In short
How Rolex’s Submariner became the defining “tool watch” legend—driven by precision engineering, dust/water protection (Oyster case), evolving bezel/timekeeping features, and real-world diving/military/exploration milestones. The episode also debunks myths (e.g., dubious brand-name origin stories and unproven Pan Am GMT “holy grail” claims) and explains why the Submariner’s design language and consistency made it both accessible luxury and enduringly collectible.
Guest backgrounds
Nick Falks, watch historian/author and former colleague of the host; he wrote a book specifically on the Rolex Submariner/Mariner.
Key claims
Rolex’s core priority was movement precision (dust control), not just waterproofing; the Submariner evolved alongside diving tech (Sea-Dweller 1967, Deepsea for Challenger Deep); Rolex’s archives and post-Wilsdorf statutes helped preserve continuity.
Notable examples
Wilsdorf’s “Rolex” naming story; dust vs oil abrasive paste; Cousteau/Aqualung and Dmitry Rebikov underwater color photography; Royal Navy Loch Fèin trials; Piccard’s bathyscaphe and the Deep Sea Special; James Bond wearing Rolex (Explorer in Fleming; Submariner gadgetry in Live and Let Die); green bezel anniversary model (2003).
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOIntroduction to the Rolex Submariner
0:00 to 0:41
Learn about the origins and appeal of the Rolex Submariner watch.
“What Rolex made specifically to be for divers, for scientists, for the military, is exactly the same thing that you're able to get as a regular human being.”
The Significance of Rolex
1:20 to 2:05
Explore the foundational history of Rolex and its branding evolution.
“You haven't got enough of my books there.”
The Story of Hans Wilsdorf
2:05 to 3:40
Uncover the journey of Rolex's founder and brand inception.
“I believe they're already looking for his traction.”
Rolex: A Brand Beyond Personalities
3:40 to 4:30
Understand Rolex's unique brand identity detached from individual founders.
“It was, you know, because otherwise you've got Patek Philippe, you've got Vacheron Constantin, you've got all these other brands, Audemars Piguet, they always have the names of the founders there.”
The Accessibility of Luxury
4:30 to 5:35
Discuss the paradox of Rolex being seen as both luxury and accessible.
“All the people in a watch, I mean, when I went into one of those watch repair shops in London where they can do everything, all the guys are wearing Rolexes because it's just the thing.”
The Oyster Case and Precision
5:35 to 7:25
Learn how Rolex's Oyster case design revolutionized watch durability and precision.
“It depends, but there are lots of different pyramids out there to sort of complicate this metaphor.”
Rolex's Marketing & Stories
7:25 to 8:50
Examine the marketing techniques and anecdotes that shaped Rolex's legacy.
“At what point did, if you're saying that precision was his main motivator, Where did design storytelling come into it by giving it sort of various names like Oyster or, of course, Submariner and so forth?”
The Evolution of the Submariner
8:50 to 10:31
Trace the Submariner's development through various decades and innovations.
“And the Vatican timing used to be done by Patek Philippe, of course, God's watchmaker.”
Cultural Impact and Endorsements
10:31 to 12:22
Explore Rolex's influence in popular culture and notable endorsements.
“You don't have to unscrew the crown or anything like that.”
The Submariner and Exploration
12:22 to 14:00
Discuss how the Submariner has been integral to exploration and adventure.
“And then there was an actress called Evelyn Lane who shoved her hand in a fishbowl and that was another image that, basically, this is the waterproofness.”
Show all 19 chapters
Exploration and the Birth of Diving Technology
14:00 to 17:26
Learn about the advancements in diving technology and its impact on Rolex.
“And they say, well, do you want that in blue, white or pink, sir?”
The Evolution of Rolex in the 1950s
18:23 to 21:11
Explore how Rolex adapted and evolved its watch designs during the 1950s.
“So the fortress-like quality of the watch into the future, and this seemed a good challenge for him.”
Rolex and Underwater Exploration
21:11 to 24:59
Understand Rolex's role in underwater exploration and military applications.
“And so, okay, well let's talk about then the idea of a watch being a sort of an item of the playboy.”
Rolex and Underwater Exploration
28:02 to 28:13
Understand Rolex's role in underwater exploration and military applications.
“If you notice a curve with a bump, a trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment.”
The Influence of Undersea Exploration on Watch Design
28:19 to 29:11
Discover how the post-war fascination with the ocean impacted watch design, particularly the Rolex Submariner.
“and there's suddenly this explosion of color from the undersea world.”
James Bond and the Rolex Connection
29:11 to 30:30
Explore the relationship between James Bond and Rolex, including the significance of the Submariner in films.
“And Bond has a habit of creating trends and people getting excited about various objects.”
The Submariner's Evolution and Collector Appeal
30:30 to 32:55
Understand the shifts in watch collecting and how the Submariner maintains its status among collectors.
“This is speaking of every, because I mean, there was a few years ago, there was massive inflation in watch prices.”
The Craftsmanship of Rolex Watches
32:55 to 34:38
Learn about the engineering and historical significance of Rolex watches, especially the Submariner.
“This is exactly my point that I make, which is that if you're trying to flog the idea of dressing sort of more sartorially to the rest of the world, don't put up too many barriers.”
Choosing the Right Submariner for You
34:38 to 38:24
Get insights on selecting a Rolex Submariner, including models and features to consider.
“And if you've got Queen Victoria's profile slightly out or something like that on the register.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Nick Foulkes:What Rolex made specifically to be for divers, for scientists, for the military, is exactly the same thing that you're able to get as a regular human being.
