Rolex

GMT Master II Watches

History of Rolex GMT Master II

Rolex is not an ordinary but an attentive watchmaker, as they care about every little detail of each profession when making their watches, which also explains why some also call the Rolex as the "Master of tool-watches". It is liked by a lot of the sportsmen and adventurers for its unique design and development of watches catering their needs. One example of such a timepiece is the Rolex GMT Master wristwatch.

Being part of the Rolex's professional watch collection, the Rolex GMT Master was originally co-designed with Pan American Airways for their cabin crews of long-haul flights. With a 24-hour display, the original Rolex GMT Master watch was directly linked to fourth hand compilation which was also capable of displaying the same time zone as the standard 12-hour hand. The crews could then utilise this GMT hand to set the standard time zone on their watches, and they could also read the second time zone by setting to the correct offset by the rotatable 24-hour scale bezel.

So can you guess what this name of the watch exactly means? In fact, the GMT here stands for Greenwich Mean Time, which is also the Coordinated Universal Time that is seen by the world as the primary time in standardising clocks and watches.

Let's take a look at the history of GMT-Master II.

Rolex GMT Master 1675

Released in 1959 and produced until 1980, it is one of the popular vintage GMT-Master collections that is not too difficult to get your hands on for its longer production period. The watch was produced with an extra hour hand with a small triangle till the late 1960s, while in the 1970s it was changed to a red hand with a larger traingle. Those models produced earlier also featured pointed crown guards and a chapter ring. This model was also the first sports watch of Rolex which come with both the Jubilee bracelet (reference 62510) and oyster bracelet (reference 78630).

Rolex GMT Master 16750

A new movement and the glossy dial were launched with this model of the Rolex GMT-Master. Rolex started adopting the 3075 caliber movement and a quick-set date from this model onwards. It was first released in 1980 and was manufactured till 1988. Rolex launched the GMT-Master II after the GMT-Master, with almost the exact same design but with improvement on the watch movement that is capable of adjusting the quickset hour hand separately, which would not stop or disturb the seconds and minute hand while setting the local time of the watch.

Rolex GMT Master II 16760

Also named as "The Fat Lady" or known as "Sophia Loren", the Rolex GMT-Master II was launched with the reference 16760. This new model had an advanced feature of enabling the reading of three time zones. In addition, it had a thicker case, crown guards and sapphire crystal. It was made with a red or black bezel only which people called it the "coke" configuration. For its movement, the 3085 calibers were used.

GMT Master II 16700 and 16710

Ref.16750 of Rolex GMT-Master II was replaced by ref. 16700 and ref.16710 became the next-in-line of the Fat Lady. The tritium dials were replaced by Super Luminova. The major change between these models was the movement, with ref. 16700 using caliber 3175 and ref.16710 using caliber 3185.

In 2018, the newest GMT-Master II Pepsi 126710 BLRO was released in the Baselworld, featuring the bezel produced with two-color cerachrom with red and blue ceramic inserted. It is available in Oyster steel together with the Jubilee bracelet.

Other well liked references and names of the GMT-Master II Model include the ‘Bruiser' or known as ‘Rolex Batman', the ‘Rolex Coke', the ‘Rolex Root Beer’ or ‘Rolex Dirty Harry’ and many more.

The Rolex GMT-Master II is the perfect choice if you travel a lot. It also matches with various occasions from formal meetings to leisure holidays. Rolex GMT-Master is an all-time champion.