Rolex Sea-Dweller 'Double Red' DRSD Ref. 1665

A watch for people who lived on the sea floor

In the 1960s, divers began working at depth for days and weeks at a time. In saturation diving, divers live in a pressurized chamber between dives, breathing a helium and oxygen mix, and decompress only once, at the end of the job. The method let them work far deeper and longer than a single dive allowed, but it created a problem nobody had designed a watch for.

Helium atoms are small enough to work their way past a watch's gaskets while the diver sits in the chamber. When the chamber is decompressed, the pressure outside the watch can drop faster than the pressure inside, and the trapped gas looks for the weakest point. On a dive watch of the period that was the seal between crystal and case, and crystals were known to pop off.

The Submariner of the day was rated to 200 meters. Rolex set out to triple that. Its answer to the helium problem was a small one-way valve on the case flank that opens on its own to let gas out during decompression while keeping water out. Rolex filed for a Swiss patent on the design on November 6, 1967 (CH492246), and it was granted on June 15, 1970.

Who first had the idea is told differently by different sources. One account credits Robert A. Barth, a U.S. Navy diver who pioneered saturation diving in the Navy's Genesis and SEALAB programs, with the original one-way valve concept; the same account says an archaeological diver named T. Walker Lloyd brought the idea to Rolex in late 1967. A competing claim holds that another Swiss brand may have built a helium valve first. The sources do not settle it.

Single Red prototypes and the test divers

Before the Double Red there was the Single Red: watches with the new reference 1665 engraved between the lugs and 'SEA-DWELLER' printed in red on one line, with a depth rating of 500 m = 1,650 ft, stated in meters first. Many were built in a thinner Submariner-style case and had no gas valve at all. They went to working divers, research laboratories and the U.S. military to be tested in the field.

Research published with a 2018 Geneva sale counted twelve known Single Red Sea-Dwellers, seven of them without a valve. Their recorded owners read like a roll call of 1960s undersea science: Ian Koblick and Richard A. Waller, aquanauts of the Tektite habitat; Philippe Cousteau; and Dr. Ralph W. Brauer, a hyperbaric researcher who studied high-pressure nervous syndrome. Brauer's watch, serial 1,820,177, is described as the first prototype with a gas escape valve, and he tested it during dives at a hyperbaric center in Marseille.

The watch now called the 'Bob Bradley' Single Red, serial 1,602,913, with a caseback stamped II.67, belonged to Robert Palmer Bradley, a naval pilot and marine biologist who flew the Deepstar-4000 research submersible. Rolex is believed to have given it to him in November 1968 to mark the submersible's 500th dive; worn traces of the name 'Bob' and the date '11.08' survive on the caseback. Its serial suggests it may be the earliest Single Red made.

U.S. Navy diver Chuck E. Gross later described receiving a Patent Pending Sea-Dweller after joining the Navy Experimental Diving Unit in Washington in 1967, in exchange for written reports on its performance during saturation dives to 600 and 750 feet and chamber tests to 1,000 feet of seawater. He was allowed to keep the watch when testing ended.

Comex, and a story that got rewritten

For years the Sea-Dweller's origin was told as a Rolex partnership with the French commercial diving company Comex, and several catalog essays still say so. Rolex did adapt Submariners for Comex: modified 5513s and then a dedicated reference 5514, fitted with the valve and made for the company rather than for sale.

Later research complicates the neat version. Documents from two divers who tested consecutive Patent Pending Sea-Dwellers, serials ending 464 and 465, show that Rolex loaned the watches for trials with several diving companies, not only Comex. A Rolex letter dated February 17, 1972, refers to an exclusivity agreement with Comex, and the current encyclopedia account says Comex became a Rolex partner only in late 1971.