0:09Tom Chamberlin:Yes. Before the space race, there was this discovery of the underwater world. With that world becoming exciting, you get the interest in the watches that can achieve that. You know, I remember growing up and it was Live and Let Die. Live and Let Die was always on. There was nothing else actually that they had on television, I don't think, in those days. But the point of a submarine is to have a gold one because it shows that you're an idiot. I mean, not an idiot, but it shows that you're somebody who kind of thinks they want to be a rough and tough acriman. I can't bear showing that they've got a bit of money as well.
0:41Nick Foulkes:Welcome to The Luxury Dispatch, the podcast that reveals the refined and the rare, the stories, people, and items that make up the luxury industry. Now, there are some topics into which we need to spend a good hour diving deeply. and it's most appropriate today that we start those deep dives with a deep dive watch. It's the Rolex Submariner and I'm very lucky to have Mr. Nick Falks here today to help us along. Nick has been somebody that I not only used to work for but considered to be a great friend, mentor and the first person that anyone thinks of when we talk about watches. So Nick, it's so great.
1:16Nick Foulkes:It's an honor to be in your grotto here.
1:18Tom Chamberlin:It's fantastic. It's like Christmas really, isn't it? You haven't got enough of my books there. You've only got one, two of them. I've written 40. Well, you say that.
1:26Nick Foulkes:We have the third, which is the reason that we're here today. Yes, yes, it is. Which is your book on the Rolex and Mariner. Well, actually, well, it so happens that you've written a book on the Rolex and Mariner. It actually makes you the perfect person to talk about the history of the Rolex and Mariner.
1:38Tom Chamberlin:Be careful there, be careful there. There'll be people who disagree with you on that. You got quite a lot of stick from the sort of... I did, but we'll come to that. We'll come to that story episode later. Let us build me up first and take me down deeper.
1:49Nick Foulkes:Good point. And when we were sort of conceiving of the podcast, and I thought, what would be the kind of watch topic that might gain sort of the most people's interest, whether they're big watch collectors or they're just new to it. And I thought the Rolex Submariner was a really great place to start. I believe they're already looking for his traction. Yes, traction. Yes. So the Rolex Submariner. Yeah. So you've just written the book about it. Let's take everybody back to Rolex as a kind of an entity, beginning with, I think you talk about it as sort of fairies or people in the ear of Hans Wilsdorf.
2:23Tom Chamberlin:Yes, I mean, the story is Wilsdorf himself was born in Germany, went to work a bit in Switzerland, but realized that in 1905, the center of the world was London. The empire covered, as you know, more of the globe than we really care to mention these days. And he wanted to work and access the British imperial market. So he came to London, set up with a man called Davies, and they had Will Storfen Davies from 1905. And in 1908, he was on a bus, a Horster-owned bus, in the middle of London when a Sprite or a ferry, I forget what he calls it, fluttered down and whispered in his ear the word Rolex, which was to be the brand name.
3:04Tom Chamberlin:Now, as brand origin stories go, it smacks of verisimilitude and accuracy and total, total truthfulness. Yes. So that's how he says it began. I mean, the great thing is it means nothing or everything in the same language. It is a sort of Esperantist lingua franca that is known the world over. It's not named after anybody. It's in a way, it's sort of what he wanted was something that was, maybe he didn't realize it at the time, but something that was not anchored to a personality. It was the brand itself. It was Rolex. It wasn't Wilstorff and Davis. It was deliberately, like Omega was a little later, It wasn't attached to a single person.
3:46Tom Chamberlin:It was, you know, because otherwise you've got Patek Philippe, you've got Vacheron Constantin, you've got all these other brands, Audemars Piguet, they always have the names of the founders there. What you've got here is a brand in the modern sense of the word, a brand in the 20th century of the word that we did, like Vimco or Jazstop or, you know, or Drocker, you know. I mean, it's something that means it's catchy, it's short, it looks good on a watch dial. And, you know, you're going to ask for a Rolex, everyone knows what you want.
4:14Nick Foulkes:Yes, and it's sort of the first luxury brand that anybody hears of growing up.
4:18Tom Chamberlin:Yes, I think it is. Oddly enough, the more you look at it, the less luxurious it becomes and the more it becomes about quality manufacture. It's very interesting. You can go right round and then you always come back to Rolex. All the people in a watch, I mean, when I went into one of those watch repair shops in London where they can do everything, all the guys are wearing Rolexes because it's just the thing. It's just, it works. It never fails to proceed, as they used to say about my old Bentley. It never fails to start. It can take a hell of a lot of punishment. It looks great. And it is just a brilliant thing because within that, you have those decades and decades of Rolex history just sort of crystallized in this one object on the wrist.
4:59Nick Foulkes:Yes, and it's really interesting because I had a discussion once with a, I think it was a fashion director. He worked for another magazine and he tried to make the case that Rolex wasn't luxury. and he sort of felt like he could kind of be almost snobbish about it. And I think almost that's part of the magic of Rolex is that it feels both luxury and also accessible. And so people can sort of try and make themselves out to be, I don't know, supercilious about the luxury industry by saying, oh no, Rolex isn't luxury. Whereas actually it's become the sort of -
5:31Tom Chamberlin:It's interesting. It's the top of a pyramid. Yeah. It depends, but there are lots of different pyramids out there to sort of complicate this metaphor. Let's talk about the Valley of the Kings instead. Let's do sort of Anglo-Saxon burial mounds or the tomb of Marsolus at Halicarnassus, perhaps. But let's stick with these pyramids for the time being. Take it, there's a pyramid of relatively excessively priced, well-made, no-nonsense watches. Rolex is absolutely flying above that pyramid in a spacecraft that will then bring the aliens down to their originally built... It's Stargate. Yes, it's Stargate.
