#TBT Mido Ocean Star Powerwind “Rainbow” Dive Watch Ref. 5907

We all have watches that represent special moments in our lives. My Mido “Rainbow“ Diver 5907 will forever be bound to three important events. Most importantly, it happened to be on my wrist the night our daughter was born. Here is the full story on today’s #TBT.

I remember when I first showed a picture of the Mido 5907 to my wife for the first time. Being a colorful person, I knew she would love the dial instantly. We both agreed that we want to add it to our vintage collection if the opportunity ever came along.

Mido 5907 resurfaced in Vienna

And the opportunity came last summer in one of the world’s oldest auction houses, Dorotheum. I was surprised to see it resurface in Vienna, which is not even a one hour drive away from our home. One sunny day, we made the trip over the border to inspect the watch. I don’t remember precisely, but the starting price was ridiculously low. Around €2,000 or even less. I sat down in a comfy chair in the middle of a room full of lots to be auctioned. No other watch interested me. When they brought the watch over, I was stunned.

First meeting

There is no adjective good enough to describe the beauty of the dial. I urge you to skip six decades backward and think about all the big divers introduced back then. Pieces like the Rolex Submariner, Omega Seamaster, Longines Nautilus, or the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms come to mind first. But even the unorthodox Breitling ref. 1004 doesn’t come remotely close to the Mido 5907 in terms of creativity. I saw a few refs. 5907 watches popping up, but not a single one was as clean, rich, and vivid as this piece.

Bugging missing second hand

Usually, the bi-directional bezel and the dial on Mido 5907 speak for the watch condition from miles away. The black paint for the dots, indexes, and numbers on the bezels is often gone. The dial design is delicate and any imperfections are instantly visible. I could not believe the condition of this piece. Judge for yourself — it is almost flawless. When I turned the watch around I could see hundreds of tiny scratches visible from standard handling. Gladly, that suggested the watch had never been polished. Adding weight to that supposition was the well-preserved diver figure symbol and the inscription, “Guaranteed 300m/1000ft”, is clearly visible.

There is only one mystery unsolved until today. The watch in its found condition had no central second hand. When, where, and, foremost, why it was not present, I do not know. It is even more perplexing, given the condition of the watch. With or without the hand, we decided to bid in the auction.

Auction queen time

As I had a couple of experiences when I lost a lot because of technical problems with online auctions, this time we decided to go there in person. But the day the auction was set, I had an important meeting. You don’t want to miss a meeting when someone wants to buy your company, right? I was tempted to cancel the meeting, but my wife volunteered to go in person to Vienna. She was supposed to text me throughout the auction for real-time updates and to discuss how far we wanted to go.

“I took the paddle and I sat in the first row so all of them knew that I ‘d come to win. I never looked over my shoulder.”

Twenty minutes before I expected the lot to be auctioned, I just got a text from my wife saying: WE GOT IT! She came back home all smiles. “I took the paddle and I sat in the first row so all of them knew that I ‘d come to win. I never looked over my shoulder. There were a few folks trying, including one on the phone, but I was persistent. We can go and pick it up next week,” my wife gushed. She had never been to a watch auction before that or since. #badasswife

Mido 5907 prices

To our pleasure, the auction went by quite under-the-radar and we landed the piece for half of the price that dealers now sell it for. A fine quality Mido 5907 piece sells north of €10,000 (easily). Yeah, that is the undeniably shocking price of this Mido watch. When you consider that a few grand more can buy you an Omega Speedmaster Ed White with the legendary 321 calibers, it seems a stratospheric to pay. I dare say it‘s one of the most valuable Mido watches currently, preceding another one of my favorite Mido watches, the MultiCenterChrono, by miles in terms of pricing.

Origins

If you’re ever considering purchasing this reference, I do encourage you to look at this elaborate material on the Mido 5907. The project author Norm is a pleasant guy, who patiently answered all my questions. I encourage you to contact him if you have any questions related to the purchase. Norm says that the, “Ocean Star reference 5907 was part of the Ocean Star Series. The “deep dive timer”, as it was called in Mido marketing materials, was produced with different color dials, in feet and meters versions, date and no-date, and in enough combinations of tension ring color and lume plots that many of the remaining reference 5907s are seemingly unique in their configuration.“

Mido 5907 MK2

According to the information I found on Norm’s website, my watch can be recognized as the Mk2 model. Norm writes that the Mk1 is easily recognizable thanks to date missing and serial number located between the lugs. According to the other sources ref. 5907 was introduced a bit later, in 1961 — not in 1959. My example seems to be an Mk2 type. Mk2 was produced 1962–1965 and both serial numbers and reference numbers are stamped on the case back.

I have to say that I like the black dialed version much more than the white ones. I also prefer silver hands instead of golden ones, as silver fits the overall case aesthetics better, to my eye, at least.

