The C11 Makaira range
It’s pretty safe to say the C60 is by far the most popular dive watch CW has ever made, but when it comes to desirability, measured in price now verses price when still on sale, it’s the C11 Makaira Pro 500 which has proved itself to be the most sought-after CW dive watch to date.
It was born in August 2012 and was available in the three colours shown in the bottom row of the first photograph shown below: black face with either blue, white or orange markers. None of them were limited editions.
A few months later in November 2012, CW launched the 500 piece, £750, C11 Makaira Titanium Elite. It differed from the standard model thanks to its Titanium case, its yellow markers and its COSC certification. It proved to be a very successful piece, selling out within a year and in my humble opinion, becoming the most desirable mainstream C11 ever made.
Buoyed by the success of the Titanium Elite, in 2014 CW released the C11 Makaira Extreme. They made 1,000 of them, it’s waterproof to 1,000m and completing the 1,000 theme, the selling price was a cool £1,000 (actually it was £995, but that kind of ruins my story!) Like the Elite, it was made from Titanium and was COSC certified, but this time it had green markers and (thanks to its 1,000m diving credentials), the case sat some 15mm tall, making it a bit too clunky for some smaller wrists, my own included! While production of the Makaira range stopped in 2015, it took another year to exhaust the supply of Extremes, so you’ll find quite a few of these ones dated 2016. It’s since become a popular piece with collectors, with nice examples changing hands around or above that original £1,000 mark.
My old collection of C11 Makairas, sadly no longer together as a complete set - sold to add other watches to my collection.
Away from the mainstream there have also been a couple of little-known C11 Makaira specials: one more by accident and one very much by design.
The first was a ‘parts bin special’, shown on the left below. A clutch of seven watches were assembled in 2015 from the last remaining C11 Makaira spares in CW’s store. The result was a face with blue markers, mated with a white marker bezel.
Below right we have one of 50 very special C11 Makaira Pro 500s which was produced by CW for the Royal Navy Fleet Diving Units, an elite band of frogmen who help out whenever the SAS, SBS or Royal Marines get themselves into a bit of underwater bother! Photo credit thanks to Gareth on the CW Chat Forum, who managed to buy one which was found under the CW sofa in early 2020! I’m not jealous, much! If anyone every wants to sell their Royal Navy Makaira, you know where I am! That said, I’m always interested in buying any nice condition Makaira if you’re looking to offload.
Seven final C11 Makaira Pro 500s were built with this blue, white and orange marker combo.
The only C11 Makaira to be produced with a black case was this Royal Navy Fleet Diving Unit special commission of 50 pieces.