Zodiac Super Sea Wolf 1000m (Ref. 506.54.43) – The “Buzz Saw” Diver

A black dial with big orange-framed markers, a thick toothed bezel and a caseback engraved “1000 meters”: this Super Sea Wolf is a serious tool watch that still has a sense of fun about it.

What it is

This is a Zodiac Super Sea Wolf, reference 506.54.43. The dial reads “Zodiac Automatic”, “Super Sea Wolf”, “100 ATM” and “Swiss Made”. The caseback is engraved “Waterresistant 1000 meters tested”, “Swiss Made”, “Stainless steel”, “Swiss since 1882” and the reference number 506.54.43. Its toothed bezel is the reason collectors nickname this version the “Buzz Saw” or the “Sawtooth”.

• Reference: 506.54.43 (engraved on the caseback)
• Winding: automatic (dial)
• Water resistance: 1000 m as engraved on the caseback, “100 ATM” on the dial (see the condition notes below)
• Case and bracelet: stainless steel (caseback engraving)
• Case width: about 41.2 mm (measured)
• Lug to lug: about 47.9 mm (measured)
• Bracelet width: about 19.8 mm at the case, 18.1 mm at the clasp (measured)
• Date: window at 3 o’clock
• Crystal and crown: sapphire crystal and screw-down crown, according to the 1993 Japanese catalogue (see below; not checked on this watch)
• Movement: Swiss automatic. Published sources on this model name the ETA 2824-2; we did not open the caseback of this one to check.

A short history of the “Buzz Saw”

You will often read online that this watch was made only from 1999 to 2001. Even Fratello, which repeats that date, calls it “lore”. The Swiss site Dive into Watches gives an earlier and better-documented date: citing the April 1993 issue of the German Uhren-Magazin, it says the 1000 m Super Sea Wolf was introduced in 1992. On that account it was the last dive watch of the original Swiss company, which went bankrupt in 1997.

What our original Japanese catalogue shows

We have an original Zodiac catalogue from Japan, and it settles one thing clearly. A note on the cover says the prices shown are the standard retail prices, before tax, as of November 1993. So the Super Sea Wolf 1000m was already on sale in Japan by late 1993, years before the “1999 to 2001” story. The catalogue was issued by Rhythm Watch Co., Ltd., Zodiac’s sole distributor in Japan at the time.

Inside, under the headline 「スポーツウオッチの最高峰」, “the pinnacle of sports watches”, the catalogue tells the story in a few lines: the Sea Wolf series was launched in 1953 as a professional sports and diving watch, and the Super Sea Wolf was born as its high point. Two versions are shown side by side, both at ¥150,000:

• YVA29MB: black dial with yellow markers, the same look as ours
• YVA30MB: black dial with red markers

The catalogue lists each one with an automatic movement, a highly durable stainless steel case, a sapphire crystal, 1,000 m water resistance, a luminous unidirectional bezel, a bracelet with a double safety clasp and a screw-down crown. A dedicated leather case (WPT5064) was sold separately for ¥40,000. Its lining was water-resistant, so a diver could also use it to carry small items.

The Watch Spot describes the full set as a branded leather pouch holding a spring-bar tool, an extra rubber strap with a diver’s extension and printed dive table charts. Ours was sold on its steel bracelet.

Was it a hit? Not really, and that is part of its appeal today. Fratello’s verdict is that the Super Sea Wolf “did not, in fact, conquer the watch world” and that, as a result, they are “quite rare”.

Three things we like about it

1. The black dial with orange accents

The markers are large and chunky, each one framed in orange-yellow around a cream luminous fill. The minute hand is bright orange, so it stands out clearly from the white hour hand, and the thin seconds hand carries a small luminous square near its tip. Look closely and you will see four small pairs of yellow numbers, each set inside a bracket that spans two minute markers. They are a decompression table printed on the dial. Each pair gives a depth in metres and a decompression stop in minutes for the bottom time marked by its bracket:

• 52 / 2: 52 m for 5 to 10 minutes, then a 2-minute stop
• 37 / 6: 37 m for 20 to 25 minutes, then a 6-minute stop
• 27 / 7: 27 m, bracket at 35 to 40 minutes, 7-minute stop
• 18 / 2: 18 m, bracket at 50 to 55 minutes, 2-minute stop

The idea was to use it with the bezel set as a countdown to the end of the dive. A vintagezodiacs.com forum post walks through the 52/2 and 37/6 examples on an older Super Sea Wolf, and the watch was originally supplied with a printed decompression table. It is a lovely piece of history, but please treat it as just that, not as dive advice.

2. The “Buzz Saw” bezel

The steel bezel carries a 60-minute scale with numerals every 10 minutes, a luminous triangle at zero and luminous dots between the numerals. Its edge is cut into deep, rounded teeth that give the watch its nickname, and they also make the bezel easy to grip. Our listing described it as a unidirectional rotating bezel. At 3 o’clock sits a large knurled crown.

3. The engraved caseback and the signed clasp

Turn it over and the caseback carries the Zodiac name and emblem, “Swiss since 1882”, “Waterresistant 1000 meters tested” and the reference number, with notches around the edge for a caseback wrench. The steel bracelet closes with a folding clasp stamped with the Zodiac name and emblem.

Wearing it

Picture a day out on the water. You turn the bezel when you go in for a swim, check the orange minute hand against it when you come back up, and later the same watch looks right with a rolled-up shirt at dinner. At about 41 mm wide and about 48 mm from lug to lug, it has real presence on the wrist without being huge. As it was sized when we sold it, the bracelet sat between the 15 cm and 17 cm marks on our wrist-size gauge.

Its condition when we sold it

In our listing we described the watch as showing minimal signs of use, with a beautiful appearance. These are the points we noted:

• The basic functions operated normally. Daily rate and power reserve were not checked.
• Water resistance was not guaranteed without professional service and a pressure test.
• It came on its genuine Zodiac bracelet.

About Zodiac

The first Super Sea Wolf appeared in the late 1960s or early 1970s (sources disagree on the exact year). It raised the rating of Zodiac’s diver from 200 metres to 750 metres, with a screw-down caseback and a newly patented crown and stem. Zodiac’s advertising of the time went further and said the Super Sea Wolf was used by U.S. Navy frogmen. The watch in this article carries the name a step deeper: its caseback reads 1000 metres.

azuleterno is an independent shop. We are not affiliated with or endorsed by Zodiac.

This one has found its new owner

This Super Sea Wolf left Japan in April 2026 for its new owner in the United Kingdom. If you are looking for a similar Zodiac, or another diver from the same era, send me a DM on Instagram and tell me what you are after.
Thank you very much for reading.