Rolex

Have you ever had a green eggs and ham moment? Well this is mine.

I admit I have been a little dismissive of Rolex in the past. I realised they had some great ‘tool watches’, well designed and solidly constructed, but I couldn’t really understand how they had achieved the reputation they had with the general public. In addition they were too frequently faked, and ownership carried a certain connotation that I didn’t want to partake in [present company excluded and apologies for the overgeneralisation].

Then something happened. My interest in vintage watches collided with an enquiry into sports watches. I don’t really own many ‘sports’ watches as such. I have dress watches that I ‘dress down’ with jeans etc., but my collection was lacking something.

I had the opportunity to handle a 40 year old Rolex 1680 with amazingly beautiful patinated tritium markers and hands and a chunky acrylic lens and something ‘snapped’. So with a lot of reading and some helpful advice from Jeff, Graham and others, I decided on the simplest of Submariner’s, a Ref. 5513, to start my collection. This ‘metres first’ example is from 1966.

I recall a comment from Ginger about “owning a Rolex so that your non-WIS friends will know that you are really serious about this watch collecting hobby”.

I guess now I am really serious! J

Andrew

And I would wear it in a boat.
And I would wear it with a goat ...

And I would wear it in the rain.
And in the dark. And on a train.
And in a car. And in a tree.
It is so good, so good, you see!

I would wear it here and there.
Say! I would wear it ANYWHERE!