New Watch Alert!  Rolex Deepsea D-Blue Edition

Last week Rolex posted a teaser picture on their Facebook page and on their website.  It was a picture of the side of a watch near the crown, with a familiar looking bezel, and a water drop, nothing else.  Like always with Rolex, whenever a new watch is being introduced it causes quite a stir.  On the Rolex forums and watch boards everyone was chiming in on what they think it could be.  Along with the picture was a piece of text that read “Introducing August 4th”.   Everyone was trying to guess what it was.  Was it a Deepsea?  Maybe a 42mm Submariner?  Maybe a brand new watch we’ve never seen before.  Then the morning of August 4th came around, and nothing.  There was no announcement or update for site.  It still said Introducing August 4th.

I think I refreshed the Rolex homepage every half hour throughout the day at my work computer.  The suspense was killing me.  What could it possibly be?  I went back on the forums and it seemed like people were getting close to the answer.  Apparently last night there was an event for James Cameron’s dive to the bottom of the ocean later that night.  On his journey he wore a Rolex Deepsea.  So naturally we all started assuming the new watch would be a special edition to coincide with Cameron’s dive.  Maybe Rolex was waiting for the event to start to introduce the watch.  Still, we all wanted to know what it was and kept on guessing.

We started to get closer and closer when one of the forum members viewed the source code on Rolex’s website.  There was a hidden picture updated to the site called “Rolex Deepsea Blue Dial”.  Rolex had given away its hand.  They were going to introduce a Deepsea with a blue dial!  Would it be a dark blue?  Light blue?  What about the bezel?  Would that be blue too?  Maybe a different color?  Everyone was freaking out.  Rolex is so good at marketing they probably did it on purpose, knowing someone would view the source code and get everyone guessing.

So by 6 o’clock I was ready to go home and still no new watch.  I knew it had to be coming soon considering Rolex probably wouldn’t lie about the date they were introducing a new watch.  So I stopped at a light on my way home and checked again.  And there it was!  A new version of the Deepsea called the Deepsea D-Blue Edition.  It was more or less what everyone was expecting.  It did come out as a special edition for James Cameron’s dive.  But the dial wasn’t blue.  Well, not all of it.

The dial is dark blue at the top, signifying what it looks like when you just dive into the ocean.  As you look down the dial it gets darker and darker, until you get all the way down and it is completely black, just like the bottom of the ocean.  Another significant change to the dial is the placement and color of the word Deepsea.  It went from the top of the dial to the bottom and is now green font instead of white.

The big introduction failed to impress me and a lot of others in the watch community.  Basically all Rolex did was re-introduce existing watch with a new dial, and an ugly one at that.  The Deepsea was cool because it was a large Submariner.  It had a black bezel and black dial and that’s the only way it came.  It almost seems like Rolex is trying too hard.  At any rate, the new Deepsea D-Blue Edition is for sale and at Authorized Dealers today.