk I from 1965 (not mine, credit photo unknowned from the web)
Now I will focus on the watch I was lucky to find as a nice addition to my vintage divers collection, the Mk II.
This one is also called transitional as it is between the Mk I and the Mk III. The MK II is the lowest production, so the rarest, production around 1968 and 1970 I believe. These super Kontikis were also used by the Israeli Defense Forces and the famous MOSSAD commandos so some military marked versions can be found, most of the times in poor conditions given their use! (beware of the fakes though...).
The watch is 40mm which is a nice size for this period and has a nice domed plexi as other divers of the 60s.
Here are the first pictures with the book as background
I was lucky to find the watch in all nice original condition with the original Kontiki bracelet. I have put it on a 2 color Nato as I prefer to wear it like this. Here are some pics of the bracelet:
On the back you can find a nice representation of the Raft, like on all Kontikis. On this one it is a Golden version
Now lets open it and have a look inside. The movement is automatic, in house, 1489K, 21600 bph and has a nice finishing as you can see from the below pictures. This attention to details is quite unsual for tool watches of this period. The watch has a very unique quick date set by pulling on the crown!
I find this one very sensual...
Now here is a duo picture with another famous diver from this era:
Here is a picture with a most recent "Red Kontiki"... LOL
I couldn't resist the Octopus shot!...
To finish the story, here is a picture from the MK III from 1973, and the Tribute version that was released this year with a limited edition of 1973 pieces.
(picture credits from the web)
Finally, a wrist scan...
There are more recent versions of the Kontiki for those interested in a nice alternative modern diver watch, including the 1000m Kontiki Diver, a very interesting 46mm concept watch. A Porsche Design version of the watch also exists as a more flashy version...
Thanks for reading, discussions, additional information and pictures are very welcome.
Matt