A Rare "James Bond" Rolex Is Up For Sale
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An ultra-rare Rolex Submariner is set to go on sale this Thursday, one of the earliest examples of the watch ever produced.
The 1954 Submariner ref. 6200 is the second Submariner reference produced by Rolex, and by far the hardest to come by.
Just 303 of these watches – also known as the “King Sub” – were made.
That, along with some unique design details, make this as collectable as Submariners get.
It has been described as “a legend in vintage Rolex collecting circles” and "the 'holy grail’ of Vintage Submariners”.
The last time an example of this watch came to market was in 2007, when it more than doubled the top estimate at Christie’s.
The ref. 6200 is notable because of the gilt “Explorer dial” with its 3-6-9 markers, a configuration used today on Rolex’s Explorer and Air-King watches. Submariner dials usually delineate the time with dot and baton markers.
This model was also the first Submariner to feature a “big crown" – the 8mm winding crown, marked "brevet", the French for "patent", is visibly larger than the normal 6mm crown – another collectable feature of early Submariners.
It was also the first Submariner to display Rolex’s now ubiquitous “Mercedes-style” hands, as opposed to the straight “pencil” hands of its sibling models.
Sean Connery’s 007 wore a Rolex Submariner in the movies Dr. No (1962) and Goldfinger (1964).
Since then, early Subs without crown guards – the ref. 6200 is an example – have been known as the “James Bond” models.
The ref. 6200 was produced with a few different dial variations – with a large Rolex logo, a small Rolex logo, with “Submariner” printed at 6 o’clock, or without. This example has the small logo and Submariner written on the dial.
The watch is being sold by the trading platform Subdial, the London-based company that has disrupted the preowned luxury watch market with its data-driven and community-minded approach to buying, selling and trading watches.
The watch is priced at £175,000.
It is the latest in a run of noteworthy watches traded by Subdial, including a Red Omam "Khanjar" dial Rolex Daytona and a Rolex "Comex" Submariner with dive papers from the original owner, alongside many neo-vintage watches by Cartier and A. Lange & Söhne.
The ref. 6200 also comes with a compelling provenance.
The original owner was Harry Jordan, a British Royal Navy man who served during World War II. His boat, the W-class destroyer HMS Whitehall, was deployed as an escort vehicle before being sunk en route to Russia.
Jordan, then aged 21, was safely returned home.
“It's not every day you unearth a watch like this,” says Christy Davis, co-founder of Subdial. “Only 303 of these were ever produced, and very few are still in existence 61 years after production. It's incredibly rare to find a new, undocumented example that's never been to market before.
“This are why people get into collecting: the opportunity to discover watches with amazing human stories contained within them. Thinking about the lives that this watch has had and the adventures its been on is almost too much to wrap your head around.
“Subdial's collector network means we're constantly unearthing the most collectable and interesting watches at all price points.”
The watch goes live around 9am GMT on 3 October on subdial.com
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