A basket case mil sub

[dexvd]

Was having a christmas visit with my mother's ex who was my step father for ~18 years last night. My girl friend was mentioning her competitive swimming and he mentioned his father had been a navy diver and they used to make them swim the length of the ship under the water with just a mask on and if they came up before the end they would have to go back and do it again.

I had been previously aware of his father being a navy diver and when I was like maybe 6 or 7 seeing an old Rolex that had belonged to him that was broken. I asked my former step father if his father had a military issued Rolex Submariner, and he said yeah but the dial (he meant crystal) and hands are missing off it (which sucks since mil subs have special and super valuable hands). I'm going to get him to find it though next time he's at his mother's place and I'm going to track down the stuff to reassemble it, I can't remember what it looked like but it does have a black dial and it sounds like it does have the military engraving on the back so it may be a real military sub. Apparently years ago they took it somewhere and they sent it to Rolex and they wouldn't fix it, but I think now via the power of the internet I should be able to track down the stuff it needs to go again, while possibly compromising a lot of the originality.

Would be super cool though if he does find it for me and I can restore it (getting crystal and non original hands for it, repairing or servicing the movement) and get it going again.

Would be awesome to actually find the original crystal and hands but I got a feeling they are long gone the watch has been sitting in a drawer for at least 20 years. Not really sure on how it was broken but I will be pumped to see if it actually has the military issue engravings on the case back.

[omitohud]

Good luck n please share with us ur findings. 👍


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[dysondiver]

nice to have a project ,,, hope it goes well ,

look forwards to the pictures

[andromeda160]

Looking forward to pics

[Haywood_Milton]

Do we know the period in which the navy diver will have served? Was it perhaps the 1970s-1980s or, potentially even more excitingly from a watch point of view, the 1960s?

I think there will be many here interested to know more of the watch and its history, as well as to see pictures.

Thanks for posting,

Haywood M

[dexvd]

I don't know all the details of his service, the original owner of the watch passed probably 10 years ago now (I was a pallbearer). From what I can remember in conversation from my step father was that he did at least some of his service on the HMCS Bonaventure, as it was decommissioned in 1970 I am to believe that he probably acquired the watch pre-1970. But as of now I can only recall seeing it once as a child, my step father could confirm that it was a rolex with a black dial, so I don't have much to go off of until then. Once we start getting some snow however we usually use my step father's mother's home as a starting point when we snowmobile so I expect to be making a trip there sometime in mid to late January depending on the snow, perhaps I will be able to get him to check it out and take a few photos of it before that if he makes a trip down earlier. At this point the watch probably wouldn't end up in my possession but my step father may claim it and from there I could hopefully assist him on getting the watch re-assembled and serviced so that it is working again.

From what I have seen it appears original sword style hands for mil subs are super expensive to acquire, not sure if that is what this watch would have used as I haven't seen it in person since I have become aware of the existence of things like reference numbers and the rarity of mil subs.

[linesiders]

Great heirloom potential. My dad was a spy so all he had was some cheap Casio

A 60s or early 70s ROLEX sub with sword hands would likely be RN and starting in the 70s. If he was Canadian Navy it could be an issued earlier without sword hands, or even perhaps a Tudor issued sub (the hands maybe being snowflake, not sword). Really looking forward to seeing what they have. Fantastic story and look forward to hearing more