Rolex 1655 Explorer II

A checked version of this page, approved on 8 August 2026, was based on this revision.

The 1655 is the original Explorer II. Produced from 1971 through roughly 1984, it brought the 24-hour complication to Rolex's Explorer line in a single 40mm steel case with a fixed, engraved 24-hour bezel. The orange straight-arrow GMT hand gave the watch the nickname that stuck, Freccione, Italian for "big arrow." Thirteen years of production yielded five dial generations and four bezel variants, with two Beyeler service dials surfacing afterwards. Caliber 1575 came from the GMT-Master 1675, configured differently here. The provenance mixes real expedition use with a pop-culture myth Rolex never wrote.

The reference sits at an odd angle in the Rolex family. It is the only Explorer with a 24-hour complication, and the only Rolex whose 24-hour hand is geared to the hour hand instead of running independently, which makes the orange hand a day-night indicator rather than a second time zone. Steve McQueen never wore one, marketing shorthand notwithstanding.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	1655
family	Explorer II
production	1971 to approximately 1984; some editorial extends the end to 1985
movement	caliber 1575 GMT (19,800 vph, approximately 48-hour power reserve)
case	40mm steel Oyster, fixed engraved 24-hour bezel
crystal	acrylic, flat
water resistance	100m
bezel	fixed, engraved on the steel bezel ring, four production variants plus a service bezel
dial variants	five Stern-produced production dials (Mark 1 through Mark 5) plus two Beyeler service dials
bracelet	7206 / 7836 / 78360 Oyster references across the run, with 380 folded or 580 solid end links
hand	orange straight-arrow 24-hour on first-year production; orange lollipop through the rest of the run
predecessor	none; the 1655 is the first Explorer II
successor	16550

Where it sits in the line

Nothing precedes the 1655. The Explorer line before 1971 ran from the 1016 back through its Bubbleback and OCC ancestors, all single-time-zone watches. Rolex aimed the Explorer II at speleologists, polar expeditioners, and anyone else working where ambient light could not be trusted to tell day from night. The fixed 24-hour bezel and matching orange hand do one job, which is to show which half of the day is running outside whatever the main dial reads.

The 16550 (1984–1989) took over and rebuilt the line on a sapphire crystal, a redesigned 40mm case, and caliber 3085 with a genuinely independent hour hand for time-zone use. The 16570 then ran from 1989 through 2010 on that architecture, the 42mm 216570 carried the Explorer II through the 2010s, and the 226570 is in production now. Only the 1655 uses caliber 1575, an acrylic crystal, a fixed engraved bezel, and the straight-hand/lollipop split. Everything after it is a different watch wearing the same family name.

Production outline

The 1655 ran as one long production with no reference change, and collectors have cataloged its internal drift into a generation map. Caliber 1575 and the 40mm Oyster shell hold steady from the first watch to the last. What moves is the dial printing, and to a lesser extent the bezel font and the seconds hand. The map below follows the consensus published on Italian Watch Spotter and in Revolution; none of it is Rolex nomenclature.

dial	rough period	tells
Mark 1	1971 to about 1973	large-crown coronet, round-foot R, T SWISS T printing without angle brackets
Mark 2	about 1973 to 1977	the "Frog Foot" coronet with thicker feet; closely related to Mark 1 but visibly heavier on the logo
Mark 3	about 1977 to 1979	the "Rail Dial" — the Cs of CHRONOMETER and CERTIFIED line up vertically, which no other Mark does
Mark 4	about 1979 to 1982	taller narrower crown; T SWISS < 25 T printing in serif font
Mark 5	about 1982 to 1984	same T SWISS < 25 T line but in sans-serif; the last production-era dial
Service Mark A	Beyeler-produced	post-production service replacement, identifiable by printing vendor characteristics
Service Mark B	Beyeler-produced	a second service printing era

The Mark boundaries are approximate and no Rolex document defines them. The Vintage Rolex Forum serial-number project places the transitions inside three-to-six-month windows instead of at specific serial cutoffs, and the Mark 2 to Mark 3 boundary is the fuzziest of the set. It has moved across collector writeups as new examples surface. A Mark 1 on a 1973 serial and a Mark 2 on a 1972 serial both exist on the open market, which is the kind of overlap any long-run vintage Rolex reference shows.

The seconds hand is the other visible production variable. First-year examples ship with a straight seconds hand; the round-tipped lollipop most people associate with the reference arrives early, usually reported on late 1971 or 1972 production, and runs to the end. Straight-hand watches are the narrowest collector branch on the 1655, and a straight hand paired with a Mark 1 dial on a matching early bezel is the best-documented early configuration.

