Simply the best Submariner I've owned Rolex 5510 RAN

[jedly1]

Some of you may remember myself and another gentleman talking about 5510 Big Crown Submariners supplied to the Royal Australian Navy a few months ago, well as we met here it only seemed polite to give those interested an update, maybe some of you will enjoy seeing the watch , half a world of travel to discuss and share and I was very grateful to come home the new owner of what is probably the best Submariner I've been lucky enough to own...... period... and that's a big statement for me.


I do appreciate that I am very lucky , I get to bounce around the world hunting watches and get to handle some of the most amazing and special examples , often from original owners whose stories i can listen to for hours . Many of the watches I handle never get seen in public before going into some of the more discrete collections around the world especially if they are duplicates of something I already have in my own collection , but this one is so special and close to my heart I had to share it here in full where I met the owner seemed rude not to.

I think this is EASILY the best Submariner I have been lucky enough to own ... Milsub, 369, Big crown "Bond" Submariner, original provenance , condition ...it is all here a one watch complete Submariner collection .

Having owned almost 100 Milsub's now , dozen. and dozens of Comex , Arab logo dials , bucketloads of Paul Newman Daytonas and crazy museum quality 369 dial civilian submariners , I have to say, for me personally this watch has ticked every single box as a plastic Australian that now calls this place home and as a diehard tool watch collector .

Having talked a few months ago , we arranged to meet next time I was in UK, Ironically him being an Aussie living in UK and me being a pommie in Australia. I headed over for Goodwood revival in September and had the pleasure to pop in for a pint en route to talk all things RAN for an hour ..... almost 5 hours (and a parking fine later )the world was set straight , I had drooled sufficiently all over the watch , the history of the RAN Clearance diving teams, and the fantastic life the original owner had lived across the globe.

The watch in question is to date the only known 'Full spec ' 1958 Rolex 5510 big crown Rolex Submariner still with original radium lume '369' dial ( I was fortunate enough to be able to take 3 other 5510 to compare geiger reads to confirm my own visual pre. inspection ).

issued to the original owner by the Royal Australian Navy and until now still owned by the son of the original recipient , a well documented officer in the RAN clearance diver teams .


For those that don't know, which will be most , Circa 1963 , following the radium scares at the start of the 1960's it is felt the RAN 5510 still in service were recalled and relumed using (a slightly unsightly) tritium based compound and put back into service . Of the 5 watches known to date , 4 have relumed dials ( one of which was formerly mine) , one has been relumed again in more recent times and one watch does retain what is possibly the original lume but without any RAN stores numbers .

Of the known watches only a single watch , one of the re-lumed watches, retains its original RAN issue numbers , most numbers likely removed prior to disposal at clearance Auction in the 1980's and 90's.

Of the known watches none have RAN owner provenance beyond being possibly bought at disposal auction.

Luckily for me , this watch was issued to the officer after qualifying as a clearance diver and joining CDT1 , but was damaged in action on an arduous recovery job somewhere early in 1962 at Botany Bay ( see attached letter ) .

With a big chunk out of the glass and a stalled centre second hand the watch was demoted to be wearable on dry land only and mostly thrown in a kit drawer until being bought out by the officer later in his career when leaving the service ( and going on to other worldwide adventures ! ) whilst he I guess just went and got another from stores.

The watch remains as it left the factory and issued , in full original spec , beat up a bit as you'd expect . The glass is chipped ( but polished smooth with time and now polywatch ) the centre second hand white paint has all but faded away and doesn't run , the minute cracked hand lume was floating around in there but has been pulled out now and luckily hadn't damaged the dial !

The well documented officer had some high profile exploits clearing unexploded mines in Australia and meeting his son and listening to the stories his dad relayed to him , not just from the time in the CD teams, but also later in live an 'independent contractor" , international art dealer and then salvor has been a real pleasure ....

Luckily his son also still had a copy of the Royal Australian Navy clearance divers full manual, first issued in 1966 , which I don't believe any of us have ever seen before ( telephone directory thick ! ) which details every single aspect of being a Clearance Diver , training , procedures , kit , and of course plenty of Australian humour , because well you know , it's not the British Navy 😜...

There is a nice section on watches featuring a picture of a 5510 , and a section on the watches and who got them , making it indisputable they were issued to RAN.

With a memory stick full of military service records , extracts from several books quoting and mentioning the diver , and of course photos I've got plenty of reading ahead .

The glass will have to be replaced , seals replaced. the movement serviced and the hands stabilised , maybe a pearl , but then she's good to go !!!

Milsub , 369 dial , big crown , provenance ..... I think that's it ...I may have concluded the watch game !!

Shown here with my A6538 red depth 369 , my RAAF 5510 found rusted solid in a bag of broken watches a few years ago , I reckon it's a pretty nice triple set .