Rolex 16570 Explorer II

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

The 16570 is the long-run modern Explorer II. Produced from 1989 through roughly 2011, it replaced the short-run 16550 and held the reference slot for twenty-two years before the 42mm 216570 took over. Two dial options, matte black and a crisp white called Polar. The case is 40mm steel with a fixed 24-hour bezel, sapphire crystal with Cyclops, and a true GMT movement with independent local-hour setting. Four distinguishable production versions split it by case, dial-printing, lume, and caliber. The 16570 is a slow-moving watch in a Rolex line that otherwise prefers sudden breaks, and that slow drift is what gives it the internal map collectors now rely on.

It is also the reference where the Explorer II stops being a niche complication and becomes a real collector target. The watch is modern enough that clean examples still surface and old enough that the early-run tritium dials have started behaving like vintage. The black dial reads as a GMT on a fixed bezel; the Polar reads as nothing else in the Rolex line.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	16570
family	Explorer II
production	approximately 1989 to 2011; some editorial sources round the end to 2010
movement	caliber 3185 through late 2006; caliber 3186 through end of production
case	40mm steel Oyster, approximately 12.2mm thick, 47mm lug-to-lug
crystal	sapphire with Cyclops over the date
water resistance	100m
bezel	fixed 24-hour, stainless steel with engraved black markings
lume eras	tritium `SWISS — T<25` to about 1998; Luminova SWISS alone 1998–1999; Super-LumiNova SWISS MADE from 1999 on
dial	matte black with white-gold applied indices, or white "Polar" with applied indices painted black-outlined
bracelet	Oyster, reference 78360 early, 78790 later; Oysterlock with Fliplock extension
rehaut	plain until mid-2000s; laser-engraved ROLEX ROLEX ROLEX on late Z-serial watches onward
predecessor	16550
successor	216570 (42mm)

Where it sits in the line

The 16570 takes a short-run reference, the 16550 produced 1985–1989, and scales it to a full production cycle. The 16550 did the heavy lifting on architecture: sapphire crystal, caliber 3085, a true independent-hour GMT function replacing the earlier 1655 Freccione logic. The 16570 inherits that work, upgrades the movement to caliber 3185, and runs for twenty-two years with incremental change rather than another overhaul.

On the way out, the 16570 hands off to the 216570, which takes the Explorer II to 42mm, adds the orange 24-hour hand that nods back to the 1655, and moves to caliber 3187. The 42mm jump is the larger discontinuity. Collectors who prize the 16570 usually do so for the 40mm case and the less-prominent wrist presence that came with it.

Production outline

Mid-run black-dial 16570

The 16570 divides cleanly into four internal versions. The boundaries are approximate, since lume, dial, and case changes do not all line up with the same serial band, but the map works in practice.

version	rough period	tells
V1	1989 to ~1997	tritium lume (`SWISS — T<25`), drilled lugs, bracelet 78360 with hollow end links, plain rehaut
V2	~1998 to 1999	short Swiss-only window; Luminova lume but dial still prints SWISS alone without MADE
V3	1999 to ~2005	Super-LumiNova, SWISS MADE dial printing, bracelet 78790 with solid end links, drilled lugs phase out 2002–2003
V4	~2005 to 2011	no-holes case, laser-engraved rehaut; caliber 3186 from late 2006

V2 is the narrowest of the four windows and the hardest to price cleanly. It spans the gap between the lume switch and the dial-printing update, which is where the Swiss-only dial comes from.

The V3–V4 boundary carries two case and rehaut transitions that do not cut at the same serial. Drilled lug holes disappeared sometime in 2002 or 2003, well ahead of the laser-engraved rehaut that arrived in the mid-2000s, so a mid-period 16570 with a no-holes case and a plain rehaut is genuine. Early V4 watches keep the plain rehaut and caliber 3185. The Z-serial transitional band is the cleanest anchor for both the rehaut and the caliber 3186 change, which landed in late 2006 on most documented examples.

The end-of-production year is itself disputed. Some editorial histories and Sotheby's catalog descriptions place the last 16570 deliveries in 2010; others mark it at 2011. Both years sit inside the 216570 launch window, which opened at Baselworld 2011, so the disagreement turns on whether late deliveries count as production.

Movement notes

Caliber 3185 powered the 16570 for the majority of its run, from 1989 through late 2006. The 3185 is a 28,800 vph automatic with 31 jewels, roughly 50-hour power reserve, hacking seconds, and an independently-setting local hour hand. That independent hour is the complication that makes this a true GMT rather than the linked-hand system used on the earlier 1655. The hour hand is what the wearer repositions on arrival; the 24-hour hand keeps home time on the fixed bezel.

