Questions around Submariner Date 1990-1995

[Steviadition]

Hey,

first of all: Thanks for letting me join the forum. I got into watches around a year ago and loving my Steinhart Ocean One (please dont hate) quickly realized, that my favorite watch indeed is the Submariner Date. I had two models on my wrist for a day and it looks and feels amazing. I looked at alternatives but wether its Tudor or Omega or Sinn - dont get me wrong, awesome watches - but i didnt fall in love as much as with this rolex model.

As I am not really into buy factory new products and value history more than scratches, i would love to buy a submariner from my year of birth 1993, symbolically for my final exams in around 8 months and for some other achivements. Feels like a nice reward for myself and i'm sure to happily wear this watch on a near daily basis.

My concern: In the 90s rolex used changed a couple of details and the "vintage" submariner changed a lot since then. As fas as i know, I should be expecting a aluminum bezel, maybe a weaker glas, no laser crown, some font changes. It's really hard to puzzle those information together to exactly know if a certain offer is legit. Another hurdle of course is to find a right dealer.

So my three questions are:
- Does a thread / page / book exist where the changed details of the submariner are listed with their time period? I couldn't find a trustworthy source and forum posts seemed contradicting or confusing.

- What are your experience with "vintage" watches on chronext / chrono24? Their policies pretty much say, that going to my local dealer for checking the authentity voids any warranty on said authentity. If in doubt, contact their service and trust, that they are legit and solve your case rightfully. As it is my first 5k+ watch, I am a little more careful than usually. especially since the sub is one of the most faked watches and its clones seem to be scaringly close to the real deal for me as a non-pro.

- This might be a little bit of a long shot, but does one of your by chance have a sub date from 1993 for sale? :D Willing to travel around europe for making the deal and money is liquid within a month. Papers would be a huge plus. I will have a closer look at your sell sub forum.

Thanks for your time. I hope I respected the terms of your site and believe me, I really did my research as far as I could before reaching out to you. Greetings from Germany!

[swish77]

The 16610 didn't really change from 1990-1995, so you don't need to worry about it. (Perhaps there were some infinitesimal font variations, but I don't think so.)

A 1993 Sub date is very obtainable, even a full set. Just be patient and do a ton of homework on the reference so you can identify the original parts versus service parts. Try to get one with patina on the tritium. Those are beautiful.

Chrono24 should be treated like a collection of used-car salesmen, with some good sellers and some bad. I'd also look elsewhere, including recommended dealers on this forum and VRF. You could also use an app like WatchRecon and add your search criteria. You can even set it up for alerts for your specific watch hunt.

Here's what a full set looks like: https://www.hqmilton.com/timepieces/...nd-papers-2514

Good luck!

[Steviadition]

Hey, thanks,

sounds promising.

So, do you think with knowing certain criterias about submariners that a private seller would be a valid alternative? I try to get as informed as possible, but still, we are talking about quite a sum of money, that burns down to literally zero when I mess something up :D

[Mansell92]

Good luck :)

[springer]

Originally Posted by swish77

The 16610 didn't really change from 1990-1995, so you don't need to worry about it. (Perhaps there were some infinitesimal font variations, but I don't think so.)

A 1993 Sub date is very obtainable, even a full set. Just be patient and do a ton of homework on the reference so you can identify the original parts versus service parts. Try to get one with patina on the tritium. Those are beautiful.

Chrono24 should be treated like a collection of used-car salesmen, with some good sellers and some bad. I'd also look elsewhere, including recommended dealers on this forum and VRF. You could also use an app like WatchRecon and add your search criteria. You can even set it up for alerts for your specific watch hunt.

Here's what a full set looks like: https://www.hqmilton.com/timepieces/...nd-papers-2514

Good luck!

That box is about ten years newer than the watch.