Comex would go on to issue Sea-Dwellers to its divers for decades. A Comex-dialed 1665, with 'COMEX' printed where 'SEA-DWELLER' would be, was made from 1977 to 1981; one history puts the total at 300. In 1988 Comex divers wearing Sea-Dwellers made pipeline connections at 534 meters in the Mediterranean, and in 1992 Comex diver Théo Mavrostomos reached 701 meters in an onshore chamber, a 43-day dive, wearing a later Sea-Dweller.

Reading a Double Red: Patent Pending and the four Marks

The production 1665 kept the Submariner's look but not its numbers: a 40 mm steel case 14.7 mm thick, a thick domed acrylic crystal, a black bidirectional bezel and a date at 3 o'clock with no magnifier, because a glued-on cyclops would not survive the test pressures. The valve sits at 9 o'clock. Inside is the caliber 1575, a 25-jewel chronometer beating at 19,800 vibrations per hour with about 42 hours of reserve and no quickset date. The dial reads 'SEA-DWELLER' and 'SUBMARINER 2000' in red, with '2000ft = 610m' below in white.

The earliest production watches carry 'Oyster Gas Escape Valve (Patent Pending)' on the caseback, because the patent had been filed but not granted. Collectors call them PPDRSD. How many were made is disputed: one history says slightly over 100; a specialist site says some authorities put it near 150 and others at several hundred, and that records suggest at least 114 to 120 survive in batches identified by serial clusters.

Collectors sort original dials into four 'Marks.' Mark I appears only on Patent Pending watches, with both red lines the same size; on most survivors the red has faded to pink or yellow, hence 'double pink.' Mark II has a smaller 'SUBMARINER 2000' and a blurry 'smudge crown,' and some have turned a chocolate brown. Mark III has a crisper, elongated coronet. Mark IV, the regular-production dial from about 1971 to 1977, is the most common. Mark V to VII dials are service replacements.

Because so much of the value sits in the dial, provenance and originality dominate. One specialist who owned a thin-case Mark II wrote that its dial was damaged during a service, which wrecked its value, and that he later sold it at a significant loss. Special dials exist too: Sea-Dwellers with Eastern Arabic numerals and the Khanjar emblem or the signature of Sultan Qaboos of Oman were made for royal families.

From test equipment to the auction room

The Single Reds set the ceiling. In November 2012 one, described as owned by a Japanese collector, sold at auction in Geneva for 490,900 Swiss francs against an estimate of 80,000 to 120,000, reported at the time as a record for any Submariner. In November 2018 the Bob Bradley watch sold at auction in Geneva for 708,500 Swiss francs.

Double Reds trade far lower but not cheaply. A 1968 Patent Pending example, serial 2,128,241, with a Mark I dial, consigned by the family of its original owner, sold at auction in New York on June 9, 2022, for $176,400, against an estimate of $60,000 to $100,000. A Mark III owned since 1974 by the French designer and former combat diver Marc Berthier was offered in 2022 with an estimate of 30,000 to 60,000 euros.

For the regular-production Mark IV, one 2025 history put a nice example at around $25,000, with the later Great White at about half that. In 2026 a circa-1969 Patent Pending watch with a Mark I dial was offered by a dealer at $69,995.

What came after

In 1977 Rolex dropped the red print and 'SUBMARINER 2000,' and the white-dial 1665, the 'Great White,' ran until about 1983. It was the last Sea-Dweller with an acrylic crystal. The 16660 'Triple Six' of 1978 doubled the rating to 1,220 meters with a sapphire crystal and a bigger valve, and the 2008 Deepsea pushed to 3,900 meters.

In 2017, for the model's 50th anniversary, Rolex brought back a single line of red 'SEA-DWELLER' on the new 43 mm reference 126600, a nod to the prototypes. It was also the first Sea-Dweller with a cyclops lens.

