Before reading any further a great deal of the following information has been supplied to me by owners of Red Submariner and my sincere thanks go to them. From the information supplied I have attempted to clarify the many questions that surround this model and glean a definitive time scale for the various events within its history. However, definites in this world are few and far between and the history of Rolex watch production is not one of them.

Within this 12 year period the Red Submariner is widely believed to be produced for the first 6 years, ‘66-73. Although this would seem equal in length to the later White Submariner, ie 73 - 80, it must be remembered that many original Red Submariners have now been serviced and as such, many would have had their original red dials replaced with the standard white dials.

Although it has been said that it was between 66-73, this cannot be certain. There are at least two issues that throw some doubt on this statement. The first being the existence of various publicity photos of this watch being used to publicise the Submariner as late as 1979, 6 years after the supposed white Submariner had been introduced.

For example a Bucherer catalogue (a leading Swiss seller of Rolexes) dated January 1974 show the Red variety of Submariner and National Geographic magazines carrying Rolex adverts again show the Red variety and are dated November 1975. I believe that these photos do not represent the actual watch being produced at the time. Rolex, or their advertising agencies, were simply using stock photographs to show the Submariner and whether the writing was in red or white was academic, at the end of the day the picture was of a 1680 Submariner, the watch being produced and sold at the time.

Simply put the Red Submariner, allocated Model number 1680, was on of the first Rolex Oyster Perpetual Submariners that incorporated a date function. I say one of the first Submariners as the 1680 Submariner was produced in two guises. The earlier models had the word Submariner written in red and the later in white. Up to this point the Submariner, having been produced for over 10 years with differing model numbers, had never had a date function.

It was not the first Rolex Sports watch to carry a date, this honour arguably goes to the Rolex GMT Master, Model # 6542, but many collectors still seek out the watch. This is undoubtedly because of all or some of the RedSubmariner features. It is fitted with a bi-directional bezel, a matt dial with tritium luminous material applied directly to its surface, a thick synthetic plastic crystal, a date feature, a chronometer rated movement and of course its increasing rarity.

One of the many questions that are asked about the Red Submariner has to do with the length of its production run. The general school of thought is that production for the 1680 submariner was approximately 1966 to 1980 when it was superseded by the first sapphire crystal equipped Submariner, 16800.

This argument is strengthened by an even more potentially damaging piece of advertising. Most watches supplied by Rolex have a booklet included to show and explain the function of a particular watch.

One of these booklets for the Submariner/Sea-Dweller range clearly shows the Red Submariner, yet its publication date is IX 1979.

Rolex 5513 non-date Submariner