6:07Tom Chamberlin:So it's a brilliant, brilliant thing. So, I mean, it's absolutely, in terms of, it's bulletproof physically and also figuratively. Which is where the term oyster comes from, isn't it? The term oyster, there's a pretty story about how he sort of, you know, was eating oysters one day and all of this. There's so much folklore around it. Basically, what they did was they, in the 20s, they had the oyster case and that was to keep, it wasn't to keep water out so much as dust. Dust was the thing that he really worried about. Right. because when these bits of dust get into the movement, they mix with the oils and create this abrasive paste.
6:45Tom Chamberlin:So essentially what you're getting is something that degrades the parts, not so that they don't work, but just so they're not sufficiently accurate and precise. His big thing was precision. I mean, a couple of days before the First World War Brigade, he got his first Class A certificate from Q, for example, which was a super big deal to him because precision was what he was about. It wasn't so much waterproofness. It wasn't so much that you could take it down to the bottom of the ocean or anything like that. It was about keeping the integrity of the movement. So, I mean, you didn't want this kind of dust marauding through your watch movement.
7:19Tom Chamberlin:Water was also bad, but it wasn't as much an everyday occurrence as dust.
7:25Nick Foulkes:At what point did, if you're saying that precision was his main motivator, Where did design storytelling come into it by giving it sort of various names like Oyster or, of course, Submariner and so forth? I mean, how did that become the kind of progression of Rolex?
7:43Tom Chamberlin:Well, I mean, Rolex has its own language. For example, you've got things like Rolesor, which is another word for steel and gold or bicolor. The story I've been given there is that it would have been too... Had they called it gold, they would have to hallmark every bit and they didn't want to do that. I mean, I don't know if that's true or not. There's so many sort of stories. Another one is that the date bubble that you see on my land dweller here was when he was in the bath and the drop of water fell on his watch dial and he saw, oh, I can see the date clearly now. I mean, you know, and then another one saying that Rolex means rolling export.
8:16Tom Chamberlin:I mean, there's just endless amounts of crap that you, it's very hard to tell. I mean, there's also this, there's also supposed to be a special GMT master that was given only to people on the desks at Pan Am. Now, this is the holy grail of collection. But in Rolex archives, we have yet to find, I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but we've yet to find any substantial evidence of that. Ditto, there was a day-date that was supposed to be all commissioned by the Shah of Iran. Again, very difficult in the archives. I'm not saying it's not there because these archives are immense. Yes. It's like going to the Vatican.
8:49Tom Chamberlin:It's bigger than that. It's bigger than that.
8:51Nick Foulkes:It's Rolex, for God's sake.
8:53Tom Chamberlin:It's Rolex. And the Vatican timing used to be done by Patek Philippe, of course, God's watchmaker.
8:58Nick Foulkes:Well, of course. Okay, well, let's fixate on the Submariner for now then. So when did that come about and what was the impetus behind it?
9:05Tom Chamberlin:Okay, essentially, you can divide the Submariner into three basic periods. Again, I'm sure the purists would disagree, but you would basically have the Submariner, which is the one that we talked about and the one that everybody knows. You have the Sea Dweller, which was introduced in 1967 at around about the same time as Saturation Diving. I always used to love the Sea Dweller because it was, I mean, this is going back to when I was a kid in the 80s, you know, digital watches were everything. And this was an analog watch that looked great. And it was just, I just loved the fact that you could go down to a depth that would kill me.
9:41Tom Chamberlin:And this watch would still be fine. And the watch would survive. And then beyond that, more recently, they've gone to the Deepsea, which is absolutely astonishing stuff. They now have a watch that you could wear to the bottom of the Marianas Trench, to the Challenger Deep, as a retail product. Right. Which is extraordinary. They made the first one, really, for Cameron, who went back down in 2012, I think it was.
10:05Nick Foulkes:He was sort of strapped it to the side, didn't he? Yes, yes, yes.
10:07Tom Chamberlin:I mean, but they do that. They have to have it outside to show that it doesn't break. Yeah, yeah. So you've got really those three kind of ages, if you like, of Rolex Submariner. I'll go back a little bit to the 30s. You've got the Oyster case, and then you've got the self-winding movement, which means that you don't have to open your watch to wind it. You don't have to unscrew the crown or anything like that. So you've got minimal ingress of any crap, whether it's water, dust, or whatever. 45, everybody's thinking, because now Willstorff's in his late middle age, he's entering his third act, and he was a big disruptor in the period of the 20s and 30s.
10:52Tom Chamberlin:He was the one who put the Rolex name on dials because before then, most wristwatches sold in shops were either plain or had the name of the jeweler on them. So they were made, especially when you were manufacturing at some quantities as Rolex was.
11:07Nick Foulkes:That's interesting because, yes, when we were recently hosted by Rolex at Wimbledon, very kindly by them, and I sat next to a gentleman who used to run Ernest Jones. And he was saying basically exactly that, is that Rolex had not, they didn't really have much presence from a shop point of view in the UK, it all kind of went through the jewelers.
11:27Tom Chamberlin:Yes, but also the jewelers signed the watches. So basically it could have been anybody making them. They just bought Rolex and badged it themselves. So what he started doing was putting one in every six. He started putting Rolex on the dial and then he got it up. And then he, of course, went full-time on it. But even then you didn't have the homogeneity that you have. You didn't have the considered design story. You had a variety. So it was just a Rolex. But I mean, the type could be over the top, under the... Yes, exactly, yeah. I mean, it was all over the shop, but it was identified by Rolex, but that was all it was.
