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Rolex 116718LN GMT-Master

Revision as of 22:17, 8 August 2026 by Admin (talk | contribs) (Fix crown spec: Triplock is a three-gasket screw-down, not a twin-lock; matches Twinlock/Triplock usage on 116710LN, 16520, 14060, 16660)


GMT-Master -> 116718LN

The 116718LN brought ceramic to the GMT-Master II. Rolex launched it at Baselworld 2005 in solid yellow gold, with a black Cerachrom bezel and the new caliber 3186, and kept it in the catalogue until 2019. Steel and two-tone versions of the same package followed later, which means the most important bezel-material change of the 2000s arrived on a gold watch.

18k gold GMT, Cerachrom bezel
18k gold GMT, Cerachrom bezel

Core facts

detail value
reference 116718LN
family GMT-Master II
production 2005-2019
movement caliber 3186
case 40mm solid 18k yellow gold Oyster case, Super Case generation
crystal sapphire with Cyclops
water resistance 100m
bezel black Cerachrom with 18k gold-filled numerals
key identity first GMT-Master II with a Cerachrom ceramic bezel

Where it sits in the line

 
Position in the Cerachrom lineage

The 116718LN opens the modern-ceramic GMT-Master II family and sits at the top of it. The two-tone 116713LN arrived in 2006 and the steel 116710LN in 2007, so for the first two years of the Cerachrom era the only ceramic-bezel GMT-Master II Rolex sold was solid yellow gold.

It replaces the aluminium-bezel 16718, the five-digit yellow-gold GMT-Master II that had run since 1988. Nothing replaced it in turn. When Rolex retired the 116718LN in 2019 alongside the steel 116710LN and 116710BLNR, it withdrew yellow gold from the ceramic GMT-Master II line entirely, and yellow gold stayed out until the 126718GRNR at Watches and Wonders 2023.

Production outline

Production runs from 2005 through 2019. The debut coincided with the GMT-Master line's fiftieth anniversary, a framing Christie's catalogue copy for later-year lots repeats. Discontinuation came at the 2019 Baselworld that also retired the 116710LN and 116710BLNR, when Rolex cleared out the 116710 generation in favour of the slimmer 126710 case.

Two dial variants ran in parallel across that fourteen-year window, black and green. Rolex publishes no split between them.

Movement notes

Caliber 3186 runs the 116718LN across its documented production life. The movement debuted here at Baselworld 2005, which makes this the first Rolex watch to carry it, and it brought the blue Parachrom hairspring, a revised GMT wheel, and Paraflex shock protection to the independent-hour-hand architecture. Sotheby's 2019 lot for the Anniversary Green gives 28,800 bph and a 50-hour power reserve on a 2005-production example.

No documented example carries the earlier caliber 3185. Sotheby's lot records and Christie's catalogue copy both give 3186 as the movement of record across the reference.

Dial map

 
Black dial on solid yellow gold
 
Green 50th-anniversary dial
 
Green anniversary dial close-up

The green anniversary dial is the collector's variant and the black dial the steadier seller. Both ran through most of the reference's life.

Black dial

The baseline configuration pairs glossy black lacquer with 18k yellow-gold applied markers, gold hands, and Chromalight lume once that compound rolled out across the Rolex sports catalogue in the late 2000s. It is the more commonly traded of the two dials in the post-discontinuation market. Christie's catalogued a yellow-gold 116718 from circa 2006 carrying the same layout.

Green anniversary dial

Rolex introduced the green anniversary dial in 2005 to mark fifty years of the GMT-Master. The dial is solid green, with 18k yellow-gold markers, gold hands, and the same green 24-hour hand the black-dial version carries. Sotheby's records show auction demand for it running from 2019 through 2024.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown notes

 
First Cerachrom bezel on a GMT-Master II
 
Solid-gold caseback

The case is the Super Case generation Rolex rolled out across its sports catalogue from the mid-2000s. Compared with the aluminium-bezel 16718, the lugs are wider, the crown guards are heavier, and the watch wears more substantially on the wrist. Period listings for Anniversary Green examples give 40mm across, 48mm lug-to-lug, and 11.8mm thick.

The bezel is the historical point. Black Cerachrom with 18k gold-filled numerals made this the first GMT-Master II with a ceramic insert, and it retired the anodised aluminium bezel the 16718 wore.

The crystal is sapphire with the Cyclops magnifier over the date. The crown is the Triplock screw-down system Rolex uses across its modern sports references, sealing on three gaskets rather than the Twinlock two. Water resistance is 100m, unchanged from the 16718.

Bracelets, end links, clasps, and packaging notes

The 116718LN ships on a solid 18k yellow-gold Oyster bracelet with solid end links. The Oysterclasp carries the Easylink 5mm comfort extension. Glidelock, the longer micro-adjustment system Rolex reserves for the Submariner and Deepsea families, never appeared on the GMT-Master II. Oyster is the only period-correct bracelet for the reference, and no Jubilee-fitted 116718LN appears in the auction record.

Full-set packaging is the standard Rolex presentation box, the International Guarantee card, and the swing tags. Sotheby's 2019 Anniversary Green lot gives circa-2005 production with a December 2006 warranty date.

Special branches

Green anniversary dial

The green anniversary dial is a documented factory variant, not a limited edition. Rolex ran it across most of the 116718LN's life, so the premium it commands over the black dial comes from colour preference and relative supply, not from a short production window. Secondary-market indexing carries it as 116718LN-0002, a separate catalogue entry from the black dial, and it is the branch collectors argue about.

Historical market and auction record

Sotheby's offered the Anniversary Green at Important Watches in 2019, with a USD 10,000-15,000 pre-sale estimate on a circa-2005 example, and put the variant up again at Fine Watches in 2024. Five years past discontinuation, the green dial still draws bidders. Christie's has catalogued a black-dial yellow-gold 116718 through its online Watches programme, which gives the baseline configuration a tier-one anchor of its own. Both houses frame the reference around the 2005 fiftieth-anniversary launch and the caliber 3186 debut.

Post-discontinuation Anniversary Green examples trade through certified pre-owned channels. The green dial dominates what auction record exists; no black-dial example has yet come up in a major thematic sale. Time+Tide and Monochrome both read the 116718LN as the direct predecessor of the 2023 126718GRNR.

Related references

See also the GMT-Master family index, movement reference, bracelet & clasp guide, and serial numbers by year.

Sources

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