Rolex Submariner 1680: Reference Guide

The Submariner 1680 is the first Rolex Submariner with a date window, introduced in the late 1960s alongside the no-date 5513 and made until around 1980. It has a 40mm steel case, a matte black dial, a black rotating bezel and an acrylic crystal with a cyclops over the date.

Adding a date to the Submariner was a bigger change than it sounds. It brought the caliber 1575 from the GMT-Master, the cyclops from the Datejust, and a wider audience who wanted a dive watch that also worked at a desk. The 1680 sits between the pure tool-watch 5513 and the sapphire-crystal 16800 that followed, and for many collectors it is the best of both: a vintage matte dial and acrylic crystal on a watch that still tells the date.

The 1680 was produced from about 1967 to 1980, always with the caliber 1575, which gained hacking seconds around 1972.

Every 1680 dial is matte black with white printing and painted tritium lume; there is no gilt 1680. The generations are sorted by the color of the word Submariner. From the start of production until roughly 1973 the word was printed in red, and these Red Subs are further divided into Mark I through Mark VI by the depth-rating text (meters first or feet first) and small printing differences. From the mid-1970s the word was printed in white, and the white-dial watches ran to the end. The gold 1680/8 followed the same pattern with a black or blue dial. Bracelets moved from folded-link Oyster to solid-link late in the run.

The red-text dials from the first several years are the most valuable, with the earliest meters-first marks at the top; white-text dials are more common and less expensive, and any 1680 whose bezel insert has faded evenly to grey, a ghost bezel, carries a premium over a fresh black one.

Among Red Subs the mark numbers matter to price and are invisible to most owners. What we care more about is whether the dial is original to the watch. Red dials were replaced with white service dials for decades, so a white dial on an early serial is common and should be priced as a service dial, not a rarity. On white-dial watches the appeal is the lume: full, even cream plots that match the hands. A dial with even tropical browning is scarcer still.

Check that the dial text matches the serial range, that the bezel insert and hands are original, that the case has not been over-polished, and that the movement is the caliber 1575 with a clean service record.

A Submariner has more replaceable parts than an Explorer and has spent more of its life being serviced, so verification takes longer. Our checklist:

• Case: lug bevels intact, crown guards full and symmetrical, reference and serial legible between the lugs.
• Dial: red or white text as expected for the serial; matte surface intact; lume plots even and matching the hands.
• Hands: Mercedes hands with lume the same color as the dial plots; luminous relume glows bright and white.
• Bezel: original insert with the correct font and a lume pearl at 12; a faded ghost insert should be evenly grey, not patchy.
• Bracelet: 9315 or 93150 Oyster with 280 or 580 end links and a clasp code in period.
• Movement: caliber 1575, hacking if post-1972, with the date wheel and cyclops aligned.
• Service history: crown, tube and gaskets replaced recently enough to trust the water resistance.

The 1680 has been steadily collected for a long time, and honest examples have held up well in our experience; we still would not buy one as a financial instrument.

The reference benefits from being a Submariner, which is the most recognized dive watch there is, and from the Red Sub story that draws new buyers every year. It suffers from the same things every serviced sports Rolex suffers from: replaced dials, replaced inserts, polished cases and mismatched hands, all of which are hard to see in photographs and all of which affect price. The 5513 offers a similar experience for less because it lacks the date, and a good 5513 is sometimes the better buy. Whichever you choose, condition first, then the story.

A 1680's price depends on whether the dial is red or white, whether the insert, hands and dial are original, how much the case has been polished, and whether it comes with box and papers.

We do not print a range here. See the examples below, listed with their actual sale prices; the 1977 ghost-bezel example was sold watch-only. Elsewhere, compare like with like: an early Red Sub full set and a late white-dial watch-only piece are different markets, and a service dial on an early serial should be priced as the later watch it has become.

The 5513 is the no-date sibling: same 40mm case and bezel, a symmetrical dial with no window, a plain crystal without a cyclops, and the caliber 1520 or 1530 rather than the 1575. It ran longer, from about 1962 to 1989, and had gilt dials in its early years that the 1680 never did.

In practice the choice is aesthetic. Some people cannot live without a date; others find the cyclops spoils the symmetry. The 5513 is usually the less expensive of the two in comparable condition and, being simpler, is slightly easier to verify. Our comparison of the 5513 and 1680 goes through the movements, dials and bracelets in detail, and a separate piece sets the 1680 against the Tudor Submariner 76100, which shares its case.