11:59Tom Chamberlin:And then you had Mercedes Leitzer, this cross-channel swimmer who swam the channel. And then there were three other women who said that they claimed, two other women who claimed that they'd done it in the same time as well. And she had to go and do a validation swim to prove that she had actually done it. And she didn't quite get there, but she was wearing the Rolex around her neck. And that was when she was hauled out, it was still working. and this was the proof of the oyster. Right, yeah. And then there was an actress called Evelyn Lane who shoved her hand in a fishbowl and that was another image that, basically, this is the waterproofness.
12:32Tom Chamberlin:You've got the waterproofness, you've got then the Rolex branding, but the Rolex visual branding, by which I mean the visual identity, only really happened in 1945, towards the end of 1945, when he launched the watch you're wearing now. Yeah. This is his big, and he enters the post-war period with the watch that we all now know as the Datejust. That is, for me, the quintessential Rolex. That's what everybody identifies as the key Rolex. You look at, and mine is, the date bubble came a few years later, but the layout of that watch is the same as the one worn by Adenauer, the same as the one worn by Eisenhower.
13:07Tom Chamberlin:It's recognizable as what it is.
13:09Nick Foulkes:It is a sort of omni-watch as well, in the sense that it can be worn with everything.
13:12Tom Chamberlin:Yes, I mean, we were talking earlier with one of your directors about this, and he was asking what a good watch to start with would be. And it's a fantastic thing. Yes, I agree. I've got more of those than I care to mention because I find them so seductive. And it's also the most personal one. The number of dial variations you can get today and sizes and things like that makes that, oddly enough, even though it's the most widely known, it's also the most personal one.
13:40Nick Foulkes:Yes, that's interesting.
13:41Tom Chamberlin:Because there's nothing personal about the sub. I mean, it just comes to you as it is. I mean, of course, there are individual, you know, I mean, I can hear the sub-nerds getting kind of, getting angry, erecting a gallows for me already. But before I'm tired and feathered, of course. And then, but it's basically, it's a take it or leave a proposition. It's like you're going to a shop and you ask for a power drill. And they say, well, do you want that in blue, white or pink, sir? And could we accessorize that? No, they just say it's a fucking power drill. Then in the 50s, you've got to forget that the world was still, it wasn't totally explored.
14:14Tom Chamberlin:I mean, still people had to get to Everest. They had supplied the watches to the first expedition ever to fly over Everest, which was pretty impressive. In those days, they thought they couldn't even fly over it. So they still hadn't got to the top, and they still hadn't got to the bottom of the ocean. But there were new ways of doing things. Like, for example, Jacques Cousteau had developed the Aqualung, and this opened up the undersea world. And there's a man called Dmitry Rebikov, who was also a big part of the Rolex story, who took color photography underwater. water. So instead of these grainy sort of crappy black and white photographs of the undersea world, you suddenly saw how amazing this world was.
Read the full transcript
14:52Tom Chamberlin:And something like three quarters of the planet is covered with water. And the best they'd been able to do was either you go down in a sort of bathysphere or you go in one of those ancient Jules Verne type contraptions. With a pipe at the top. Yeah, with a pipe at the top. Or you hold your breath. Whereas with the aqualung, you were sort of flapping about like a little fish. So that was a big deal. Jacques Cousteau, he wore a cement, didn't he? No, he didn't. He might have done. But again, in the Rolex archives, what we got is R.P. Janere, who was the marketing director of Rolex, who was a genius, was constantly chasing him around the south of France, trying to get him to do anything.
15:27Tom Chamberlin:He was Dr. Xavier Fructus, who was an associate of his to wear it. He got, Rebikov was a big wearer. Rebikov actually was very integral in the development of the submarine. Initially, for example, the white dot on the top of the bezel there, he should be white, not red, or something like that. So he was a very practical diver who was very close with Janare and who tested the watch and who made suggestions as to how it could be enhanced or what was required from the wearer.
16:02Nick Foulkes:So do you think he did design it with true sort of practical sort of military and exploration activity in mind? Or do you think he saw an opportunity to make a kind of consumer-led watch?
16:14Tom Chamberlin:This was the genius of it. I mean, Jan Aray was hired by Rolex in 1945, and he was a sort of young whiz kid marketer. Will Storff by this time was in his, let me try and work this out, early 60s, something like that. And he brought this young hotshot on, and actually, Genere was a very keen scuba diver himself. So he felt that there would be a market for this because it was a piece of diving equipment that didn't exist. And this new sport was coming on. So it was a bit of a gamble because it wasn't seen. Wrist watches were thin, small things on the wrist. If you look at pictures of the 30s and 40s, men's watches are like the size of a Cartier tank, which is, if anybody watching this remembers what a postage stamp is, It's about the size of one of those.
17:06Tom Chamberlin:And so these things were hulking brutes on the wrist at 38 millimeters, which today is regarded as standard man size. It was like wearing a sort of, I don't know, an ashtray on your wrist or something like that. Yeah, manhole cover. So I think what he did was he was basically interested in projecting the...
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18:27Tom Chamberlin:So the fortress-like quality of the watch into the future, and this seemed a good challenge for him. The thing that really defines the Rolex is of this period in the 50s was the most exciting period in terms of dynamic development of the tool watch brand or what they call it, they call it professional watches, but sports watch, tool watch, professional watch, whatever you want to call it, it's going to be more or less the same thing, was the moving bezel because you use that on that watch on the watch on the table there to time decompression stops, your time underwater, this kind of thing. Yeah.
