Rolex 16700 GMT-Master

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GMT-Master → 16700

The 16700 is the last classic GMT-Master, the final reference built around the synchronized "caller" 24-hour hand. Production ran from 1988 to 1999, and for most of that time the 16700 sat in the catalogue beside the GMT-Master II 16710 (1989–2007). Caliber 3175 was made for this reference and no other, running 31 jewels at 28,800 vph with a 48-hour reserve, hacking seconds, quickset date, adjustment to five positions and temperature, and COSC certification. The one branch with a market of its own is the Chuck Yeager / Real McCoy's special edition of 1997, fifty pieces with the caseback engraved "General Chuck Yeager, Bell X-1, October 14th 1947".

Late Pepsi 16700
Late Pepsi 16700

Core facts

detail value
reference 16700
family GMT-Master (final reference of the original GMT-Master line)
production 1988 to 1999 (Sotheby's, Bonhams, Fratello consensus); Vintage Rolex Field Manual reads 1988 to 1998 — minority view
total examples no published Rolex production figure across any source. Bonhams describes it as "notably fewer units produced than its counterpart [the 16710]"; Sotheby's says "smaller quantities despite its decade-long run"
case 40mm steel Oyster
crystal sapphire with Cyclops over date
water resistance 100m
movement caliber 3175, 31 jewels, 28,800 vph, 48-hour reserve. COSC chronometer-rated, hacking, quickset date, Glucydur balance with Microstella screws, Breguet hairspring, Kif shock. One-reference-only caliber
GMT mechanic caller GMT — main hour hand sets in one-hour clicks, 24-hour hand stays linked to the local hour hand. Last GMT-Master with this synchronized layout
bezel bidirectional 24-hour aluminium insert. Pepsi (red/blue) and all-black are the only factory configurations. Coke (red/black) on a 16700 is not factory — aftermarket or service swap
bracelet Oyster 78360 with 501 / 580 end-links + folding clasp through most of the run; later Oyster 78790 with Oysterlock from late production; Jubilee 62510H with 502B optional
key identity last GMT-Master with linked-hand "caller" GMT logic; only sapphire-crystal example of that classic mechanism

Where it sits in the line

The 16700 closes the original GMT-Master line. One hour-hand mechanism, a 24-hour hand fixed to it, one reference number. It follows the 16750 and ran alongside the GMT-Master II 16710 from 1989 to 1999. After 1999 the catalogue carried only the GMT-Master II, through the 116710LN and on to the current 126710 series. That leaves the 16700 as the only sapphire-crystal watch built around the classic synchronized-hand mechanism, and for most buyers that pairing is the whole appeal.

Caller vs flyer GMT

The 16700 is a caller GMT. The 16760 (cal. 3085) and the 16710 (cal. 3185 / 3186) are flyer GMTs, and the distinction splits the family cleanly.

On a caller GMT the main hour hand sets in one-hour clicks from the crown and the 24-hour hand stays locked to it, following wherever it goes. The second zone is read off the bidirectional 24-hour bezel: rotate the bezel to the home offset, glance at the 24-hour hand, and the reading is the time at home. That is the phone call the name describes. On a flyer GMT the 24-hour hand turns once per day independent of the local hour hand, and the local hand jumps in one-hour increments without disturbing minutes or seconds. The traveller resets the local hand on arrival, the 24-hour hand keeps tracking home, and the bezel adds a third zone.

Collectors who chase the 16700 over the contemporary 16710 are after the older travel logic. Because the hands are linked, the local hour hand steps forward whenever the date is advanced, which is the GMT-Master operating feel of the 1950s carried into a sapphire-crystal case.

Production outline

Every published account starts the run in 1988. The end year is where they split. Most editorial and auction-house coverage takes it to 1999; Colin A. White's The Vintage Rolex Field Manual (Morning Tundra) closes it a year earlier at 1998, and that reading stands alone. Late examples circulate in the market as 1998 or 1999 watches on the strength of their papers date, with no agreed cutoff behind either label.

Rolex has never published an output figure. Bonhams describes "notably fewer units produced than its counterpart [the 16710]"; Sotheby's has it made in "smaller quantities despite its decade-long run". Directionally the 16700 is the rarer of the two, with no number to attach to that.

Movement notes

Caliber 3175 is the last GMT-Master movement and the only one Rolex built for a single reference. The specification is consistent across the published literature and the major-house lot catalogues: 31 jewels, 28,800 vph (4 Hz), 48-hour power reserve, hacking seconds, quickset date, Breguet hairspring, Glucydur balance with Microstella screws, Kif shock protection, COSC chronometer certification, adjusted to five positions and temperature.

What the 3175 lacks is an independently adjustable GMT hand. That belongs to the 3085 in the 16760 (1983–1989) and to the 3185 / 3186 in the 16710 (1989–2019). Sotheby's collector guide describes an "independently adjustable flying GMT hand" on the 16700; the line is an error in print, and every other documented account has the 3175 working as a caller GMT.

The 3175 supersedes the 3075 of the 16750 and ends the linked-hand GMT line. Its own production span, 1988 to 1999, is the 16700's.

Service history is worth checking on watches from the end of the run. Antiquorum Lot 88 recommends "an overhaul at buyer's expense" and Sotheby's Lot 10 records "very minute corrosion spots" on the movement, which together suggest intervention is common on late-1990s examples. How often Rolex service fitted a 3185 in place of a 3175 during an overhaul is not documented anywhere in print. Since the 3175 shared no parts with the parallel 16710, a swap of that kind would have to be a deliberate movement replacement.