The numbers

Reference

1665 (Double Red, 1967 to 1977; same reference for the white-dial version to about 1983)

Caliber

Rolex 1575, automatic, date without quickset, 25 jewels, 19,800 vph, about 42 hours, chronometer

Case

40 mm stainless steel, 14.7 mm thick, domed acrylic crystal, gas escape valve at 9 o'clock

Depth rating

610 m / 2,000 ft (Single Red prototypes: 500 m / 1,650 ft)

Production years

1967 to 1977 for Double Red dials; regular production from 1971

Production numbers

Not published by Rolex; Patent Pending examples estimated from about 100 to several hundred; 12 Single Reds known

Timeline

1. Jul 20, 1964

   SEALAB I is lowered off Bermuda to 192 feet, with Robert A. Barth among its four Navy divers.

2. Aug 28, 1965

   The first team moves into SEALAB II off La Jolla, California.

3. 1967

   The first reference 1665 Sea-Dwellers are made in the second quarter of the year; the earliest have no gas valve and a single red line on the dial.

4. Nov 6, 1967

   Rolex files a Swiss patent for the watch's gas escape valve (CH492246).

5. 1968

   Patent Pending Double Reds are in divers' hands; one specialist history dates the Mark II dial to 1968.

6. Nov 1968

   Rolex is believed to give a Single Red to Robert Palmer Bradley to mark the Deepstar-4000's 500th dive.

7. Feb 15, 1969

   SEALAB III is lowered to 610 feet off San Clemente Island, California.

8. Jun 15, 1970

   The valve patent is granted, and casebacks change from 'Patent Pending' to 'Rolex Patent.'

9. 1971

   Regular production of the Double Red begins, with the Mark IV dial; Comex becomes a Rolex partner late in the year.

10. Feb 17, 1972

    A Rolex letter to a test diver refers to an exclusivity agreement with Comex.

11. 1977

    The red print is dropped; the all-white 'Great White' 1665 follows, and a Comex-dialed 1665 begins.

12. 1978

    The Sea-Dweller 16660, rated to 1,220 meters, is introduced.

13. 1983

    The 1665 is discontinued.

14. Nov 2012

    A Single Red prototype sells at auction in Geneva for 490,900 Swiss francs.

15. 2017

    Rolex marks 50 years of the Sea-Dweller with the 43 mm 126600, bringing back one red line.

16. Nov 2018

    The Bob Bradley Single Red sells at auction in Geneva for 708,500 Swiss francs.

17. Jun 9, 2022

    A 1968 Patent Pending Double Red from its original owner's family sells at auction in New York for $176,400.

The world in 1967

• Apr 9, 1967

  The first Boeing 737 makes its maiden flight.

• Apr 27, 1967

  Expo 67, the world's fair in Montreal, officially opens.

• May 26, 1967

  The Beatles release 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' in the United Kingdom.

• Jun 5, 1967

  The Six-Day War begins.

• Jun 27, 1967

  The first automatic cash machine is installed, at a bank branch in Enfield, near London.

• Nov 9, 1967

  NASA launches the first Saturn V rocket, carrying the Apollo 4 test spacecraft.

• Dec 3, 1967

  Christiaan Barnard performs the first human heart transplant, in Cape Town.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Rolex Sea-Dweller 'Double Red' DRSD Ref. 1665 is number 25 of 100 in the watches entries of the FLOAT 100. 54 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (12 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The Sea-Dweller has no magnifier over the date until 2017, because a glued-on cyclops lens could not survive the pressures it was tested to.
• On most Mark I dials the red ink has faded to pink or yellow, which is why collectors also call them 'double pink.'
• Two divers who had worked together since the early 1970s found, decades later, that their test Sea-Dwellers had consecutive serial numbers.
• A Rolex letter dated February 17, 1972, refers to an exclusivity agreement with Comex; one collector history reads it as proof that earlier testing was not exclusive to Comex.
• Rolex is believed to have given one prototype to submersible pilot Robert Palmer Bradley for the Deepstar-4000's 500th dive.
• Sea-Dwellers with Eastern Arabic numerals and the emblem of Oman were made for royal families.