18:59Tom Chamberlin:That was the idea. with the GMT Master, which again made use of this rotating bezel to tell the time in two zones. Yeah. And on the Explorer II, which comes a little later, it was a fixed bezel. But there was also, they also used the bezel on the Turnograph, which was supposed to be the hit watch of 1953, because the Turnograph used the calibrated moving bezel to enable you to do all sorts of abstruse things, like time the rate of production at a cigarette factory, It was one of the examples cited by them as being shown. But obviously, it seemed that the number of divers was greater than the number of cigarette company managers.
19:39Tom Chamberlin:Yes. So it sort of took off. But it took off as, I mean, there's very, very small numbers. I mean, my favorite reference, I think, I'm probably wrong, but it's a 6200, which was made for a very short period of months, so 53, 54, and it was about 300 watches. So these were not big production numbers. And I mean, it changed. There were so many different references. Through the 50s, I think there were seven or eight different references because they were trying it out. They were trying out sometimes. Sometimes they had Arabic numerals at three. And they didn't have a date, obviously, because when you're underwater, you don't need the date.
20:14Tom Chamberlin:You just need to know the time of your, you know, the less information, the better beyond what you need. Oxygen supply key.
20:22Nick Foulkes:And Crown Garden, things like that. Was that always there? No. That was added later. So again, so as the references went on, they're just tweaking various bits of the box.
20:29Tom Chamberlin:I mean, this is what is so strong about Rolex, about its survival, is that when Wilsdorf died, he had enacted a set of statutes that basically ran the company on autopilot. He was running it from beyond the grave. I mean, I've read the statutes. Not the most interesting document ever going to read, but it shows you in detail how he, even down to the formulation of the board and the type of people that should be on it, he stipulated whatever what should happen. So in Switzerland being a country that likes following instructions it was that it's that as much as anything else that has preserved the watch in its current state and has shot it to the top of our pyramid.
21:13Nick Foulkes:Yes. And so, okay, well let's talk about then the idea of a watch being a sort of an item of the playboy. Yeah. So obviously diving and things like that would have been, along with polo, or of course our favorite backgammon, a sort of an exhibition of the wealthy, especially in the 50s and 60s. You know, people were sort of having fun, new activities. Flying at some point would have been one and driving cars, and this is in the pre-war period. You know, they all had their activities and diving in the post-war period would have been that, I assume.
21:46Tom Chamberlin:Diving was certainly that. And certainly in France, I mean, it was sort of, it was scientists or sort of daredevil, sort of upper-class people, as we would call them, posh people, or aristocrats, or nobility, or even the bon chit bon genre bourgeoisie, the noblesse des pays, or whatever. Anyway, whatever you want to call them, they would go down to the seaside and go diving because there was no skiing in the summer. So they wanted thrills. They would then go down to... And there was, because obviously the Mediterranean seabed had lain largely undisturbed forever, they were suddenly finding a shitload of Roman antiquities down there.
22:20Tom Chamberlin:So what they would do is they all wanted these amphora, And I think it's, again, I'm probably going to get crucified, but I think it's a Golf San Juan or something. Anyway, there's a very deep part where you can find some of these records. And they fill these amphora with air, shoot them up, so that they bob to the surface. And then there would be the souvenirs in their homes. So there was all this stuff. It was just a thing. Yes. One of the big things that Rolex did in the beginning of the 60s, in 1960 it was, they went to the bottom of the Mariana Strench, of the Challenger Deep, which is the deepest point.
22:54Nick Foulkes:It's deeper than deep. It's deeper than deep. It's like when Final Tat talk about going up to 11. It's like 11 deep.
23:00Tom Chamberlin:It's 11 deep. It is actually about 11 kilometers deep, I think. None more deep. And they went down in something that looks like a kind of large-ish cigar tube. Yeah, yeah. And they went, I mean, it's terrifying. Yeah. They went all the way down and these two guys, because his father was, Jacques Picard's father was Auguste Picard, that's it. He was the original inspired Professor Calculus in the Chin Chin's books. Okay, yeah, yeah. And he flew to the edge of space in a tweed jacket, a Norfolk jacket and a fisherman's hat. And then he came down. But then what they did was they took... That's what you would wear.
23:37Tom Chamberlin:It is. What else was it? He went to the edge of the atmosphere in this thing and he came down in Austria and these peasants found him wandering around in his Norfolk jacket. In his Norfolk jacket. Yeah. And they said,
23:46Nick Foulkes:got off that hat and said, hello, my lads. So they did that.
23:49Tom Chamberlin:And then they decided, well, why don't we do what we call inner space? So they decided to change it into something that you could go underwater with. And again, this is where the archives are brilliant. Because you have the telegrams. You can see them getting deeper and deeper and deeper. They do the Tyrenian Sea at 3 ,100 meters. And they're frightfully excited about that. And then the U.S. Navy buys this thing because it's obviously we're in the Cold War. And suddenly we're working up to the fact that three-quarters of the planet is covered by water. there may be valuable resources under there.
24:19Tom Chamberlin:So we need something that's going to get down there. And there's one guy who's got it. It's this weird guy who's got this hair sticking out of his hat. And there's his son, Jack Picard, who unfortunately for this thing is very, very tall. And this thing was... So you couldn't even stand up. You couldn't even stand up. As he can fit. And then they go to the bottom of the ocean, which is an amazing achievement. And they receive a triumph, like a Roman triumph, when they get back to Washington. The vessel is dragged through the streets of Washington. They are given medals by the president. And it's now in the Smithsonian, I think.