Dial map

Black-bezel 16700
Black-bezel 16700

Glossy black with applied white-gold-surround indices is standard across the whole run. What changes underneath is the date wheel, the lume compound, and a late dial subset collectors call the stick dial.

Open vs closed 6/9 date wheel

Date discs with open-loop 6 and 9 numerals run to about 1992, closed-style wheels after that; the Field Manual records the cutoff. An open-6/9 wheel on a late-serial 16700 is a reason to look harder at the dial and hands. Service departments swapped date discs during movement work often enough that a disc out of step with the expected production year is one of the easier tells on an otherwise clean watch. Overlap at the boundary is likely, and no public Rolex service record pins the switchover to a month, so an off-year wheel prompts scrutiny without condemning the watch.

Tritium to Luminova / Super-LumiNova transition

Tritium dials, marked "SWISS T<25", run to about 1997. What replaced them is where the sources part. Sotheby's dates the Luminova start to 1997 with Super-LumiNova arriving on later examples; Monochrome skips the Luminova step entirely and moves the watch straight from tritium to Super-LumiNova in the same year. Both readings are in print from credible sources and neither has been overturned. Some Luminova examples went out on T<25-marked dial stock left over from the changeover.

For a late non-tritium 16700 the defensible collector position is "post-tritium luminescent", backed by a close look at the dial foot and the colour of the lume. Buyers who want the question settled stay with early-1997 or earlier tritium dials, where both sources agree.

"Stick" dial (late examples)

Sotheby's listings from the late 1990s use "stick" for a dial subset carrying numerals only, with no Roman 6 or 9. Documented examples go back to 1991 Pepsi listings. Nobody has mapped the variant to a serial range.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

Pepsi bezel close-up
Pepsi bezel close-up

The case is the familiar 40mm steel Oyster of the late five-digit period, rated to 100m as the 16750 was. The visible break with the 16750 is the crystal: sapphire with a Cyclops over the date where the older reference had acrylic.

The bezel is a bidirectional 24-hour aluminium insert, catalogued in two colourways, Pepsi in red and blue and all-black. Pepsi dominates the surviving population. Coke inserts in red and black do turn up on 16700s, but the configuration was never catalogued for the reference, so those are aftermarket fittings or service swaps. Factory Coke belongs to the 16710 and the 16760.

Bracelets, end links, clasps, and packaging notes

Period-correct delivery through most of the production window is the Oyster 78360 on a folding clasp, with 501 end-links early and 580 from mid-run. Bonhams Lot 4, a 1988 watch, carries that bracelet with a signed folding clasp stamped RS11, an unusual code.

Late production moves to the Oyster 78790A with Oysterlock, documented on late-1990s examples across the published literature. The Jubilee 62510H on 502B end-links was the dressier option.

Antiquorum Lot 88 (Geneva, June 2020) documents a 1996 head on a 93150/501B Oyster bracelet. The 93150 is a service or later replacement reference that became standard on the 16710, so on a 16700 it points to a service-era fitment.

Chuck Yeager / Real McCoy's special edition

A 50-piece special edition of the 16700 was produced in 1997 by The Real McCoy's, the Japanese vintage-clothing reissue brand, with the caseback engraved "General Chuck Yeager, Bell X-1, October 14th 1947, [n]/50, The Real McCoy's." It commemorates Yeager's supersonic flight in the Bell X-1 in October 1947. Three auction-house lots document the run: Bonhams sold No. 14/50, case U443556, as a full set on 24 November 2018; Phillips Hong Kong XI offered No. 21/50, case U453541, on 28 November 2020 with an estimate of HK$ 120,000–250,000; and Sotheby's Hong Kong Important Watches catalogued a c.1999 example, case A245609, in 2019 at HK$ 160,000–320,000.

Antiquorum catalogued a 16710 Real McCoy's in its Monaco sale of 16 July 2017. That watch belongs to the same limited-edition programme but is not a 16700.

Historical market and auction record

Sale Lot Year Serial Variant / config Hammer
Bonhams 25956/4 2020 R-serial 1988 Pepsi, 78360 / RS11 clasp GBP 10,687.50 incl. premium
Antiquorum Geneva 329-88 2020 T254282 1996 Pepsi delivered Dec 1996, full set with original Beyer receipt CHF 11,875
Sotheby's Geneva Important Watches 10 2019 T848499 c.1996 Pepsi, cal. 3175, with extra black bezel est. CHF 6,000–8,000
Sotheby's Fine Watches Online 417 2024 W752611 c.1995 Pepsi, faded bezel, tritium dial est. EUR 8,000–12,000
Bonhams 25232/969 2018 U443556 1997 Chuck Yeager / Real McCoy's No. 14/50, full set HK$ 106,250 incl. premium
Phillips Hong Kong XI 862 2020 U453541 c.1997 Chuck Yeager / Real McCoy's No. 21/50 est. HK$ 120,000–250,000
Sotheby's Hong Kong Important Watches 2023 2019 A245609 c.1999 Chuck Yeager / Real McCoy's est. HK$ 160,000–320,000

The 16700 trades as a watch people wear. Pepsi carries the family look and the stronger general-market premium; the black bezel draws a narrower audience that wants the quieter version. Standard examples cluster around GBP 8,000–15,000 and CHF 8,000–15,000 at the major houses, moving on dial generation, lume status, and paperwork. The Chuck Yeager / Real McCoy's edition sits in a tier of its own, with all three documented lots clearing well above HK$ 100,000.

Related references

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

Sources

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