These are all great places to turn to for help.įor God’s sake though, man - don’t buy something that looks good to you blindly on the internet without doing your research first. Bob’s Watches specialize in Rolex, and both HQ Milton and Tropical Watch always carry plenty of great Rollies. The Hodinkee Shop also has experts who can help. It’s best to speak to and buy from someone like James Lamdin from Analog/Shift or Eric Wind from Wind Vintage - these guys have been doing this for years and can source exactly what you want. Understanding vintage Rolex takes some time, so for the love of all that is holy, please do your research first. But they’re available.įor vintage - well, pump the breaks a second. Seem weird? Well, that’s Rolex! You want something everybody else wants, you’re gonna pay for it. But here’s the kicker: You’re going to pay well over retail for a pre-owned model. Thankfully, given that Rolex does make over 1M watches a year, there are plenty of pre-owned and vintage examples on the market. Rolex makes over 1M watches a year, but even they admitted that they can’t keep up with current demand. (Ironically, the wildly expensive gold watches you don’t want are more often in stock than the steel sports watches.) If you’re a brand new client, be prepared to perhaps have to buy something else first - or wait a lonnngggg time for your watch. Possibly stuff you don’t even want, simply in order to get your hands on something you do want. And how does one become an established client? Well, you buy lots of watches, of course. For the past, say, five to 10 years, it’s been increasingly difficult - if not outright impossible - to buy a new Submariner at retail if you’re not already an established client at a Rolex authorized dealer (an “AD”). These days, as a Rolex collector, the world is sort of your Oyster.īad news first.
(Technically, the Submariner and the Submariner Date are two different watches that often exist concurrently within the Rolex catalog at any given time.) It also began offering gold-cased Subs, and then Subs with different-colored bezels. Throughout the years, Rolex iterated upon the initial design, adding crown guards, upsizing the case somewhat, and, eventually, offering a model with a date. (The Zodiac Sea Wolf and Blancpain Fifty Fathoms launched at almost the exact same time.) Water-resistant to 100m and featuring a rotating dive bezel, it proved the prototype to thousands of watches that followed it into the murky depths. In 1953, as recreational SCUBA diving was taking hold in the public consciousness post-WWII, Rolex launched the Submariner, one of the world’s first dedicated diving watches. Today, all Oyster-cased, automatic Rolex watches bear this nomenclature in addition to their individual model names. In the early 1930s, he combined the Oyster case with an automatic movement, giving birth to the Oyster Perpetual. Rolex first employed a water-resistant (“waterproof,” in its own early terminology) watch case in the 1920s, which it dubbed the “Oyster.” Company founder Hans Wilsdorf was a brilliant marketer, and even had English swimmer Mercedes Glitz wear one of these watches around her neck as she attempted to swim the English Channel in 1927, taking out print advertisements featuring her with the watch. It’s wildly detailed.) We’re here to give you a “comprehensive overview,” so to speak. (If you want that type of breakdown, we recommend this post from our good friend Stephen Pulvirent at Hodinkee.
(Alternatively, if you need to put normal, non-watch people to sleep, this is great ammunition to stuff into your Boredom Cannon.) But we’re not going to get into every single variation within every single reference.
It gets intense.īut that’s what we’re here for - we’re going to break down each reference for you so that you can fit in at your next Red Bar meeting. glossy 5513s, for example, or red or white 1680s. In fact, the taxonomy has become so dense that said nerds will differentiate different versions within a single reference number - matte vs. Watch nerds love to get into the minutiae and really pick apart what differentiates one Sub from another. All of the classic Sub hallmarks were present in ‘53: the black, luminous dial the rotating dive bezel the matching steel bracelet the screw-down crown.Īnd yet.
Though the Submariner was in fact an outgrowth of the water-resistant, Oyster-cased watches of the 1930s and 1940s, it emerged largely fully formed - to the extent that if a time-traveling Hans Wilsdorf (Rolex’s founder) suddenly emerged in the 2020s, he would certainly recognize a modern version.