24:58Nick Foulkes:Amazing.
24:59Tom Chamberlin:And for that, they devised a watch called the Deep Sea Special, which you will have seen many times, I think. It looks like somebody has placed a transparent egg on top of a sort of very, very, very, very heavily fortified Rolex. Yeah. And this really was, I think this was the turning point for them in terms of mastery of the sea and the nautical watch. But also what's interesting with the Rolex Submariner is that already there was a military application. In the early 50s, they were testing with the Royal Navy in Loch Fein. And that is where you see the sort of in vivo testing taking place in that you actually have people who are going to be wearing this thing.
25:42Tom Chamberlin:They're not going to get it magnetized against the electric device. I'm sure it's okay. They're built in all that now, but I get very paranoid. But anyway, where were we? Loch Fein. Loch Fein had been a military training facility until they'd invaded Europe and won the war. And then in the early 50s, they were using it for diving instructions because it's very cold and it's very deep. And Rolex went up there and presented them with three watches to test. And this is, again, 51, I think. And were they all submariners? They were not submariners yet because the submariner had to exist. They were just Rolex oysters.
26:19Tom Chamberlin:Right. But gradually, you see the back and forth of the communication between the various parties involved, whether it's the Admiralty or whether it's Janarae to the Admiralty or Janarae to the various diving people. You see the watch begin to... It's quite exciting looking through the correspondence and seeing the specification emerge from these various letters back and forth.
26:41Nick Foulkes:Yeah. And the US Navy picked up on the Submarino as well. Yes.
26:45Tom Chamberlin:Everybody did. Yes. What happened is that you have got everybody suddenly focusing on this being, because don't forget you had Jacques Cousteau winning an Academy Award, I think, for the silent world or whatever it is. So suddenly this became a thing. It became like space travel became after Sputnik. Everybody was looking at the sky and, you know, everybody, the space race. Before the space race, there was this discovery of the underwater world that had not, I mean, it's difficult to convey now because we're very familiar with it and it's sort of normal, but.
27:20Nick Foulkes:Let's talk about a condition many people haven't heard of, and it turns out it's more common than you'd think. Peyronie's disease, or PD for short. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis. This can cause a curve or the bump during an erection and for some men lead to pain during intimacy and may impact mental health. It may also lead to anger and frustration, depression, lower self-esteem, and even withdrawal from sexual activity and physical intimacy. Because of this, some men could feel embarrassed or reluctant to talk about PD. The actual cause of PD isn't always known.
27:56Nick Foulkes:In some cases, it may be linked to a minor injury or repeated injuries during sex or other physical activity. The good news is PD is treatable. If you notice a curve with a bump, a trusted urology specialist can help diagnose it and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment. To learn more about Peyronie's disease, visit talkaboutpd.com.
28:18Tom Chamberlin:Bearing in mind the post-war world was very drab, and there's suddenly this explosion of color from the undersea world. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you're too young to remember, but even when I was a kid, Jack Cousteau was still one of the most three or four recognizable people on the telly. Right, yeah. He wore his little red hat and his smile and a kind of aquiline nose. And, you know, there he was. And with that world becoming exciting, then you get the interest in the watches that can achieve that.
28:44Nick Foulkes:Yes. And so did this, the Samana, become a kind of emblem of the jet set, though? And was that based on the fact that you had this fascination that could really only be accessed by scientists, as you were saying, explorers, or the very, very rich?
29:02Tom Chamberlin:Yes, is the short answer. Because it signified that you were... But that was more in the 60s after the James Bond thing had happened.
29:10Nick Foulkes:Yeah, so Bond is the next thing that I'd like to talk about. Obviously, that changed an awful lot. And Bond has a habit of creating trends and people getting excited about various objects. And so this Rolex getting involved with James Bond, how did that come about?
29:27Tom Chamberlin:I think he was... No, actually Fleming wore a Rolex Explorer. Okay. And so the model is never specified in the books, but Bond occasionally says, and there's one novel where he will have to replace his watch and there'll be a shop open after Boxing Day, he says, and should I get another Rolex? Yes, I think they're a bit bulky, but they've got those amazing, he calls them phosphorescent numerals. Yeah. So, yes, he was in the books. He was definitely a Rolex wearer. And then that continued into the films. Yeah, certainly. You know, I remember growing up and it was Live and Let Die.
30:01Nick Foulkes:Live and Lead Time was always on.
30:02Tom Chamberlin:I mean, it was always on. There was nothing else, actually, that they had on television, I don't think, in those days.
30:06Nick Foulkes:And the Submariner in that film, you know, with all the gadgetry, just really stood out.
30:14Tom Chamberlin:Well, of course it does. It cuts through the rope, doesn't it?
30:16Nick Foulkes:Yes, exactly. Yeah, it held some escape. Do you think that, you know, for Collector's today or for the Submariner today, do you think the idea that this is kind of an action man's watch, is that based on Fox?
30:26Tom Chamberlin:I mean, I think also there's been a certain cooling off of the collector market in steel watches. This is speaking of every, because I mean, there was a few years ago, there was massive inflation in watch prices. People paying five, six times list price to get hold of a watch.
30:45Nick Foulkes:Let's talk about Peyronie's disease, or PD. It's not widely talked about, and some men may feel reluctant to bring it up, but it's more common than you'd think. PD can happen when scar tissue builds up under the skin of the penis, causing a curve or the bump during an erection that for some men may lead to pain during intimacy and impact mental health. A trusted urology specialist can help diagnose PD and walk you through your options, including non-surgical treatment.
