Fossil Defender: some DF series scans

If you've spent anytime on this site, you'll know all about our love here for the Fossil Defender series. Launched in the mid-90's the original DE series had 43 watches ranging from DE-1500 thru 1544, skipping a few in between including 1529 & 1530.

The next series of Defender watches were the DF series. In total there were 24 of these watches released and you can tell they were a different animal as far as design and build quality from the DE. In some of my research I've seen it mentioned that the Defender series was actually designed and assembled by Zodiac before Fossil bought them in 2001. Fossil was trying to have a higher end watch series to compete with a higher price point. I can't confirm it's true, but this could explain why some of the DF series watches retailed for $395, which is a far cry from the $150 for the DE-1527, which was the highest priced of the original DE series.

Of course we all know Fossil recently has relaunched the Defender series and we couldn't be happier. The interchangeable straps are brilliant and I'm always looking for the new straps to mix mine up....we'll call it the DEC series for now and later on we'll get them added to our guides.

Onto the scans! Recent events had made me realize how rare these booklets are that came in the DF series boxes. One of our Defender gurus, Adam has graciously scanned the booklet from one of his and I just love the writing on these scans -- it's so serious and reminds me of a certain catalog that Elaine wrote for on Seinfeld. Bonus bullet points below breaking down the series in case you're collecting them all.

  • Spitfire 1000 Series: DF-1001 thru 1012
  • Spinnaker 2000 Series: DF-2001 thru 2002
  • Streamliner 3000 Series: DF-3001 thru 3004
  • Avion 4000 Series: DF-4001 thru 4002
  • Starboard 5000 Series: DF-5001 thru 5004