Decompression scale

In the original instruction manual, the Mido 5907 is referred to as a deep dive timer. That description pertains to the set of colorful concentric circles that aids the wearer in calculating the time intervals needed to decompress for a given depth and length of the dive in minutes. Each circle corresponds to a diving depth, which is indicated on the black background at 12 o’clock. There are models that display feet, but I am happy to have landed one in meters. The length of decompression is given by the black minute hand which cuts across the circle corresponding to the diving depth.

For example, if you want to dive down to 25 meters beneath the surface, there is no decompression needed if you stay underwater below 30 minutes. Let’s say you were diving for 50 minutes in 25 meters depth, you should decompress for 20 minutes. Easy reading.

Special case

It’s no hype, there are other real reasons behind the fat price tag aside from those already mentioned. The Mido diver has a satisfying 38mm diameter, aligning its proportions favorably with modern watches. By the way, have you heard that Mido is releasing a re-edition of this exact model? We’re expecting to get a prototype for a hands-on review soon enough, so stay tuned.

The monocoque case that eliminates water leakage at the back of the watch is always a nice bonus. If you check the pictures I took during the service, you can see how precisely manufactured the case is. According to Norm Harris, “the watch is a patented Bernard Taubert front-loading design, with the movement placed in the case before the crown and winding stem is inserted.“

Special tooling

Some sources may mislead you that a special case opener OceanStart T6 is needed to remove and fit the crystal. A skilled watchmaker can use modern tools to get the task done, so don’t feel limited by that. But I admit, if you manage to get the opener, it makes for a perfect add-on to your Mido 5907. There are not many of them, but from time to time they resurface. Keep an eye out on eBay, I got mine for around €100, packed in an original sleeve and with all the rings. Mind that the one sized 30.90mm is the one you need to change crystal on Mido 5907. There is one available right now.

Crystal

Speaking about the crystal, if you want to be sure you have the right one, first of all, there should be a Mido logo in the middle. Like on original Omega “crystals”. When buying one, be careful. There are a lot of them. You need one with a tension ring. There are standard minute tracks rings, but you can find crystals with radium plots on the tension ring. Just in case, I bought two spare crystals, one with radium dots from Tony, a US-based seller I found on eBay, and the other I got as a gift from my Instagram watch friend Arnoud. To make things a bit more complicated, consider the following. I bought two crystals with identical original Mido packaging, marking, and sizing, but one doesn’t have the logo. So I guess some of them with the same parameters were used on other Mido models than the 5907.

Hunting down the second hand

Much more challenging than getting a replacement crystal was finding a central second hand. Well, there are none! Not one single second hand has resurfaced in the last 365 days! The Mido 5907 Mk2 is powered by Mido 1137 OC, which is an AS 1717 based movement. With Mike and Heuerloon’s help, we found that all Mido 11xx movements share the same shaft for the second hand, so I could search also beyond non-existing 5907 wrecks. The second hand’s tail in 5907 is quite unique and can work as guidance on how to search for it. I admit I pulled the trigger three times. Two times the hands were the same style, but they were too short. The last one is longer, but I think it’s still not long enough to reach the outer minute track. If you find one, please, let me know!

Wrist time

Mido 5907 is one of my favorite wristwatches. It ticks all the boxes. If you scroll through my Instagram feed, you will notice it gets more wrist time than a lot of other watches. It’s vintage, but it doesn‘t feel old at all. I wrote a full article about the original Bonklip-style bracelet earlier this year. It wears light and comfortable. The eccentric-yet-timeless dial design makes it a perfect summer vintage sports watch, but I don’t hesitate to wear it on formal occasions. The colorful decompression time circles are spectacular, the printing is in perfect quality. I never get bored studying other details such as different, but perfectly matching hands style, date window, or curvy holed lugs.

Last but not least…

I told you this watch is dearest to me because of more reasons than the unusual way in which my wife acquired it. Or the fact that I wore it at my wedding. Today, when I write this article, it’s exactly a year since we went with my wife to Vienna to pick it up. It was a lovely summer trip and we had a lot of fun that day. I still had it on my wrist later in the evening. I still had it, when my wife “mentioned” that her water broke just before midnight. As it was five weeks earlier than it was supposed to happen, we jumped in the car and ran to the hospital. Long story short, our baby girl is one year today and it was her sudden arrival that spared me the question of what watch to wear upon that special night.

I always found Patek advertising too noble and a bit pathetic. But here I am. Well, the day I picked Mido 5907, I really owned it. Due to this unexpected turn of events within the next 24 hours later, everything changed. Now I “merely look after it for the next generation“. Because this Mido 5907 “Rainbow“, will most certainly belong to my daughter one day.