31:11Tom Chamberlin:Visit talkaboutpd.com. Insane. But this is basically focused on steel sports watches because men like me especially want to be rugged outdoors types. You know what I mean? Nothing like a 20-mile run backwards up Everest and then sort of sleeping under a sort of thin sheet at 5 ,000 feet or something. Under the stars. Yeah, all that crap. I've got a relic 1680 in 18-karat gold, which for me is the first jet set, real jet set sub, because it has all the stuff you don't need. It has the date. First time in 69, you get a date bubble. Yeah. And also you get the first yellow gold sub, which is, for me, the point of a submarine is to have a gold one because it shows that you're an idiot.
31:56Tom Chamberlin:I mean, not an idiot, but it shows that you're somebody who kind of thinks they want to be a rough and tough action man but can't bear showing that they've got a bit of money as well. It's fabulously, I mean, you don't need a gold watch to go swimming. Yeah. So you've got this, it's consciously being pitched as an everyday watch for slightly extraordinary men. Yes, I think, yes, Bond,
32:17Nick Foulkes:but then also probably other sort of interesting sort of glamorous people at the time made things like this cool. And especially for young men growing up, like they sort of see this as a, you know, through men, as you say, through the military, through sort of film stars or, you know, the jet set, that there is that element of cool to it. Was it the first watch that people sort of considered to be okay to wear with something like a lounge suit?
32:44Tom Chamberlin:Do people really give a shit these days? Well, no, well, I mean... I mean, you and I are looking like a couple of dinosaurs here wearing ties, whereas our crew are sensibly dressed. Well, yeah, they're properly dressed. They got comfortable shoes, for example, open neck shirts.
32:56Nick Foulkes:This is exactly my point that I make, which is that if you're trying to flog the idea of dressing sort of more sartorially to the rest of the world, don't put up too many barriers.
33:04Tom Chamberlin:So I think that those distinctions are very silly. Yes. And I think the tenor and the taste is not made by us, Tom. It's made by the Met Gala red carpet. Of course. And there you see anything goes. Yeah, and shows that our opinion is worth it. It absolutely matters, not one shot.
33:21Nick Foulkes:So if you're listening to this, you've wasted your time. So do you see the Submariner today in its original, how it was originally envisioned as a sort of functional tool watch? Is it a cool watch? What is it today? Because it's so interesting to people and it's so widely in demand that it must hold something today that is distinct from other Rolexes, perhaps.
33:48Tom Chamberlin:It's hugely collectible because there are so many different references. So, you know, some of them measured in hundreds. So it's got that collecting thing that you can go on a quest for it, which is nice for a collector. Rolex collecting, and again, I'm probably about to be lynched, is not far removed from stamp collecting in certain ways. No, I think that's a very, very, very opposite comparison. In that they said it's philatelic detail. Philatelic cosmetic details can add tens of thousands to the value of a watch, or even, dare I say, six-figure sums. And it strikes me as ludicrous and not paying enough respect to the product.
34:24Tom Chamberlin:The product is something, it's an engineered product that is historically important, that is known the world over. And yet all you're worried about is a couple of lines of type on the dial signifying it's this or that. It's like a penny black and a penny red. And if you've got Queen Victoria's profile slightly out or something like that on the register. And put simply, it's a great watch. It's a great size. I mean, small watches are fashionable at the moment. I like small watches. I've got many of them. But, you know, for a size of a watch, you want to read the time at a glance and know the information that you're...
34:53Tom Chamberlin:You have a dive computer now anywhere on your wrist, so this is irrelevant. But still, it should be able to do what it says it can do. And it does that admirably. Whether... I mean, what accounts... I mean, I think the whole James Bond thing is important. Yeah. The whole military thing is important. The whole fact that the planet is covered with more water than land must have a bearing on this as well. The fact that they stick around, it's an incredibly, what's that fashionable term these people were supposed to do? Sustainable, that's what I'm looking for. It's a very sustainable product. You make it, and unless you actually fucking put it in a nuclear bomb or something like that, it will continue to function.
35:38Tom Chamberlin:And if it stops, what you need to do is get some guy to take the back off and drip a bit of oil in and it starts again. So, I mean, it's a fantastic thing. And also, its collectability resides in the constant consistency of the product. You have only, in the first century, you have only three CEOs, which is remarkable.
35:57Nick Foulkes:That is remarkable. If someone was going to go buy a, or go on the hunt for a Submariner today, Is there one in particular that you suggest they get? Is it one of the hard-to-find ones, or is it just a standard new one with the black bezel, etc.?
36:17Tom Chamberlin:If you want a contemporary one, I would buy the bog-standard, no-date, simple steel. It's a great watch. I think it's interesting. We've got the green bezel here, for example. That's funny. That was brought out in 2003, the first green bezel. and it was the then chairman, Patrick Heinegger, wanted to celebrate the anniversary. I think it was 50 years. And he came in, and normally the Swiss water industry moves at a glacial pace or at a pace that makes glaciers look sort of like Hussain Bolt. And he said, I want this. And it's just bearing in mind that Basel Fair is a matter of weeks away. And he says, I want a celebratory model, please, to celebrate.
36:56Tom Chamberlin:And all they could do was put a green bezel on it. All they could do in time was create the aluminum bezel insert. That's ceramic, the one you've got there, but the aluminum bezel insert. And it proved to be one. I mean, they sold almost 200 ,000 of these things. Yeah. I mean, that is a nice place to start. If you want something that's a bit out of the ordinary, a bit of historical importance, not too murderously expensive, especially now the price to come off a bit, will work like a normal watch. So you can actually, unless you really do it damage, you can wear it every day without worrying about it.
