Vintage Rolex 1665 Sea Dweller

Vintage Watch Condition Examination:

This watch is in overall good, honest vintage condition. The case is in great condition with light wear; it appears to have been polished. The inside caseback is correctly stamped “1665” and the corresponding serial number. The bezel insert is in great condition with normal wear; the pip is a later replacement. The dial is in attractive condition with light patina; the edge of the dial at five o’clock has a chip. The two lines of red text have remained vibrant. The lume on the dial has developed patina and aged to a lovely marshmallow color. The hands have developed patina and the lume has aged a bit darker than the lume on the dial with a yellow hue. The bracelet is in great condition with normal wear and light stretch between the links. 

Description: Rolex Sea-Dweller 1665 Double Red

Sea-Dwellers in general are some of the rarest vintage Rolex sports models out there. Rolex introduced the celebrated model in 1967 and they still make it today. The Sea-Dweller was developed for use by professional deep-sea saturation divers, particularly with its inclusion of a “Helium Escape Valve” or “HEV” on the 9 o’clock side of the case to help the watch survive decompression from dry, pressurized environments. The earliest Sea-Dweller examples had red printing and are called “Single Red” because of the one line of red text about the 6 o’clock marker, while the “Double Red” (featured here) features the words “Sea-Dweller” and “Submariner 2000” in red text above the 6 o’clock marker. Rolex made the double red version until around 1978 and at that point they switched to all white text. Rolex continued to use all white text on the Sea-Dweller until 2017 when they re-introduced the 43mm 50th anniversary version with a single line of red text.

The example we have here today has the two lines of red text on the dial and is from circa 1978. It features a mark IV dial which is the last version of the DRSD dial. This DRSD has aged nicely over the years from the well preserved bezel to the creamy lume, this thing just sings in the light. In addition this comes with it’s box and papers and when looking at the papers they are stamped from the retailer “Watches of Switzerland” from an AD in Glasgow, Scotland.