In 2023 Rolex quietly updated its flagship chronograph with the type of tiny changes that only a die-hard aficionado could fully appreciate. Some updates include thinner rings around the chronograph subdials and smaller hour markers. As we’ve come to find out over the years, Lionel Messi is one of these obsessive watch collectors: The Inter Miami CF captain has been spotted in a rose gold Yacht-Master, a yellow-dial Oyster Perpetual, a gem-set Submariner, and more. But it doesn’t matter how loaded your collection is—it’s still not finished until you add the iconic Swiss AAA Rolex Daytona replica watches.
Launched in 2023 on the 60th anniversary of the model’s birth back in 1963, Messi’s high quality fake Rolex Cosmograph Daytona ref. 126500LN watches is the modern steel Daytona. In addition to the aesthetic changes, this watch was the first to use of the brand’s cal. 4131 automatic movement with Chronergy escapement.
The changes made to the Daytona are typical of how Rolex likes to tinker with its stable of iconic pieces. For the Daytona, these adjustments add up to a more refined version of one of the world’s most important sport best UK Rolex copy watches. Add in—subtract, rather—a roughly 0.5mm reduction in case thickness, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for one heck of an everyday watch. Naysayers will decry the Daytona’s general unavailability at retail, but this is now part of the equation when considering new replica Rolex watches for sale from Rolex: Everybody and their mother (and their toddlers) wants one, and even at production numbers said to exceed a million pieces per year, there simply aren’t enough of them to go around.
Unless, of course, you’re one of the best soccer players in history. We can only assume Messi doesn’t have to sweet talk his A.D. for top fake Rolex Daytona watches allocation like the rest of us mere mortals—especially considering what other Rolex bangers he’s already picked up along the way. Messi was once spotted in a platinum-dial ref. 116509, a fancier version of the otherwise purpose-built Daytona.
No matter how you slice it, the modern steel luxury Rolex Daytona super clone watches UK is a horological staple for a reason. Sleek yet utilitarian, it looks the part on anybody’s wrist—especially Messi’s.
Not just another fancy coffee table book, Oyster Perpetual Submariner—The Watch That Unlocked The Deep by Nicholas Foulkes is the most revealing look inside the Rolex archives—ever. I’ll admit that when I first heard about the book, my cynicism got the better of me. Luxury Rolex replica watches, the global flagship of Swiss watchmaking, never reveals its secrets. Why would the company notorious for safeguarding archival information suddenly decide to make it available for public consumption?
Well, the informational waters are no longer so murky. In one fell swoop, Rolex corrects, confirms, and adds to the scholarship surrounding vintage Submariners. Most significantly (and as already “reported” in the vintage Rolex IG community) the production estimates of each Rolex Submariner reference ever made are included in the book’s index. This is a 180° move from Rolex, a brand that typically says nothing to confirm or deny its vintage product, but it’s just the tip of the Oyster Perpetual Submariner iceberg.
Rolex Submariner book
Previous scholarship was long fought for in the trenches of vintage collecting, compiling data from known original UK AAA Rolex fake watches, adding in old stories handed down from Rolex savants of years past, and employing a mix of common sense and conjecture to arrive at conclusions that could only be presented with qualifiers such as “as far as the collecting community knows…”.
With concrete information on Submariners sealed and approved by the Crown comes the promise of more authorized books on Rolex models (and their secrets). This book is the first in a series published by Wallpaper* in partnership with Rolex, all penned by Foulkes. The official Submariner book is 252 pages long, and while I would never give all the secrets away in one article, here are five things that Hodinkee’s resident “vintage guy” learned while flipping through it.
The Submariner was born from the Explorer
In our Reference Points: Understanding The high quality Rolex Submariner replica watches, a whole section is dedicated to “The Genesis Of The Submariner.” This idea of the Submariner, Explorer, and Turn-O-Graph hitting the market as a trio in May of 1954 was always a part of the “accepted” story. This is not to criticize or debunk a previous article, but more to show what we once thought was correct in the watch community.