37:31Tom Chamberlin:And that's the great thing about these watches is that, I mean, I was swimming. I've got a very early old GMT, and I was swimming with it and going on. When I wrote my book about Beretta, I was going sort of on adventures with it through the woods of South Carolina and all this kind of stuff. I got back and I flew from America to Switzerland because it was a GPHG, and then I went on the tour of the Auckland Houses that evening. And the guy behind the counter looked at me in sort of awe and I said, oh, no, I'm that famous. And he said, no, no, no, what you're wearing on your wrist. And I said, oh, this.
38:02Tom Chamberlin:And I handed it to him and he said, it's amazing, I haven't seen one of these. And I thought, well, hang on a second, what am I doing? But the thing's only safe and I never wear it now because obviously I don't want to destroy its value. But I was wearing it until relatively recently as an everyday watch. And so that is a big part of the appeal is that you can actually wear it like you would a normal watch. I mean, with my other watches, it's a question of you pull out a thing and I've got some El Cartier's. Try to set the time, maybe the stem, maybe the winding stem comes out. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:31Tom Chamberlin:But with these things, they are bulletproof. So I would start with that one. But then you've also got the Deep Sea Challenge, which is a humongous thing.
38:41Nick Foulkes:Yeah, this is a watch of genuine significance rather than just sort of, you know, style slash TikTok frenzy.
38:52Tom Chamberlin:Yeah, it's more than somebody just said, okay, we're going to make... It's written the code for the diving watch. There's a reason why diving watches look like that.
38:58Nick Foulkes:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:58Tom Chamberlin:And that's because Rolex made them like that. Yes. And I know that there are people who can say there were waterproof watches before. There was actually a waterproof pocket watch on the exhibition, at the Great Exhibition in 1851. So the waterproofing of watches has been around for a while, but it took Rolex to domesticate it, if you like.
39:16Nick Foulkes:Yes, the design, it wasn't necessarily only appropriate for the Great Exhibition or something. Yeah, yeah. You can have it at your home.
39:22Tom Chamberlin:Anybody can make anything. Not anybody, but it's very easy to make a prototype.
39:26Nick Foulkes:Yes, I totally, totally get that. Whenever I see people come out with concept cars and things like that, I'm like, well, I mean, it's sort of a pointless thing to look at because anybody can sort of just make a one-off thing in a factory if they've got the money and time to do it. But the point is that what are you going to send up to market? And I think that that's the interesting thing with the Submariner and what I'm hearing from you is that ultimately the difference between what Rolex made specifically to be for divers, for scientists, for the military, is exactly the same thing that you're able to get as a regular human being.
39:58Tom Chamberlin:Yes, and also, because they're quite conservatively managed, you have a watch that has... My psychological, homemade psychological insight is that I've grown up with advertising for Rolex of a watch that looks quite similar to when I reach my maturity, whenever that may be. I will be able to say, that is the watch that I remember seeing pictures of. It was altered slightly, but not enough to have dimmed that sort of childhood passion, you know? Yeah, absolutely.
40:27Nick Foulkes:So perfect. Well, I think that anyone who's been listening to this, if they've not dozed off, have emerged knowing more than they came in with. And for that, I enormously thank you, Nick, for and let's do all of the families. Yes, why not? as and when they come out. We can do this. But thank you very much for introducing us to The Samaritan. It's only an introduction,
40:53Tom Chamberlin:of course, and there's plenty of literature out there, and there are many websites available with conflicting opinions. Buy the book. Yeah, well, yes. Buy the book and then read the comments. Buy the book first, because if you read the comments, you'll be put off buying it.
41:03Nick Foulkes:Yeah, fair enough. And thank you very much for joining. Thank you. I remain Tom Chamberlain, and this has been The Luxury Dispatch, the podcast that tells all the stories you didn't realize you wanted to know and answers all the questions you are yet to ask. Please do like, subscribe, and if you have any comments, we look forward to reading them. Agree? Disagree? Suggest other topics you'd like to hear us cover? No review will go unread. Thank you for listening.
From the publisher
The Rolex Submariner isn’t just a watch – it’s the blueprint for the modern dive watch and one of the most recognisable objects in luxury.
In this episode of The Luxury Dispatch, Tom Chamberlin is joined by watch historian and author Nick Foulkes to explore how a tool built for divers, scientists and the military became a global cultural symbol worn by explorers, movie heroes and collectors alike.
From Hans Wilsdorf’s obsession with precision to the Oyster case, the rise of underwater exploration, the James Bond effect, military testing, early prototypes, the Deep Sea Special, and why today’s Submariner still looks like the one you saw in childhood advertising – this is the full story of an icon.
Nick also breaks down the myths, the folklore, the collector frenzy, the military lore, the engineering breakthroughs and the psychological appeal that makes the Submariner a watch that “never fails to proceed.”
Buy Nick's book, The definitive history of the Oyster Perpetual Datejust, here - https://www.wallpaper.com/store
The Luxury Dispatch is produced by Listen, a Platform Media label.
Chapters
00:00 What Makes the Submariner Unique for Everyone
00:38 The Rolex Deep Dive Begins
01:22 The Origins of Rolex & Hans Wilsdorf
04:00 The Oyster Case: Precision Above All
09:00 The Three Ages of the Submariner
15:02 Underwater Exploration Changes Everything
20:52 Rolex Conquers the Mariana Trench
27:40 Bond, Pop Culture & the Icon Era
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