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Ocean Boulevard Uno: Rolex "Z" series Sea-Dweller


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The day it was announced that Rolex will discontinue their long-running offering of Rolex Sea-Dweller (SD) in 40mm, I thought to myself: Could this be the gravest mistake in the horological world? Perhaps...maybe not. Different schools of thoughts will always be omnipresent with regards to phasing out of a watch model.

My long-running "Z-series" wrist-companion has been with me for the past 2 years. After tossing and turning with a wide array of MBW Vintages, it dawned upon me that it was time that I took a leap on a Rolex Sports Model. So I went into an AD to slowly take my pick. There were about 8-9 Sea-Dwellers in store at that time. I went through each and every one with great attention paid to detail, and my guess is as good as yours: There are variations on the dials. The year was 2006, Rolex was churning out "Z" series rolexes from Bienne and I was thinking to myself, how could there be any variations?

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What variation am I talking about? Fonts. The "Sea-Dweller" fonts on 7-8 other Rolexes were of an "Arial" looking design. There was only 1, the Uno amongst them all, that had the Vintage Font. The letters was visibly spotting edges around the angles, especially the "A". Pardon my picture above but I should have taken a clearer picture with time at 10:08.

To be spending a couple of grand on a watch which will most likely be with me for a long time to come, I felt that I had to choose one that speaks to me the most. This one with the weird fonts was sitting tightly with me at the shop, never leaving my eye. Next thing to check with the crown. None of the Sea-Dwellers there had a crown, when locked down, that had the "Rolex Crown Logo" lined upwards (with the 3 dots at the bottom), except for the one that I have singled out.

This was the day I thought to myself. That Sea-Dweller was destined to be mine and has remained till today. I have been wearing this timepiece as often as I can. The first scratch was a deep one on the bracelet. At first, it felt like a stake through my heart. But as time wore on, the notion of keeping a watch perfect in every way has dissipated. The scars on my Sea-Dweller are captures of the moment in time that have flashed by in my life, and will be stories that will be told and shared with my future generation. Timepieces are meant to be worn and never will I think of polishing the case, regardless of what dings or scratches that may come.

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Hey... good post. And a great classic watch you have there! I simply dislike the DeepSea... it's ugly as hell while the classic Dweller is simply classy and amazing.

The amount of small variations between the models is unbelievable. My favorite Rolex, 16710 has plenty of those as well. It's always funny when someone thinks that he's a "Rolex expert" and tells you that your "date mag isn't big enough" or that SWISS ' MADE is wrong, for example... or that II / || marking on the GMT MASTER. Lots of variation there, and some transitional models used only SWISS.

Real expert can always detect the gen from the case and overall look.

And I 100% agree about the scratches. Stainless steel tool watch like SeaDweller isn't designed to be babied. Babying your stainless steel sports watches (to the extremes) is simply gay, imho. I'm very easy on my watches but I don't care about small scratches on the watch... it's an old clich

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Hey... good post. And a great classic watch you have there! I simply dislike the DeepSea... it's ugly as hell while the classic Dweller is simply classy and amazing.

The amount of small variations between the models is unbelievable. My favorite Rolex, 16710 has plenty of those as well. It's always funny when someone thinks that he's a "Rolex expert" and tells you that your "date mag isn't big enough" or that SWISS ' MADE is wrong, for example... or that II / || marking on the GMT MASTER. Lots of variation there, and some transitional models used only SWISS.

Real expert can always detect the gen from the case and overall look.

And I 100% agree about the scratches. Stainless steel tool watch like SeaDweller isn't designed to be babied. Babying your stainless steel sports watches (to the extremes) is simply gay, imho. I'm very easy on my watches but I don't care about small scratches on the watch... it's an old clich

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