Editor's Picks
Tooled Up: The Rolex Explorer II Reference 1655
Editor's Picks
Tooled Up: The Rolex Explorer II Reference 1655
The GMT complication was developed for professional use by pilots and travellers, through necessity due to the advent of commercial air travel, to allow them to monitor two time-zones. The chronograph had a number of different timing scales that aided racing car drivers, military leaders and doctors in their professional duties. The Submariner, GMT-Master and Daytona, therefore, have some deep roots as tool watches. But here, we lift the lid on one of the quiet stars of the Rolex tool watch line.
Going Underground
One of the reasons it was slow to sell was the fact that it had a 24-hour hand and a 24-hour bezel, but the bezel was fixed and so it wasn’t technically a GMT function, as one couldn’t monitor two time-zones. But it was a tool watch and to understand the watch we need to go deep; deep underground and into the earth’s hidden cervices, like true speleologists.
Designed for speleologists and potholers, the watch allowed the adventurers to keep a track of time and whether it was am or pm via the large luminous 24-hour hand. A specialist application for sure, but also useful for those who spent large amounts of time away from natural daylight. It would also prove useful for explorers in continents where there were periods of constant daylight or darkness.
The McQueen Big Arrow
The vintage Rolex collecting community loves nothing more than giving a watch a nickname or a namesake. The “Paul Newman” Daytona is the most obvious example of a namesake at the moment. Arguably, the art of watch collecting was spearheaded by the Italians and we have a lot of Italian parlance in our everyday vintage watch language. Ovettone (big egg) for the big 1950s bubbleback watches, Padellone (large frying pan) for the large ref. 8171 moonphase watch and Stelline (little star) for watches with the small stars as hour markers.
We won’t focus on the service dials here, but more on the main production run. They are referred to as the Marks (MK) one to five (1-5). The dials had a large triangle at 12 o’clock and rectangular hour markers at 6 and 9 o’clock. The remaining hour markers sit within the minute track and are essentially extra-bold minute markers. Where the dial gets a little busier is on the outer edge of the dial where intermittent 24-hour markers sit, which are offset from the regular hour markers. It’s a very distinctive look and led some collectors to refer to the dial as the Disco Dial, due to its resemblance to a 1970s’ disco floor with flashing square light panels. The different marks are distinguished by the printed text on the dials.
On Your Marks
The MK1: The first iteration had a wide coronet, with a rounded foot on the R of Rolex. The bottom of the dial was marked T SWISS T.
The MK1: A thick font with the edges of the numerals sitting very close to the inner edge of the steel bezel. These were used on watches fitted with MK1 and MK2 dials.
The MK2: A thick font where the numerals are centered. Seen on some MK1 dial watches but mostly on watches with MK3 and MK4 watches.
The MK3: The fonts on the MK3 are thin and centrally positioned on the bezel. These were fitted on some watches with MK3 dials but mainly used on MK4 dialled watches.
The MK4: Found on watches with MK5 dials, the MK4 bezel has numerals with a thin font, but there are some noticeable changes to the font. The most noticeable difference is the ‘long hook’ on the 1s.