Flea Market Find

[Pimbura]

Ok, I'll show my age. A lot of Voit equipment was sold 'mail order' through the Sears and Roebuck catalogue. I know this to be a fact, because I bought some of it when I was a kid. Quite a number of the old Voit regulators were manufactured by Mares and re-badged. The rest were manufactured by Voit.

 

[ew1usnr]

A little known fact is that the present term "DIR" actually began as an abbreviation of the 1967 slogan "D.I.R.W.V." (Doing it Right with Voit).

 

[Wristshot]

many of us "know" what "AMF" stands for.

 

[oxyhacker]

Harley Davidson??

Wristshot once bubbled...
many of us "know" what "AMF" stands for.

 

[Bob3]

Harley Davidson??

GEEZE!!! Keep that up & we'll have to take your keyboard away for a week.
HD's darkest days were at the hands of AMF, they almost caused the demise of an American institution.

 

[ew1usnr]

Wristshot once bubbled...
many of us "know" what "AMF" stands for.

American Machine and Foundry was founded in 1900 and grew to become a worldwide industrial technology and leisure products company. American Machine and Foundry formally changed their name in 1971 to the AMF Company since they were out of the foundry business and concentrating their efforts on bowling equipment. In 1985 AMF Inc. was taken over in a hostile bid by Minnesota based company, Minstar Inc., who broke up the company and sold off most of the divisions on a worldwide basis. The name AMF lives on in tenpin bowling.

Involvement with tenpin bowling led AMF into a broad range of sporting equipment during the 1960's and 70's including importing Mares scuba gear (AMF/Mares). Mares was founded in 1949 by Italian free diving champion, Ludovica Mares and has grown to be the world's 4th largest scuba diving company. Mares is now a division of Head Tyrolia Mares (HTM), a state-owned Austrian sports goods group whose parent company is Austrian Tabak. HTM also acquired Dacor (established in 1954) as another division in 1998. The original MR-12 was a US made Voit design from the late 1960’s. Mares now sells the MR-12 and the current version still uses some of the same design components.

In 1958 AMF (American Machine and Foundry) acquired the W. J. Voit Rubber Company. Duck Feet fins were marketed by Pacific Molded Products as Swim Master Duck Feet. Swimaster was sold to Voit Rubber Company in the early 1960s. Voit still seems to be around and sells masks, fins, and snorkels. The company has a web site, see: http://www.voit.com/ .

 

[Diver1985]

Hey. I bought a AMF VOIT Swimaster Titan II MR12 Serial# 00300 ..... Anyone have any interesting information on this..and the year it was made? Thanks! Terry Bender

 

[ew1usnr]

Gee, that's interesting. I have a Titan II, and my brother has a MR-12. The 2nd stage are identical, but the 1st stages are different. The MR-12 1st stage was internally and functionally the same, but it was a simplified and more compact redesign of the earlier first stege. You'll have to post a photo of your first stage. I guess that the Titan II became the MR-12, but for perhaps one year in between it was called the Titan II MR-12. The Titan II came out in 1967. Your Titan II MR-12 would be from perhaps (I'm guessing) 1969. Maybe 1968.

They are nice regulators. The 1st stages are balanced diaphragms with a big external intermediate pressure adjustment. They share the HP seat with a US Divers Conshelf so it should be no problem to have serviced.