Basic gear from mid-twentieth-century Italy: Mares and Pirelli

[Compressor]

Thank you @David Wilson for the superb documentation of history on ScubaBoard. Loved the text and the history.

 

[David Wilson]

Thank you @David Wilson for the superb documentation of history on ScubaBoard. Loved the text and the history.

Thank you so much for your likes and your lovely feedback, Compressor. It's all a labour of love and I'm delighted that what I've written resonates with people like yourself. I should be back on SB tomorrow with another instalment of Pirelli mask history.

 

[Popgun Pete]

Although this is a Mares and Pirelli thread the subject of side window masks reminds me that the real breakthrough in such masks and with low internal volume was the Farallon "Prismatic". This design came about after someone got a look at Technisub's wrap around coloured plastic frame "Nova" before it was released and figured that it’s squared off black plastic inner frame could just as well hold three moulded-in glass panels as well as one. Not an uncommon design now, but a revolution in its day back in the mid-seventies.

 

[David Wilson]

Thanks, Pete. Are these the masks in question?

Technisub Nova

Farallon Prismatic

 

[Popgun Pete]

Yes, that is the "Nova", my dive buddy had the one with the yellow frame. Then I bought a "Prismatic" mask with the orange frame and when the rubber started to deteriorate around the nose section I bought a second one in blue about the time of the end of their production. It suffered the same fate, but I still have it somewhere.

 

[David Wilson]

Thanks, everybody, for the likes, the messages of appreciation and the postings with additional information. I am grateful for them all.

Just one more addition of my own to the Pirelli Argo review that slipped my mind at the time. Denmark's early diving equipment manufacturer Nauti-scope brought out a similar design with their "Panorama" mask for adviced users:

Danish: "508.245 Panorama-DYKKERMASKE med det helt frie udsyn gennem sideruderne, der fjerner »skyklap«-fornemmelsen. Saltvandsbestandig metalramme om det buede special-glas. Vejledende udsalgspris ... kr. 22,80."
English: "508.245 Panorama DIVING Mask with complete freedom of vision through the side windows, eliminating that “blinkered” feeling. Saltwater-resistant metal rim on round special-purpose glass lens. Suggested retail price: DKK 22.80."

This product was exported to the UK, appearing as "The Nauti Panoramic" in the 1958 catalogue of Cogswell & Harrison of Piccadilly in London:

 

[David Wilson]

On now to what I promised a few days ago, a look at a couple of early-1950s Pirelli masks, the Nereo and the Triton mentioned in Fabio Vitale's article VIAGGIO NELLE ATTREZZATURE SPORTIVE DEGLI ANNI ’50 from which I reproduce a somewhat low-resolution image of the Nereo along with its caption:

Italian: Maschera Nereo Pirelli. Carcassa in gomma lucida di colore nera, verde o blu che racchiude, con un maggiore ispessimento del bordo esterno, l’ampio cristallo ovale; mentre il bordo facciale è assottigliato per favorire l’aderenza a qualsiasi forma di viso.
Rough translation: "Pirelli Nereo Mask. Glossy black, green or blue coloured rubber body enclosing, with increased thickening of the outer edge, the large oval lens; while the facial border is thinned to facilitate adhesion to any facial shape."

So the body of the mask is thicker where it retains the lens within a groove on the front edge and thinner where it is meant to fit snugly on the wearer's face. Masks with the thiinnest and hence most adhesive facial edges came to be known as models with feather edge skirts.

The Nereo seems to have been discontinued before the end of the 1950s. A similar fate awaited our other mask of the day, the Tritone:

Italian: "Maschera Tritone Pirelli. Carcassa in gomma rigida colorata e cristallo bloccato con ghiera."
Rough translation: "Pirelli Tritone Mask. Rigid coloured rubber body and lens retained by band."

Apologies again for the low resolution; this is my only picture of the mask. It's still possible to work out the reason for the early demise of the design: the exclusion of the nose from the mask interior and hence its inability to redress the air pressure imbalance inside the mask with the water pressure outside the mask. The look is more reminiscent of the 1930s than the 1950s.

Finally, the names chosen for the two models. "Nereo" is Italian for "Nereus" (Ancient Greek: Νηρεύς), who in Greek mythology was the eldest son of Gaia (the Earth) and of her son, Pontus (the Sea). Nereus and Doris became the parents of 50 daughters (the Nereids - sea nymphs) and a son (Nerites), with whom Nereus lived in the Aegean Sea.

"Tritone" is Italian for "Triton" (Ancient Greek: Τρίτων), who was a Greek god of the sea, the son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, god and goddess of the sea respectively. Triton lived with his parents, in a golden palace on the bottom of the sea.

I'm going to leave it there for today. I will be returning midweek with a review of another Pirelli mask, the "Egeo", which made its début in 1959, standing the test of time sufficiently to remain in production until the mid-1970s. Keep safe and stay well in the meantime.

 

[Popgun Pete]

Are you sure that is the "Tritone"? The reason I ask is the name underneath seems to start with an "S" and there is a mask shown here of that name. PIRELLI Tritone | BluTimeScubaHistory.

I thought the name may be "Sirene" or something like that as I remember some monoplane swim goggles with a name similar to that. I don't remember the brand. Of course product names get reused as no one actually owns them if they are based on Greek or Roman mythology.

 

[David Wilson]

Here is the full entry in Vitale's round-up of 1950s masks in HDS Notizie:

The entry brings together two similar-looking models from different Italian companies, the Salvas mask on the left and the Pirelli Tritone mask on the right. The mask on the left does have the caption word beginning with an "S", which I read as "Salvas", a Rome-based diving equipment company:

In my research I missed that image of a Pirelli Tritone on the excellent Blu Time Scuba History website. The exhibit is dated 1961 and it does appear in the Pirelli 1961 catalogue on the same site:

There it is, bottom left on the catalogue page. It is conspicuous by its absence, however, from the Pirelli catalogues of 1959 and 1960 on the site.

So my conclusion is that the Pirelli Tritone was the name of a non-nose-enclosing single-lens goggle-style mask in the early 1950s, it ceased production before 1959 and then the name "Tritone" was resurrected in 1961 by Pirelli for a different mask with an oval window. After all, Pirelli pulled the same stunt with its Ciclope mask. Here is the Ciclope in 1959:

and picture No. 7 in the following catalogue page of 1974:

Two quite different masks made by the same manufacturer, the second given the same name after the first mask thus named has been out of production for a number of years. In keeping with what I did with the Pirelli Ciclope, I and now going to continue midweek with the later Pirelli Tritone as my theme. That later version remained in production until 1968.

 

[David Wilson]

Thanks to everyone for all your likes and contributions.

I mentioned earlier that I would be changing tack on this occasion and reviewing instead the 1960s Pirelli mask inheriting the product name "Tritone". The name "Tritone" fell vacant during the 1950s as production of the original mask bearing that name (above) was ceased, doubtless because the mask presented a superseded technology, excluding as it did the wearer's nose when contemporary designs enclosed it.

So we move forward to 1961:

The reborn Tritone is the model pictured bottom left, a very different design I am sure you will agree from the original 1950s version. And as above, here below we have a specimen exhibit of the "new" Tritone, courstesy of Luigi Fabbri's wonderful Blu Time Scuba website:

This is a plain, traditional mask, without a compensator or purge valve, fitted with a stainless-steel retaining band surrounding a semi-oval, semi-triangular lens. Twin buckles at the sides enable the (missing) strap to be adjusted to size and securely fastened around the head.