Scuba pro history book

[Sam Miller III]

there is a new monumental must have SCUBA Pro book printed in German;

SCUBA PRO HISTORICAL BOOK
In German, printed in Germany

"50 Jahre SCUBA PRO
Der Atemreglerhersteller
von
Frank Werthwein"

Paper back, 276 fact filled pages with year by year product description accompanied by photographs.

It begins with the establishment of SCUBA Pro as a division of Healthways in 1962, complete with a picture of the very rare 1962 SCUBA Pro catalog, It is recognized by those who were a participant and witness to that era of recreational diving that SCUBA Pro was established in 1962, not 1963 as current management of SCUBA pro has announced and are currently celebrating. The acquisition of SCUBA Pro in Healthways bankruptcy by modern SCUBA Pro's two founders Dick Bonin and Gustav Dalla Valle. The book provides a concise biographies of Dick and Gus as well as biographies of all the company officials during that pioneering era. Then the book seamlessly transitions into a year by year description of the companies products.

A must have for the SCUBA Pro aficionados

SDM

 

[Akimbo]

I have a catalog from the late 1960s with a lot of the same products sold by Scubapro called “Under Sea Industry”. The back cover says it is a division of Sports Industries and the “S” is the same as Scubapro’s. The address is Gardena, California. I always “assumed” that it was an attempt to sell to the fledgling commercial diving industry. There were a lot of Italian-made Galeazzi chambers in addition to the SOS decompression meter and other wrist instruments. Any idea how all this fits together with Scubapro? I don’t remember Under Sea Industry being around very long, but I was just a kid.

By coincidence, I recently read Bret Gilliam’s interview with Dick Bonin in Diving Pioneers and Innovators. The Interview didn’t give the year Bonin was hired by Healthways to help set up marketing and distribution for the new Scubapro division, but it does say that they were told on Christmas Day 1962 that Healtways filed Chapter 11 Bankruptcy (page 182). The interview indicates that Scubapro started operations as in independent company on 3 January 1963 (page 183) after Gustav Della Valle bought the name for $1.00. Can you imagine anything clearing a bankruptcy trustee in less than 2 weeks over the holidays today?!?!?

You can download Scubapro's 1962-early 1980s catalogs at: https://backup.filesanywhere.com/fs/v.aspx?v=896b668d5b6172b09c9a

 

[kelemvor]

I wonder if Scubapro will try to eliminate this like they did the website of a similar topic.