The very first chapter of perfect Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariner copy watches cites numerous primary accounts via the Rolex Archive to tell a wholly different story. According to the book, the Submariner was developed from the ref. 6150 Explorer. A series of letters between Rolex director René-Paul Jeanneret and the Rolex London office detail a story of specific requests from and tests by British Royal Navy divers beginning in 1952. A Rolex shipping form dated September 1953 notes early examples of the ref. 6150 being delivered to the Royal Navy.
With feedback from divers, in 1954, Rolex London described a special version of the ref. 6150 “manufactured in collaboration with the Admiralty,” having a larger dial diameter (check) and a rotating bezel (double check). And so (according to the book), the Submariner was born.
Pièce Rebikoff, Nautilus, Frogman, and Sub-Aqua – The Many Names Of The Rolex Submariner
The Submariner, or simply “Sub,” is so ubiquitous today that we don’t ever stop to think how a seemingly unnatural word found its way onto a Rolex dial. We’re talking about the same company with enough imagination to dream up model names like Datejust for a watch with just a date complication and Day-Date for a watch with a day and date complication.
According to Foulkes and Swiss made Rolex replica watches, the project that would come to be known as the Submariner tried on various names while in development and even hit a post-launch hiccup in the US. Hans Wilsdorf is quoted in the book as saying, “I like the name Deep Sea Special better than Frogman” and even shares an idea that, in hindsight, would have really changed watch-world history: Wilsdorf states, “I am sure that Nautilus is already registered.”
Concurrent with the British Royal Navy tests, Rolex also contracted the assistance of Dimitri Rebikoff, a pioneer in underwater photography and the burgeoning sport of scuba diving. Rebikoff’s influence on the Submariner project was so great that internally, the 1:1 fake Rolex watches UK was referred to as “pièce Rebikoff.” Ultimately, in a Rolex technical meeting on May 28th, 1953, Jean Huguenin is credited with deciding that “this piece will carry the name: ‘SUBMARINER.'”
Even after the Submariner hit the market, the name was still in question. The book details an intellectual property rights issue in the US, resulting in the use of Sub-Aqua for a very short period. This explains once and for all the very rare, early variant of the Submariner with Sub-Aqua in place of Submariner on the dial!
We Can Thank Dimitri Rebikoff For The Death Of The Red Triangle Bezel
A couple of quick nuggets I gleaned before moving into the big news. I mentioned Dimitri Rebikoff above, but the book has a ton of great information about him and his relationship with Rolex – he was truly instrumental in making the Rolex Submariner super clone watches online look like it does today. For example, in April of 1953, he specifically called out the impracticality of the red triangle at 12 o’clock on the bezel, saying it “will probably already become invisible below 10 meters… it would be better to replace it with a white triangle.”
“We are currently studying modifying the bezel so as to make the triangle snow white rather than red,” responded René-Paul Jeanneret. And, in relatively short order, the red triangle was no more.
Turn-O-Graph – The Forgotten Child Meant To Be The Big Hit At Basel
Even after all of this Royal Navy and scuba diving pioneer development, the retail market hopes for the Swiss movements replica Rolex Submariner watches were low. According to the book, the Submariner was originally thought to be a niche, professional product. But it was the development of a rotating bezel that was to be the commercial saving grace. As such, the Turn-O-Graph was developed to launch in tandem with the Submariner, focused solely on the rotating bezel. It was to be “the watch with a thousand and one uses.” Rolex put the full might of its 1954 Basel Fair production behind the Turn-O-Graph. Ultimately, the Submariner won out.
I can say from experience in the vintage market that very few Turn-O-Graphs were sold then and even with that rarity today, it is a difficult watch to sell to even the most discerning vintage Rolex collector. The Submariner took off and the Turn-O-Graph was left, largely forgotten, somewhere near the starting line.
