Basic gear from mid-twentieth-century Britain: Dunlop, Heinke, Siebe-Gorman etc

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Thanks, Sam, and now on to the third trio of Namron diving masks, starting with the Pulcinella.

528 Pulcinella
528_Pulcinella.jpg

528_Pulcinella_caption.jpg

This mask is named after a stock character in seventeenth-century Italian commedia dell'arte:
800px-Polichinelle%2C_ca._1680_-_Nicolas_Bonnart.jpg

Pulcinella - Wikipedia

The Italian diving equipment company Tigullio had a "Pulcinella" mask in its repertoire around the same time:
s-l1600b.jpg

s-l1600d.jpg
The similarity between the Namron and the Tigullio masks in name and appearance suggests that they are one and the same, i.e. Namron simply imported their mask from Tigullio in Italy.

Namron's Pulcinella came in a second version complete with a purge valve, and here's Namron's young woman again modelling it.

530 Pulcinella with purge valve

530_Pulcinella_with_purge.jpg
530_Pulcinella_with_purge_caption.jpg

and here's the Tigullio counterpart:
s-l16001c.jpg
s-l16002a.jpg

Once again, the Namron and the Tigullio masks seem to be identical.
 
The second Namron mask to be showcased today is the Pantom Fish Eye.

7320 Phantom Fish Eye
7320_Phantom_Fish_Eye.jpg

7320_Phantom_Fish_Eye_caption.jpg

Although US Divers had a Pinocchio-style mask named "Fisheye" (one word) around this time, its design differed significantly:
Fisheye.jpg


Perhaps Namron's "Phantom Fish Eye" was indeed manufactured in-house, unless anybody else knows different?
 
The third and last member of the current trio is Namron's Super Cirano.

259 Super Cirano
259_Super_Cirano.jpg

259_Super_Cirano_caption.jpg


The mask's name and appearance lead us to an inevitable comparison with Haffenden's B141 Super Cirano (below), reviewed in an earlier thread and described thus in a Britmarine catalogue: ""B141 Super Cirano Mask. Twin lenses in tempered glass. Double flange. Contoured compensator."
b141-super-cirano-png.469089.png


The product name pays homage to seventeenth-century French novelist Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac (below):
800px-savinien_de_cyrano_de_bergerac-jpg.469091.jpg


A fictionalised version of his life was celebrated in Edmond Rostand's famous play Cyrano de Bergerac, which helped to create and perpetuate the legend of the man blighted with an oversized nose but blessed with a honeyed tongue:
418984_cyrano-de-bergerac-jpg.469092.jpg

"Cirano" made an appropriate and probably more positive alternative name to "Pinocchio" when naming diving masks with prominent nosepieces during the 1970s.

That's it for now. In a few days' time I'll review the fourth and last trio of Namron's diving masks.
 
Thanks again, Sam and АлександрД, and on to the final trio of Namron diving masks. We'll begin today with the Griffo Optical.

538 Griffo Optical
538_Griffo_Optical.jpg

538_Griffo_Optical_caption.jpg

So another kidney-shaped mask of the style popular during the 1970s with the option of adding prescription lenses to correct sight if desired. Low volume was becoming as much a priority back then as was double-seal comfort where the mask came into contact with the face and both are factored into this design.
 
The second of today's trio is the Namron Atlantide Rainbow.

537 Atlantide Rainbow
537_Atlantide_Rainbow.jpg

537_Atlantide_Rainbow_caption.jpg

The name "Atlantide" recalls Tigullio's diving mask of that name:
tigulllio_super_atlantide_69-10_2.jpg

The image above is from the "Attrezzature subacquee d'epoca" (Period Underwater Equipment) page of the excellent "Biblioteca di un apneista" website at atrezzature subacquee d'epoca, which contains numerous diving equipment manufacturers' and retailers' flyers from the 1960s, each helpfully tied to a particular year of that decade. Judge for yourself how similar Namron's Atlantide Rainbow is to Tigullio's Super Atlantide.
 
Thanks for the "like", АлександрД, and now on to the third diving mask of today's Namron trio, the Marino Super.

