Whats the deal with: The Rolex Submariner

You’ve likely seen one. Maybe even worn one. Maybe admired one on the wrist of someone who calls his boat a “tender” and uses “summer” as a verb.

Before it became the uniform of real estate developers and hedge fund whisperers, the Submariner was just a very good idea with very good timing. Rolex released it in 1953, right when recreational diving was becoming a thing people did on purpose, for fun. Jacques Cousteau had written The Silent World, scuba was suddenly accessible, and watches that didn’t flood were useful. The Submariner wasn’t the first dive watch, but it was the first to make being waterproof look refined.

A 1953 Reference 6204 Submariner being auctioned at Sotheby’s

Then James Bond wore one. Sean Connery, in a dinner jacket, flipping up the cuff to reveal a no-crown-guard Submariner on a too small nylon strap in 1964’s Goldfinger, did more for Rolex than any ad campaign could. 

That association stuck. Even now, when most divers wear computers, and most Submariners never get wet, the watch carries a kind of licensed danger, like someone who’s polite but used to be very good at bar fights.

Collectors obsess over details the rest of us would need a loupe and a minor in typography to notice: serif versus non-serif fonts, lug widths, bracelet codes, crown guards, no crown guards.

These things signal era, rarity, and whether someone paid five figures for something that once cost less than a good stereo. But the Submariner’s charm is this: it works as well at 300 meters as it does under a French cuff. It’s not flashy, unless you know what you’re looking at. Which, frankly, is the whole point.