MICROBRAND
Santurce Collection Brings Puerto Rican Identity to the Modern Dive Watch
Founded in 2025 by a husband-and-wife team of collectors, this Puerto Rican microbrand backs its island identity with serious spec: twin 39mm Sellita divers, an artist-drawn caseback, and a GPHG nod in year one.
The barracuda is a patient fish. It lurks in Puerto Rico’s warm shallows, silver and motionless, until it isn’t. Locals call it the picúa — and it is one of two Caribbean predators lending their names to the dive watches of Santurce Collection, a young microbrand out to put Puerto Rico on the horological map.
The Joke That Became a Brand
Santurce Collection is run by José and Anita Salas, a husband-and-wife team from the San Juan district that gives the brand its name. Both are lawyers, longtime collectors, and founders of Puerto Rico’s RedBar chapter. The name predates the company: when Anita asked for more closet space, José began selling watches from his own collection at friend prices, and local collectors took to calling any well-curated watch at a good price a “#SanturceCollection.”
In 2025, the inside joke became a company with a mission: watches designed in Puerto Rico, with an identity of their own. The brand is rooted in place first, product second — and it shows.
Two Divers, One Platform
The brand’s fully custom line consists of two 39mm divers: El Tiburón (“the shark”) and the Picúa. They share a platform — a forged, heat-treated 316L steel case measuring 12.2mm thick and 46mm lug-to-lug, a 120-click bezel with DLC-coated steel insert, sapphire crystal with anti-reflective coating on both sides, 300 meters of water resistance, and Sellita’s SW200-B automatic, ordered without a phantom date position. Design happens in Puerto Rico, assembly in the USA. Each is priced at $949.
The two wear their names differently. El Tiburón’s sandblasted matte case echoes the grey of a shark’s skin; the Picúa pairs linear brushing with a black sunburst dial, rectangular markers, and red accents straight out of the 1970s skin-diver playbook.
The caliber choice tells you something about how the founders think. The SW200-B is unglamorous and everywhere, and that is precisely the argument for it. Parts exist. Watchmakers know it cold. A brand this young cannot promise it will be around in fifteen years, but it can pick a movement that will be serviceable whether or not it is.
Flip either watch over and the cultural argument gets literal: the caseback carries “El Jíbaro Buzo,” an engraving that reimagines Puerto Rico’s traditional jíbaro figure as a diver — drawn by co-founder Anita herself.
Recognition, Fast
The spec-per-dollar story has already drawn notice beyond the enthusiast forums. El Tiburón has been selected as an official competitor at the 2026 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève, as Time+Tide reports — rare air for a brand in its first full year. The Picúa’s initial run sold out, with more stock expected; El Tiburón remains available in limited numbers. For hands-on impressions of both, see Ariel Adams’s review at aBlogtoWatch.
Plenty of watches borrow a sense of place. Fewer are built by people who never had to look one up.
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Why this watch, on this wrist?