Production end is usually placed in 1984, though some editorial rounds to 1985. Leftover inventory delivered through 1985 is real, but active production ran out in 1984 when the 16550 took over.

Movement notes

Caliber 1575 powered the 1655 for the whole run. The same movement ran the GMT-Master 1675 over a similar period, and the difference between the two references is in the 24-hour-hand configuration. On the 1675 the hour hand advances independently of the 24-hour hand, so a traveler sets local time on arrival and leaves the 24-hour hand on home time. On the 1655 the two are geared together at a fixed ratio, and setting the watch moves both. That gearing is the single most-misunderstood specification on the reference.

The 1575 runs at 19,800 vph on 26 jewels with about 48 hours of power reserve. Hacking seconds arrived on the 1575 family during the early 1970s and are present on most 1655 examples from launch onward. Late Mark 4 and Mark 5 watches hack most consistently; earlier examples sometimes show minor inconsistencies that track production-era caliber revisions rather than service wear.

Rolex serviced the 1655 through the standard caliber-1575 network for decades after production ended. Paperwork rarely survives, so the practical way to tell a serviced movement from an untouched one is the service stamp on the movement itself. An entirely un-serviced 1655 is rare, and a documented service history reads as a stronger signal than silence.

Dial map

Mark 1

The Mark 1 is the first 1655 dial. Its coronet uses the large-crown shape, a flared and slightly rounded outline that reads heavier than the tighter crown on later Marks. The ROLEX signature carries a round-foot R. Bottom-line printing reads T SWISS T, without the < 25 notation that arrived later. Mark 1 dials pair most reliably with caliber 1575 movements bearing early serial-band stamps.

A straight-hand Mark 1 is the earliest documented 1655 configuration. Mark 1 dials with the lollipop hand also exist and make up the majority of surviving Mark 1 examples; the straight-hand sub-variant is a small share of Mark 1 production.

Mark 2 (Frog Foot)

Mark 2 keeps the Mark 1 layout and changes the coronet to the thicker-footed shape collectors call Frog Foot, widened crown feet that give the logo a chunkier visual weight. The rest of the printing stays close enough that the coronet carries almost the whole distinction. Some writeups place Mark 2 production from 1973 through 1977; others narrow it depending on which surviving examples they count. No published serial boundary exists.

Mark 3 (Rail Dial)

Mark 3 is the Rail Dial. The C in CHRONOMETER sits exactly above the C in CERTIFIED, two letters stacked into the vertical "rail" the nickname points at. On Mark 1, Mark 2, Mark 4, and Mark 5 those letters land at slightly different radial positions and never line up. That single alignment is why the Mark 3 reads cleaner than its siblings; the rail pulls the printing into a grid the other dials lack.

Mark 3 production is usually placed in the 1977–1979 window, and Rail Dial examples are well documented at auction. The alignment holds across surviving examples. Printing weight varies slightly from dial to dial, but none of that variation breaks the rail.

Mark 4

Mark 4 takes the crown taller and narrower than anything before it. Bottom-line printing updates to T SWISS < 25 T, the tritium-radiation notation that spread across the Rolex sport lines in the late 1970s and reaches the 1655 at Mark 4. The font is serif, which is what separates Mark 4 from the later Mark 5.

Mark 5

Mark 5 carries the same T SWISS < 25 T line in sans-serif. The two dials are otherwise near-twins, and the font is the primary Mark 5 identifier. It is the last production-era dial before the 1655 was discontinued.

Service dials (Beyeler)

Two Beyeler-made service dials are known on the 1655. They are genuine Rolex parts fitted after production ended, which is exactly why they matter to value and originality. Collectors keep them in their own branch instead of folding them into the production Mark sequence.

Tropical examples

A small share of Mark 1 through Mark 3 dials have turned an even brown across the black surface, the result of photochemical and environmental aging in the early dial lacquer. Warm, even discoloration with intact lume plots is the narrow definition collectors hold to. Patchy brown spotting, damaged lacquer, or mismatched lume plots are aging damage rather than tropical patina, and the market keeps the two categories firmly apart. A genuine tropical Mark 1 or Mark 2 is one of the strongest collector targets on the reference and commands a clear premium over a black-dial example of the same generation.