519 Marino Super
519_Marina_Super.jpg

519_Marina_Super_caption.jpg

This mask seems to have been conceived with a nod to the past on the form of the stainless-steel top screw that adorned the majority of oval diving masks of yesteryear. The name "Marina Super" drew me to Jack McKenney's June 1973 Skin Diver Magazine mask roundup and more particularly the article's tabulation of early-1970s models below:
Skin_Diver_Table_2.jpg

If you want the full text of McKenney's "Up to our snorkels in masks", a PDF is available at Up_to_our_snorkels_in_masks_SDM_June_1973.pdf. I purchased a copy of this SDM issue expressly to obtain a copy of the article because I admire the author's thorough command of his subject in general and the design of his mask classification system in particular.

If you look closely at the table reproduced above and in Shilling's The Underwater Handbook, you'll find the model names "Atlantide" and "Super Marina" under the company Seaquest, which I imagine was an American importer of Tigullio underwater products. Perhaps somebody more knowledgeable than myself can confirm or refute this hypothesis.

That's your lot for today. I'll be back with some information about Namron's half-dozen snorkel models in a while.
 
Thanks, АлександрД.

Just an update on a couple of Namron masks. Images of Tigullio's "Grifo" (Single "f") mask:
1_f.jpg
3_f.jpg

and here's Namron's "Griffo" (Double "F") mask for comparison:
538_griffo_optical-jpg.484740.jpg



Similarly, images of Tigullio's Arlecchino mask:
s-l1600a.jpg
s-l1600c.jpg

and here's Namron's "Archilino" mask for comparison:
516_archilino-jpg.483233.jpg


So there may be more of a partnership between Namron and Tigullio than I had previously surmised. Odd, though, how Namron chose to alter the spelling of each mask's original Italian name slightly before marketing it under the Namron brand...
 
Let's proceed now to Namron breathing tubes. There were a half-dozen models, three of which will be reviewed today. First up is the Bora.

4914 Bora
4914_Bora.jpg

Another big-bore snorkel reminiscent of the model of that name marketed around the same time by the Guernsey company Sous Marine:
big_bore_cat79-png.481166.png


Both snorkels feature an offset mouthpiece, a "wraparound" barrel and a wide internal diameter, whose perceived benefits were:
* The L-shape eliminates the usual depth of tubing below head level. The shallow draft reduces water drag - aids in expelling water - and reduces resistance to breathing.
* The wrap-around design fits contour of head and minimises water resistance.
* The wide bore facilitates air flow from the supply end above the waves to the demand end at the mouthpiece.

Both snorkels also closely resemble the "Model GST Wrap-around Big Barrel" snorkel manufactured in the USA by Dacor in the late 1960s:
dacor-png-461460-png.481168.png
 
Second breathing tube of the day is Namron's 155 snorkel.

155.jpg

155_caption.jpg



This model appears to be a traditional "J" shaped breathing tube making little or no concessions to what was modernity back then. No wide bore, no extra curve in the barrel to fit the contour of the head, just a plastic tube with a U-bend at the demand end and finished with a short-neck mouthpiece with twin lugs to bite on. The sole concession to "progress" is the brightly coloured band around the top of the barrel, which became a safety requirement of German Standard DIN 7878 of February 1980, which specified the dimensions and other requirements for snorkels. Note the specification of the "Sicherheitsstreifen" (safety colour strip) in the diagram below from this Standard:
DIN7878.jpg
 
Today's third and last Namron snorkel is also anonymous except for a part number:
151.jpg


151_caption.jpg

If Namron's "155" is a traditional "J" design, the firm's "151" is the corresponding traditional "L" design. The 151 is also reminiscent of the Sous Marine Tahiti, below:
tahiti_cat79-png.482198.png

The only difference between these two models lies in the design of the mouthpiece, which features a full rubber elbow in the case of the Sous Marine Tahiti.

As with the 155, the 151's sole concession to contemporary breathing tube design is the presence of the safety band around the upper opening in keeping with the DIN 7878 Standard on snorkels. Incidentally, there's a reference to DIN 7878 on the mouthpiece of the snorkel below:
s-l1600d.jpg

DIN 7878B means that this snorkel manufactured by Salvas in Italy is designed for adults. The equivalent for children and young people is DIN 7878A.

Another trio of Namron snorkels to come. I'll be back in a few days' time.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

Back
Top Bottom