Caliber 3186 replaces the 3185 late in the run, usually in the Z-serial period. Rolex phased the change in, so a late 16570 can carry the newer movement while still missing other late-case features. Telling the two calibers apart from the dial side takes a known-3186 example to compare hand play against; the visual difference is that small.

Dial map

The 16570 is an internally-simple reference compared to a vintage Explorer, but its dial progression is denser than the two-colour summary suggests. Three variables shift during the run: lume compound, dial-printing signature, and mark-level typography. None of the three align perfectly with each other.

Black dial

Early tritium black dial with SWISS - T<25 printing

The black dial is the default 16570. The split that matters inside it is the lume era: tritium through about 1998, the short Swiss-only window, then Super-LumiNova to the end of production.

Polar white dial

Polar white dial 16570

The Polar dial is what most collectors mean when they talk about a 16570. Matte white background, applied indices painted with a black enamel surround that holds the lume plot in a dark frame, white-gold baton hands with matching black outlines, a red 24-hour hand, red-and-black accent text. The surround printing is dense enough that a worn Polar dial looks different from a worn black dial at the same age. Lume plots age visibly against the black frame, and any dial rework shows in the printing around the applied index rather than in the dial colour itself.

The Polar is also the dial that carries the name into the rest of the line. Rolex did not use Polar officially; the label came from collectors reading the colour against the northern-expedition brief Rolex had written for the original 1655. It has since become the standard shorthand for a white dial on any Rolex sport reference.

Mark-level typography

Collector typography work on the 16570 has not converged into the clean Mark system that the 1016 or 5513 carry. What survives is a looser generation map tied to dial-printing vendor variation across the run. Early tritium examples show slightly thicker numerals and denser printing around the EXPLORER II text; late Super-LumiNova dials read more cleanly, with thinner strokes. A font-spacing sub-variant in the F-serial band (2003–2005), with subtle alignment differences in the OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED CHRONOMETER line, has been documented in the RolexForums serial-change threads. None of these sub-variants has picked up a shared name.

Service dials

Service-replacement dials are common enough on a twenty-two-year production to warrant caution. A tritium-era watch wearing a Super-LumiNova SWISS MADE dial has had the dial replaced, since a period-correct tritium dial cannot carry SWISS MADE printing. Fresh, even lume plots on a 1990s example are another signal. Rolex records the replacement quietly in service; the external check is the dial itself against the serial.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

Case

The case is 40mm steel, launching in alloy 316L with an undocumented transition to 904L somewhere in the run. Lug-to-lug runs about 47mm; thickness sits at about 12.2mm. The case is thinner and less substantial than the later 216570, which is part of why the 40mm 16570 still wears smaller than its specs suggest.

Drilled lug holes are the first case variable and appear on every early watch. The no-holes case arrives in the 2002–2003 window and persists to the end of production, which puts a drilled-lug 16570 somewhere in V1 through mid-V3 and a no-holes case in late V3 through V4. The transition is soft at the edges, but consistent enough to use as a dating anchor.

Bezel

The bezel is fixed, non-rotating, and machined from stainless steel with black-filled engraved 24-hour markings. At a distance that solid steel ring is what tells an Explorer II from a GMT-Master, which carries a printed aluminum insert on a rotating bezel. Steel does not fade and never takes the patina a GMT-Master Pepsi develops, and the engravings wear shallowly at most, so the bezel looks much the same from one end of the run to the other.

Crystal

Sapphire with a Cyclops magnifier over the date window at three o'clock. The crystal is flat, not domed, consistent with other modern Rolex sport references. No anti-reflective coating on the outer surface.

Crown

Twinlock screw-down crown with crown guards, consistent with the 100m rating. It wears the standard Rolex coronet above the pair of dots that mark a Twinlock, on a 6mm tube.

Rehaut

Plain through most of production. The laser-engraved rehaut, carrying repeating ROLEX ROLEX ROLEX text around the circumference with the serial number engraved at six, appeared on the 16570 in the mid-2000s and is most consistently documented from the Z-serial band onward. That places the engraved-rehaut transition slightly before the caliber-3186 transition, leaving room for a small window of late Z-serial watches that carry the new rehaut and the older caliber.

Bracelets, end links, clasps, and packaging

Bracelet

Two bracelet references cover the run. The earliest 16570 examples ship on reference 78360, a 20mm Oyster with hollow-stamped end links coded 501B. Reference 78790 becomes the standard later, carrying the solid end links Rolex rolled across the sport lines in the early 2000s and sometimes an added B suffix. The changeover is not a single serial cutoff, and community-maintained lists diverge on where the 78360 ends and the 78790 begins; the most commonly cited window runs through the late 1990s. Both bracelets carry the Oysterlock folding clasp with Fliplock diving extension.

