Rolex Oyster Perpetual Sea Dweller 4000 Mens Watch 16600-BSO

Buy & Review Rolex Oyster Perpetual Sea Dweller 4000 Mens Watch 16600-BSO From Rolex

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2 new or used available from $300.00

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Product Description

Stainless steel case and bracelet. Black dial. Date displays at 3 o'clock position. Unidirectional rotating bezel. Helium escape valve. Synthetic sapphire crystal. Case diameter 40mm. 31 jewel chronometer automatic movement. Water resistant at 1220 meters (4000 feet).

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7978 in Watches
• Brand: Rolex

Customer Reviews

built like a DSRV
Ok, so this is my second one, first is at the bottom of a very large drink, lost after blowing an air hose gasket and emergency ascent, the choice was I could always buy another... but it was difficult!! We did go back and look for it, and if anyone did find it they didn't own up to it. :(

These watches will take absolutely any abuse possible under any dive conditions from fanatically double knifing your way up a sea wall against the down current to whacking against gear and stone and steel and...pretty much anything made by man or gods... underwater or above for that matter. Hey "better than I need" always does fine with me!

To me reason for the lack of date magnification is pretty simple, if you need to know what day it is on any dive, you are already dead, or severely narc'd. Even when I've been narc'd I have never, ever, wanted to check my watch to see what day it is.

I wear this watch diving as a sort of "I'll bet not just my life but my trusted dive buddy too" back up for if both our fancy DC's go fubar.... which HAS happened - as will darn near anything if you dive too much. The one thing that WONT happen is for this watch to be a part of any problem.

If you are healthy enough to dive you probably are healthy enough to walk, especially for that brewski, so winding the thing is handled easily by repeated trips to the cooler, fridge, or bar. Or if you don't drink... you get the picture... no bat's to wonder about.

A watch that will change your view of watches
A sweet diving watch that is designed as a tool watch. I would personally never wear this watch while scuba diving because my dive computer tells time fine and costs a lot less. But you CAN dive in this watch and even do saturation diving and some guys do. These are classic, tough, gorgeous watches.

They often make a big impact on people who get them. A Sea Dweller is much more than the sum of its parts, but to start with, here is my view of the parts.

-- it is very solid and somewhat heavy. At 40mm across, I find it not too heavy -- unlike some beefy Omegas one could name

-- the oyster case is little changed since it was pioneered by Rolex for the first waterproof watches in 1926. This one is built like a tank and is milled from a solid block of ridiculously expensive 904L stainless steel.

-- the sapphire crystal is the thickest I have ever seen on a watch. You will not break it with anything short of a hammer. Note that there is no cyclops magnifier for reading the date like you find on most Rolexes.

-- the dial is a work of art and one of the most copied in history. You can read it without your glasses and it glows nicely in the dark.

-- great bezel that is useful even above water. No play and a positive click (counterclockwise only, so that bumping the bezel while diving makes you think you have spent MORE time underwater, not less -- so you spend too much time decompressing, not too little).

-- the bracelet is over-engineered (the links are bigger than the standard Submariners, even if some sites say otherwise). It is not a hair-grabber. The clasp has an extension to make the watch easy to fit over a wet suit (this thing really is made for diving). Unfortunately this extension is a flimsy bit of tin that has no place on an otherwise magnificent watch (new watches come with a spare).

-- You can wear it anywhere with anything from a business suit to a wet suit and it looks great. Rolex has changed this watch very little in 30+ years so it is often thought of as a "been there, done that" Rolex.

The watch that conveys a sense of adventure and a sense of humor. That would be the unobtrusive "helium escape valve" at 9 o'clock. This valve makes sure that the next time you are ascending in your a Deep Submergence Vehicle from 4000 feet, the compressed helium that has snuck into your watch has a way to get out without damaging the works or blowing the crystal off. I know I sleep a lot better with THAT problem out of the way! (Note that all divers for COMEX, the prestigious French deep sea research and operations company wear Sea Dwellers. These guys work in very fancy submersibles and breathe helium at depths far beyond the reach of free divers. The record for Scuba is about 1,000 feet, so the watch will withstand any open water diving just fine even if many of us would rather beat up something that costs a bit less while diving.)

The only downside to the watch is, of course, the price. You can easily save $1k on the auction site that dare not speak its name and if you bottom feed a little you cans save more. I grabbed one there with the stickers still on it for $3k. Or search Grovana for a decent quality Swiss diver's watch modeled after the Sea Dweller for about 10% of the price. You can also get high quality Swiss Rolex replicas for about $900 but the karma is compromised and you cannot dive in them. Some of these are amazingly good copies however and only your jeweler will know for sure...

Sea-dweller owners can be a bit fanatic about this watch -- we are a rowdy sub-species of Rolex owners. I had a dozen nicely restored vintage watches. I confess that I sold three of them to buy a Sea Dweller and would sell most of the others before I let this one go.

All others can't compare
The best dive watch that a serious watch lover or scuba diver can own. Solid, clean looking and classy. I've used mine on deep dives with no problems whatsoever other than a corroded spring pin from always forgetting to rinse it well with fresh water after diving. oops. What first drew me to this watch is that it doesn't have that ugly magnifying glass window over the date like other Rolex watches have. It keeps the lines of the watch clean. If you are ever looking for the pinnacle of diver watches, you've found it in the sea-dweller.