Production ‘Estimates’ For Each Submariner Reference
This back-of-book addition has been the “talk of the vintage Rolex town” since early copies of the book landed. It’s hard to stress just how un-Rolex the inclusion of these numbers is, but I am sure most Hodinkee readers know by now. Listing out all the production numbers here feels a bit unfair to Wallpaper*, Foulkes, and all the people who worked hard to create the book, but I will call out a couple of “key learnings,” how about that? Important to note off the top, the fine print states that “production quantities are estimates based on figures from the Rolex Archives,” but, as we’ll see, the numbers feel pretty exact.
Firstly, the vintage Rolex community is pretty damn good at guessing. For years, it has been widely accepted that around top wholesale replica Rolex 300 ref. 6200 “King Subs” watches were produced. This number is often quoted because the reference was long thought to be one of the “rarest.” Turns out, we were right. The book confirms that an “estimated” 303 examples were produced (you see, the estimate looks pretty spot on, 303, not 300), and that is the lowest production of any reference.
Also interesting is the split between ref. 5513s and ref. 5512s. These two were sister references for most of their production, with the distinction between them being a chronometer-certified movement in the 5512 and a non-chronometer-certified caliber in the 5513. I know I am oversimplifying here a bit (don’t @ me, Vintage Rolex Police). Anyway, outside of that movement difference, the two are essentially the same best quality UK Rolex copy watches. Yet, the total production of the 5513 is estimated at 151,449 versus 17,338 for the 5512. In today’s vintage market, 5512s have always carried a slight premium over 5513s but not a nearly nine times rarer premium.
Rolex’s newest release doesn’t tell the time, sit neatly on the wrist, or do anything else good Swiss made Rolex replica watches is supposed to. That’s because it’s not actually a timepiece.
The Crown has just unveiled a new, beautifully designed monograph on the AAA UK fake Rolex Submariner dive watches. Aptly titled Oyster Perpetual Submariner—The Watch That Unlocked the Deep, the 252-page tome chronicles the evolution of the legendary dive watch, from the 1950s up to the present day. It is the first authorized history of the perfect Rolex Submariner replica watches from the notoriously secretive Swiss watchmaker, meaning the author received access to highly guarded archival information that is typically off-limits. As a result, the book should provide fresh, in-depth insight into this seminal Rollie.
The hardcover, which best 2024 Rolex copy watches has labeled a “wide-ranging account of the Submariner,” was developed with publisher Wallpaper* and written by Nicholas Foulkes. The English historian and author has written extensively about luxury goods and horology, penning The Impossible Collection of Watches, Patek Philippe: The Authorised Biography, and Time Tamed, among other notable titles.
“As a historian with a lifelong obsession with watches, I was delighted and excited to be given unique access to the Rolex archives and flattered and honoured to be invited to set down in print the first authorized accounts of timepieces that have helped shape history,” Foulkes said in a statement.
Foulkes starts by diving into the creation of the inaugural model. Introduced in 1953 (but commerically available in 1954), the Rolex Submariner replica watches wholesale UK was the first dive watch water-resistant to 100 meters (330 feet). The timepiece was originally a rugged, rather affordable tool for divers, but later became a luxury status symbol in the 1970s and ‘80s, once offered in solid gold references like the 1680/8. The book details all the small but notable changes Rolex has made to the model over the past 70 years—Reference 1680 was the first to gain a date complication in 1969, for example—illustrating that innovation is key to the Sub’s enduring appeal.
The tome isn’t all about the cheap Rolex Submariner fake watches, though. Some pages are dedicated to the subsequent dive watches Rolex released that became benchmarks in the diving world, such as the Sea-Dweller from 1967, the Deepsea from 2008, and the Deepsea Challenge from 2022. The latter can descend as far as 11,000 meters (36,090 feet).
Oyster Perpetual Submariner—The Watch That Unlocked the Deep will be available from October 1. You can pre-order a copy now on Amazon for $125. The silk-bound first edition will be available exclusively through the WallpaperSTORE* for pre-order from September 16 and purchase from September 20.
The best part is this is only the first in a series of authorized books that will profile models in the China 1:1 Rolex super clone watches catalog. Stay tuned.