Solid end links change the wrist feel more than the number suggests. The old hollow ends flex slightly against the case while the solid ends sit flush. The upgrade is the same one the GMT-Master II 16710 received across its own late run.

Clasp

Oysterlock with a flip-down Fliplock extension that adds roughly five millimetres of on-the-fly length for diving suits or swelling wrists. The Fliplock predates the micro-adjusting Glidelock that the six-digit sport references now carry, and the difference is real on the wrist. Fliplock is a binary in-or-out extension; Glidelock is continuous fine adjustment. Clasp dates stamped into the inner link date the bracelet, not the watch head.

Packaging

Standard Rolex green box packaging of the 1990s and 2000s, with the COSC certificate, warranty card, booklets, and hang tags. The warranty card format shifted from the earlier green paper card to the white credit-card-style card in 2006. Full-set examples from the late run carry the newer card; older full sets carry the paper format. Neither card is a reference-defining data point on its own, since it dates the delivery rather than the watch's place in production.

Special branches

Swiss-only dial

The Swiss-only 16570 sits at the boundary between tritium and Super-LumiNova. Rolex switched lume compounds from tritium to Luminova in 1998 or early 1999 but did not update the dial-printing convention at the same time. For roughly eighteen months, 16570 dials left the factory with Luminova lume and the old SWISS printing rather than the modern SWISS MADE. The result is a dial that reads in photographs like a tritium watch but glows sharply when a light is taken off it: the bright, cold Luminova output rather than the warm, dimmer tritium afterglow.

The Swiss-only is now a recognized collector sub-category on the 16570. Production estimates put the run at about five percent of the reference total, though Rolex does not disclose the figure. Surviving examples carry a premium over both the late-tritium V1 and the early Super-LumiNova V3 that bracket them.

Chicchi di Mais

The Italian nickname chicchi di mais, for corn kernels, applies to tritium-era dials whose lume plots have yellowed heavily toward a deep mustard or amber. The colour is ordinary tritium aging taken to its visible extreme, not a factory variant, and it shows up most on watches that spent long periods in sunlight or humidity. Collectors hunt well-matched chicchi dials where every lume plot has aged evenly. Mismatched plots, where some are cream and others are deep yellow, usually indicate relumed hands or a replacement plot rather than a uniform aging pattern.

SRR military

A hundred-and-thirty-nine-piece limited run delivered through Rolex London in October 2007, with an SRR crest engraved on the caseback and each piece individually numbered. The acronym is the reported provenance in the lot documentation; the specific unit has never been publicly confirmed. The watches are otherwise standard 16570 specification: caliber 3185, black dial, Super-LumiNova lume, no-holes case, laser-engraved rehaut. Examples have appeared at Sotheby's and Bonhams from 2021 onward, with estimates in the 15–25 thousand CHF range.

Retailer double-signed dials

A small number of 16570 watches carry a second signature below the Rolex coronet, left by retailers that handled the delivery and stamped the dial at Rolex's sufferance. A Sotheby's lot from 2024 carried a Van Cleef & Arpels double signature on a circa-1995 black-dial 16570. Double-signed sport references from the 1990s are rare enough that they surface as individual auction lots rather than in ordinary retail flow.

Market and collector context

The 16570 is the last 40mm Explorer II and the only 16000-series Explorer II with a full twenty-year production run. It covers the entire tritium-to-Super-LumiNova arc inside a single reference number, and it is the last of the line before the 42mm step-up.

The current secondary market reads the reference as a solid, slow-moving collector entry rather than a speculative asset. Clean full-set examples with the original bracelet and a consistent service history trade a few thousand dollars above no-set examples of the same version. Among sub-variants, the Polar dial trades at a consistent premium over the black dial across all four versions, and the Swiss-only sub-variant carries an additional premium of its own when dial, lume, and serial align convincingly. The SRR limited run is the most expensive sub-variant outside the double-signed retailer dials.

The reference has not seen the kind of auction-level escalation that lifted the five-digit Submariner or Daytona vintage references over the last decade. Phillips catalog attention has run toward earlier Explorer II lots, with the 1655 carrying the lot essays, while Sotheby's and Bonhams carry the 16570 auction record. The 16570 still has market room as a watch that earned its reputation slowly and is only now drawing sustained collector attention as the earliest examples cross the thirty-year mark.

Related references

Explorer II 16550 — 1985–1989
Explorer II 216570 — 2011–2021
Explorer II 1655 — "Freccione", Orange Hand (1971–1984)