Handcrafted Swiss made dive watches since 1950. Known by the classic curved shark logo, Squale is still a small family-run business now based in Milan, Italy with all watch production and assembly done by hand utilising master-watchmakers in Grenchen, Switzerland maintaining the same high standards as the vintage models. Squale - reliable , superbly designed and elegant professional dive watches for users with the highest demands.

Squale watches are built utilizing the great Swiss tradition of precision watch making, combined with solidity and durability. As tradition demands, the case is made throughout from Swiss 316L steel. And the components are all Swiss too: winders, winder sleeves and gaskets. These are essential parts for a watch that has to withstand high pressures and salt water.

Watches are painstakingly assembled by master Swiss watchmakers, taking the greatest care over the fitting of the gaskets and ensuring that the case is airtight. The watches then undergo strict checks, with regard to both resistance to water and timekeeping accuracy. Quality tests are performed on every single watch and not on a sampling basis. Last but not least, the movement's reliability is certified by the fact that Squale has always been a direct customer of the ETA Factory at Grenchen, guaranteeing that all movements are of the highest quality.

In 1946 Charles von Büren founded "von Büren S.A. / Montres" on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel, in the watchmaking heart of Switzerland. Shortly after, "von Büren S.A. / Montres" created the Squale brand (Squale translates to Shark) with it's classic curved shark logo which is now synonymous for Swiss Made professional diving watches.

Back in 1946 "von Büren S.A / Montres" started to produce watch cases and components for different larger and smaller swiss watchbrands who didn`t have the knowledge to build professional diving watches. The smaller brands used the Squale logo on their dial as a quality symbol. The bigger watch brands included Blancpain (the Fifty Fathoms) and DOXA (the SUB) as well as TAG Heuer.

Due to the success other Swiss watch brands had with the Squale produced and co-labelled watches, "von Büren S.A./  Montres " started in 1950 to produce their own range of professional diving watches under the Squale brandname marking the beginning of the brands institutional history.

The first sporting successes for Squale , like the world championship diving in  Cuba in '67, were linked to the watches that  became as legendary as the world champions wearing them - for instance, the "Master 1000 M. or 100 Atmos. French diver Jaques Mayol, known as the Dolphin Man, broke the world breath-hold deep diving record on several occasions wearing Squale watches. In 1970, for example, he was wearing a Squale when he set the record of -76 metres in Japan. He also became a good friend of the von Büren family. Charles von Büren's daughter, Monique, was so taken with the sea that she herself became an accomplished freediver and later a marine biologist, a field in which she still works today.

Late in the 1960`s Squale introduced the first Squale 1000 meter divers-watch with the unique glass on flexible mountings that didn`t use or need a Helium release valve anymore, which was a unique feature and a novelty of great importance.

During the 1970's Squale continued to produce for other brands and started to supply the elite corps of a large number of armed forces,  including the parachutists corps "Folgore Brigade" part of the Italian Airforce ( "Aeronautica Militare Italiana") and the Italian Navy’s Diving Corps, the "Marina Militare Italiana". All this has made Squale synonymous with quality and the pioneering benchmark brand for divers' watches internationally, a status it has now enjoyed for several decades.

In 2010 all watch production and assembly was moved to Grenchen in the Swiss Jura valley.  And although the company is not under the Von Buren name anymore, it is still a small family-run business based in Milan, Italy.  In fact, the brand is now owned by the Maggi family, Squale's longtime Italian distributor and a historical Italian family who have been active in the world of watchmaking for generations.

Since the 1950's and up to today, the diving watch of choice for many world champion divers.