Submariner Vintage Homage
Thanks everyone for still visiting this site, I do appreciate the positive comments.
Now, off to a review. I would love to be able to get my hands on a vintage Rolex Submariner, something that Sean Connery as James Bond would of worn, but the prices and availability just aren’t there. Luckily, our friends over in China are making a homage watches that follow pretty closely to the real deal.
I went with a sterile dial submariner, with domed acrylic crystal. Starting with the dial, it is simplicity. Classic Triangle at Noon, rectangles at 3,6, and 9, and circles everywhere else. They are filled with a pale yellow lume. The hands are classic Mercedes hands, filled with yellow lume as well. The lume is, well, okay. Probably similar to 60’s era lume, it works for a short while, but I am no faulting the watch with this. I really enjoy the sterile dial. I wish Rolex would offer a sterile/reduced verbiage dials. The dial is a satin black. The bezel is coin edge, with no detent, with a lume pip at noon. This keeps with the actual, vintage design. It turns smoothly and the printing is clean on the aluminum insert.
The case is correct size at 39.5mm stainless steel. The crystal is domed acrylic, also period correct đŸ™‚
The top of the case is brushed, the sides are polished and finished very well. The crown is large and easy to unscrew and wind. The crown stem has at least two gaskets! The crown guards are properly sized and don’t overhand the crown. The case back is screw down and unmarked. The lugs are drilled through and make for an easy band replacement.
The bracelet the watch came on was too modern for my tastes. I have had this watch on a Bond NATO strap, which looks great, but I wanted something more legit. I put the watch on a folded link, oyster style bracelet. Up until the late 70’s, submariner bracelets were folded links! The big advantage is that the bracelet is now properly weighted to the watch. I can see the original watch was designed to work is thinner, folded link bracelets, not the modern solid bracelet. The balance is just perfect now at it all is period correct.
The movement is some sort of Chinese automatic. It is a direct seconds, looks like 21 jewels and even hacks! The accuracy is excellent and the automatic winding is quiet and bi directional. I’ll have to open up the watch again to figure out what’s in there. All I know is that is works and was pretty well finished, simple, but the movement was clean. It is a 21,600 BPH movement, which is to be expected.
I am very happy with the watch, now that I have it on the correct bracelet. If you want to wear a piece of history, without breaking the bank, and don’t mind homage watches, this is a lot of the watch for the money, if you can still find it. I picked it up late 2019 for around $50+$15 bracelet.
Case: 39.5mm diameter, stainless steel, 50M(?) water resistance. Gasket stem.
Back: Stainless Steel, Screw Down
Crystal: Domed Acrylic
Movement: Automatic, Made in China
Complications: Rotating bezel
Other: Luminous Hands and Markers
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