A record for a Rolex Submariner with the rare explorer dial has been set at Anderson & Garland in the UK.
 While the watch set a record for its type, it was a long way off the record for any Rolex Submariner |
The watch, estimated at just £2,000-3,000, sold for £86,000 ($140,825) on December 4 , making a 2,766% increase on valuation. According to the auction house, the previous record for a watch of this type was £62,000 ($101,525).
There are just 50 known examples of the explorer dial (also known as the 369) watch in the world, though apparently an even rarer example does exist, which shows both an underline and a double print "<25T".
The auction record for any Rolex Submariner was set in December 2012 by a Tiffany & Co-signed example used in the James Bond movie Dr No. It sold for $284,500 against a $60,000 estimate at Christie's.
2013 sees the 50th anniversary of one of Rolex's most popular watches, the Daytona. Christie's celebrated the occasion with a dedicated auction in Geneva, where a Paul Newman Daytona with a rare dial and screw-down pushers sold for $1m to set a new record for the model.
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