Bezels

Four production-era bezel variants and one service bezel cover the run. The bezel is part of the steel case top, machined and engraved with the 24-hour markers, so there is no insert at all; the numerals and indices are cut straight into the steel and filled with black paint. The 1655 bezel is far more durable than an aluminum-insert GMT-Master bezel for it, and it never develops the fade and patina that turn vintage GMT inserts into collector objects on their own.

The four production variants differ in numeral font weight and in how the indices are spaced around the ring. No collector system labels them cleanly as Mark 1 through Mark 4 bezels the way the dials are labelled. The service bezel gives itself away through different numeral proportions on one or two indices, a product of service-era tooling. Bezel and dial generations do not lock to each other. A Mark 3 dial on a Mark 2 bezel is period-correct if the watch was delivered during the transition window.

Case, crystal, crown notes

Case

40mm Oyster steel with a brushed top surface and polished flanks. The case runs thicker than later Explorer II generations and keeps the slightly heavier lug shape common to early 1970s Rolex sport references. Lug-to-lug is about 47mm. Diameter is quoted as 39mm in some older editorial and 40mm almost everywhere else; caliper measurement on surviving examples gives 40mm, and the 39mm claim most likely refers to the visible bezel-to-lug width rather than the full case.

Drilled lug holes are standard across the run. The 1655 never got the no-holes case treatment that arrived on the 16710 in 2003.

Crystal

Flat plexiglass. The 1655 is the only Explorer II with an acrylic crystal; the 16550 moved the line to sapphire in 1984. Acrylic collects the small scratches and micro-mars that collectors read as character with age, and polishing one is standard service work that does not affect originality.

Crown

Twinlock screw-down with guards, the standard early-1970s Rolex Oyster crown on a 6mm tube.

Bracelets, end links, clasps

The bracelet arc is short. The 7206 comes first, the 7836 follows, and the 78360 arrives late in the run. That progression, read against the end-link and clasp dates, is one of the fastest authenticity checks available on a 1655.

Clasp codes across the run carry I-series stamps from Rolex's internal clasp-date system, so a clasp stamped Q4 1972 dates the bracelet to that quarter. It dates the bracelet, not the watch head. A 1973-case 1655 wearing a Q4 1975 clasp is perfectly consistent; a later bracelet on an earlier watch head turns up regularly on the open market.

Special branches and provenance

Reinhold Messner

The mountaineer Reinhold Messner wore a 1655 through the expedition years that overlap the reference's production run. Philipp Stahl handled Messner's watch and published its identification on Rolex Passion Report. It is the best-documented case of a 1655 doing the job it was engineered for, in the light-deprived conditions where the 24-hour hand earns its place.

Sir Edmund Hillary

Sir Edmund Hillary, who summited Everest with Tenzing Norgay on 29 May 1953, also wore a 1655, and Stahl has documented that watch too. His Explorer II sits at the far end of a line that starts with the 6610 and 1016 Explorers.

Don McCullin

A 1978 Rolex advertisement photographed by Don McCullin puts the 1655 front and centre, and the image is widely reproduced in archival collections and period editorial. McCullin is a photographer, and the ad belongs in the marketing history of the reference rather than its celebrity-wearer file.

The Steve McQueen myth

The 1655 is often called the Steve McQueen. It should not be. McQueen's documented Rolex was a 5513 Submariner (the Loren Janes watch covered by Quill & Pad in 2018), and no period photograph or auction record places a 1655 on his wrist. The nickname is dealer-era marketing that outlived its evidence. Serious collectors call the watch the Freccione.

Market and collector context

The 1655 sits in the middle tier of vintage Rolex sport-watch collecting, and the spread inside the reference is wide. Early Mark 1s, tropicals, and straight-hand watches anchor the top of the range; later examples with mixed parts sit well below it.

The auction record through the 2020s puts standard-production 1655 hammers in the £15,000–£25,000 range, with exceptional Mark 1 or tropical lots reaching £30,000 or more. Dreweatts' £22,000 result on a non-retailer-signed example is the UK benchmark most often cited for standard production. Provenance watches on the scale of the Messner or Hillary examples sit in a separate market entirely on the rare occasions they surface.

Secondary-market pricing tracks the wider vintage-Rolex cycle. The 2020–2022 peak lifted 1655 prices to levels that had compressed again by 2024, in line with the general correction. The floor has held, partly because production was modest next to the contemporary Submariner and GMT-Master lines, and partly because the documented expedition history carries weight without any help from the McQueen story.

Related references

Explorer II 16550 — 1985–1989
Explorer II 16570 — 1989–2011
Explorer II 216570 — 2011–2021

Sources