History of Rolex Submariner

Rolex Submariner is one of the most popular Rolex watches, even to this day because of the features it has to offer and for its sophisticated design which makes it stand out even more. Being a water-resistant watch, most people would have the perception that the design on the Rolex Submariner would be quite bulky and would not be wearable on a day to day basis. However, Rolex exceeded all expectations with their design on the Rolex Submariner.

Not only that, this watch has quite a notable history attached to it, which adds to the speciality of the watch. The idea for this watch came up in the 1950s by the director of Rolex at the time who was a diver, but not a professional one. So, on his request, the company started working on an exclusive watch for divers which could resist water to a great depth. However, when the watch was completed and given a test run, the company astonished itself by the depth of which the Rolex Submariner survived, a remarkable depth of 10,335 feet.

The year this Rolex Submariner was released, a documentary was released about the Mediterranean Sea and the man behind this successful documentary was seen wearing the newly released Rolex Submariner watch during the entirety of the film. While the watch gained some popularity after its official launch in the 1950s, the real obsession with this watch stirred up in the 1960s due to its appearance in several 007 movies with Sean Connery who was one of the fan favourite actors who played James Bond.

Over the years, Rolex made little tweaks here and there to the Submariner watches just as an improvement in design and not a lot on the actual mechanism of the watch. Luminous watch hands were one of the later added features which made it easier for the divers to see the time while they were in the deep waters. Another addition was the use of sapphire glass on the watch which made it more durable in most situations.

The addition of the Cyclops glass over the date was quite a helpful feature which was added by Rolex to their newer watches. The cyclops lens basically magnified the date feature so it was more clearly visible and came in quite handy for scuba or professional divers.

Throughout the previous years of the collection of Rolex Submariner watches, most of them were the same monotonous design and colour so all the watches basically looked the same. However, in the recent years, Rolex has added a bit of colour to the newer designs on the Submariner watches. Watches with yellow gold exterior were added to the collection with several pops of colour for the dial.

But the most innovative change to the watches was made at the 50th anniversary of the Rolex Submariner. This was when Rolex started using a very tough, corrosion resistant stainless steel material for their watch exteriors, the 904L. That was a huge change as Rolex is the only brand which can actually afford to use this stainless steel material in their watches.