The History of the Certina DS
A 1964 Certina DS
When it comes to Swiss watch brands, Certina may not be overly popular today, but it did have its heyday back in the mid-20th century. The company was founded in 1888, by brothers Adolf and Alfred Kurth in Grenchen, Switzerland. They only started producing watches in the early 20th century, first under the brand name ‘Grana’ until ‘Certina’ was registered. By the late 1930s, the company’s 50-year anniversary, they already had over 250 employees. Since then, Certina has evolved into a modern watch brand, part of the Swatch Group, but still producing unique pieces that correspond with its history. Pieces like the DS…
So, the Certina ‘DS’ isn’t really a model. It stands for ‘Double Security’ and is more like Seiko’s Magic Lever; proprietary technology. The Certina 'DS' first came about in 1959 and was developed by Philipp Kurth, presumably a descendent of the brand’s founders. Certina was looking to make a watch as rugged and reliable as possible, keeping up with the trend of tool watches post-WWII, and ended up developing the DS system…Watches that could be dropped from up to 6 meters and had a water resistance of 200 meters. Impressive for the time. The first Certina DS watches did not have the famous turtle on the caseback that you see today, this feature was only introduced in the early 1960s. Instead they had flat casebacks with ‘Patent Pending’ written on the inner caseback.
The Certina DS and the Ascent of Dhaulagiri
Also, in 1960, the Certina DS is said to have been brought as equipment on the Swiss-Austrian expedition of Dhaulagiri, the 8,000-meter-plus Nepalese beast of a mountain, with Certina even releasing a homage more recently. This expedition featured renowned Austrian mountaineer Kurt Diemberger and leader of the Swiss expedition, Max Eiselin. It was also the first to use a fixed-wing aircraft, which was abandoned after crashing after takeoff! The original expedition led by Eiselin was unsuccessful in 1958, but Max Eiselin thought that the northeast ridge could be the way to reach the summit. Despite another Austrian team trying to reach it using the same northeast ridge in 1959, they failed to reach the summit, with Eiselin’s team being the first a year later.
A vintage Certina DS DiaMaster / Credit: Very Important Lot
Thus, the Certina DS was truly an innovative line of sports watches, being upgraded to the DS-2 in 1968, and even seeing the DS DiaMaster be adopted by Muhammad Ali in 1976. Certina’s DS reached its millionth watch sold in 1979, but continues to be a popular part of Certina even today. Main takeaway? Don’t underestimate vintage Certina.
By: Andres Ibarguen