Another feature that you saw premiered with this model was the 3085 movement
which you also saw used in the GMT Master II. It allowed you
to independently adjust the hour hand and so you could really use this as a
second timezone watch instead of just an AM PM indicator that you saw in the 1655.
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Angel sitting next to me here at SwissWatchExpo can't quit obsessing about this watch she has it
on her screen it's her screensaver she spends an inordinate amount of time looking at this
watch throughout the course of the day and it's interesting because she doesn't even understand
why she's so obsessed with it but I tried to get her to to give me a little bit of that why she
has that root of enthusiasm for this particular watch over all the others that you have on the
website at SwissWatchExpo she can't really explain it I think it's just the rarity that
it is so unusual this is a watch that replaced the 1655 Explorer the Steve McQueen which was
kind of a watch that was released in 1971 with without a real purpose it was the cave dweller
watch and really kind of a flop when it first was released which is why it's become so popular now
as a collector's item generally what you see in Rolex world is things that are not real
popular at the time A lot of times become really popular as collectors items you see that with the
early daytonas the Paul Newman Daytona the a lot of their watches the ones that are maybe
not as popular at the moment are the ones that might be the ones to invest in so think about
that when you're when you're choosing a watch out of our collection but when they decided to upgrade
the 1655 and they changed the whole look of the watch they really were entering a different phase
for Rolex from just the tool watches to luxury watches even the the luxury sport watches on the
16550 as this one was known they upgraded things like they went to a glossy dial finish they went
to 18 karat white gold surrounds for the hour markers the batons or the circles on this one the
hands they really made that transition they went to sapphire crystals they they did a lot of things
that really raised the bar for what a sport watch could be one of the things that they did at the
time and we talked about this a lot is that they used to Sub out the dial production and they used
a couple of different dial companies at the time and anytime that they were not a hundred percent
in control of every single aspect of production there were things that ended up being little
variations differences in the fonts differences in the way the markings were laid out and a lot of
times differences even in the finish itself so for the first time you could get a sport watch with a
white dial with the 16550 Explorer II made from 1985 to 1989. so this was the first Explorer to
that really first sport watched from Rolex that you could get any color dial other than black so
you'd think that that would have been a popular choice but it really wasn't at the time but the
black dials and the white dials they both have finished problems that show up over the course
of years with the white dials what you see is this fading to a creamy yellowish ivory color
there's a lot of different names that they use for this it might be vanilla cream or lemon cream or
iced vanilla or iced lemon or vanilla pudding I'm not sure what the nickname will stick with this
one but it's a really interesting look because the the dials have faded over the years Rolex of
course would have wanted to catch this at the service center and replace it with a service
dial later that was a stable white but here's one that never made it to the service center never got
changed out not only is it this beautiful creamy ivory color but the hands and the markers match
absolutely perfectly there's a the later versions with the white white dials they had blackout lines
to the lume plots and the hands so you saw a lot more stark black and white when you looked
at the watch this one is just kind of all creamy because those white gold accents were not covered
in black paint now not only that this is a very rare one because it is what they call a rail dial
so if you look closely at the dial where the second set of text is right above six o'clock
where it says chronometer and certified normally those words are centered in the dial and so they
don't line up with each other but on the real dial the seas of chronometer and certified line
up perfectly and it almost looks like a little railroad track there so that's why they call it
a rail dial so this one's doubly rare because it is a rail dial and it's the original dial that has
faded to a beautiful ivory color they don't all fade at the same rate they don't all Fade to the
same color no two are exactly alike this one's one of the most delicious best looking examples I've
ever seen so when you're looking at this watch um you know there's a lot of advancements to it they
switch to the 3085 movement which you saw in the GMT Master as well so for the first time you can
independently or rather the GMT Master II because you can independently adjust the second timezone
now instead of just an AM PM indicator this is useful as a second timezone Jet Set traveling
watch but it also has that heritage of being made for spelunkers and people losing track of
time in the dark caves it's just all around such a rare watch and such a great find and
one of the rarest watches that we've got in our collection here at SwissWatchExpo hence
you know it is a higher price than you would see probably for any other Explorer too we've
got in stock but considering the collectibility the rarity the incredible level at which this
one's been preserved all around just probably a fantastic investment for you for the future