Only Rolex Could Get Away With Making a Dive Watch Like This

Some products exist not to fulfill a need in the market, but simply because they can exist. This is one such product.

No one needs a solid gold dive watch capable of surviving depths down to 3,900 meters. But the fact that such a product was even created is a testament to Rolex’s ingenuity and creativity.

No other brand could pull off this watch. No other brand would even attempt to.

Rolex

The watch is unapologetically absurd. It’s 17.7mm thick and weighs more than 300 grams. But despite its ludicrous nature, it’s also an incredible feat of engineering. 

Rolex very easily could have created a version of the watch with a lower depth rating. No one is diving anywhere close to 3,900 meters, anyway. But that’s not the way Rolex does things. 

Instead, the brand took every measure to make sure this massive hunk of gold was one of the most capable dive watches in the world, practicality be damned.

This dive watch has no real reason to exist, but I’m glad it does. Photo by Jack Seemer for Gear Patrol

That meant engineering a caseback and helium escape valve out of titanium since gold would be crushed in those positions at the pressures this watch needs to withstand.

The watch lives simultaneously as an extreme luxury item and an overbuilt tool, and there’s simply nothing else like it.

This product is part of the GP100, our annual roundup of the year’s most important releases. To see what else made the cut, check out the GP100 collection page. Gear Patrol