Rolex Submariner Date 116610 LN

Rolex makes classic watches: and of all the classics, none is more popular than the Submariner. This diving legend is the archetype of everything Rolex , and to a degree one of the design templates for the luxury watch industry as a whole. It's the original Bond watch, on the silver screen at least. And it's a luxury tool that has remained unchanged, in essence, since its debut in the 1950s.
This article is looking at the Rolex Submariner Date 116610 LN : a Sub first seen in 2010. The dial is black, the Cerachrom bezel is black, and there's a chunky Cyclops bubble over the date window. The bracelet is a three-link Oyster in Rolex's legendary 904L stainless steel, and the 40 mm case (also in 904L, and brushed and polished with the brand's trademark perfection) is waterproof to a very efficient 300 m. That's easily enough for most leisure and professional diving missions.
The quality of the movement inside the Rolex Submariner Date is another Rolex trademark: capable, simple, and rated to remain accurate to -/+ 2 seconds per day (with the correct servicing intervals observed). The 3135 in-house calibre is self-winding, and features central hours, minutes and seconds plus a date complication at 3 o'clock. It has stop-seconds and rapid date setting.
Look at the Rolex Submariner Date 116610 LN once, and you'll see a beautiful luxe tool watch that's as likely to end up a desk diver as it is to ever see the sea. Look again, and you'll find a host of subtle design features that make it much more than just a luxury sports watch. This is the standard by which all other divers are measured, and these complex little details are the reasons why.
Let's start with that bezel. Rolex's Cerachrom deserves an article in itself. Hyper-shiny, incredibly resistant to scratches and general beating, and so uniform and smooth it looks like liquid, this proprietary ceramic elevates the look and feel of Rolex pieces to movie-star status. The bezel is unidirectional, to prevent accidental de-setting during a dive. And the lumed pip on the setting reference triangle is bold and clear, for easy visibility in underwater situations. Simply turn the bezel until the setting pip aligns with the minute hand. Then you can measure anything up to a 60-minute dive, or time decompression stops, or do whatever you need to do when your life depends on counting the seconds beneath the waves.
And how do you know which hand is the minute hand? Because Rolex understands that divers need to quickly differentiate between pertinent and pointless information. So it has given the Submariner a sword minute hand, and a lollipop hour hand, in every incarnation since reference 6200, in 1954 (the Sub was launched with reference 6204 and 6205, which had pencil hands, also in 1954). By making the hands immediately and obviously different, Rolex makes it easy for the diver to see which one to set the bezel by.
Hour markers are large, applied pips and indices, which are easy to see underwater. The large inverted triangle at 12 o'clock, again a longstanding feature of the Submariner line, means the face is simple to orient when viewed from a side angle, or at a glance in the dusky depths.
If you've spent Rolex money on your luxury dive watch, you're going to want to keep it safe below and above the waves. The folding Oysterlock clasp on the bracelet keeps the Submariner Date from slipping off your wrist when you're exploring sunken treasure ships. And the Glidelock extension allows you to fasten it over your wet or dry suit without having to add another link.
In On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Ian Fleming describes Bond as wearing a 'heavy Rolex Oyster Perpetual on an expanding bracelet'. There's been plenty of debate about what the watch actually was (popular opinion, among both Bond and Rolex fans, is an Explorer), but one thing we do know for sure is that the movie version of the secret agent wore a Rolex Submariner. Sean Connery is seen wearing ref 6538, a Sub that has become famous as the first ever 'Bond watch'. It's got a fabric strap and sports a more slender-looking case than the 116610 LN, but it's undeniably of the same DNA. Were Bond not contractually obliged to represent Omega, there's little doubt he would be happy to strap on the latest Submariner Date in his next outing.
Steve McQueen was another legendary fan of the Submariner. Robert Redford can be seen wearing one in All the President's Men. Jeff Bridges wore one in Crazy Heart. And Johnny Depp wears a Sub in real life—or whatever passes for 'real' life in the mind of Johnny Depp. Oh, and Bond himself, Mr Daniel Craig? Well, he wears a Daytona. Not sure what Omega would have to say about that. 'We've been expecting you … to wear one of our luxury watches, Mr Bond…?' But hey, a Rolex is a Rolex. And if it's good enough for Ian Fleming's original spy, it's good enough for me.
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Image Credit – officialwatches.com vedere di piu repliche rolex e Hermes Arceau