Rolex Explorer II 16570 ‘Black’ 40MM 1996

Rolex Explorer II 16570 ‘Black’ 40MM 1996

Case and Bracelet

The 40mm Oyster case is in great condition and has been lightly polished. On this reference that distinction is worth drawing carefully, because the Explorer II carries more finished steel on show than most Rolex sports watches of the period. This case has drilled lugs, correct for 1996 and retained by the reference until the end of 2002, and they are the most honest gauge of how much steel a case has lost, because the openings soften and elongate before anything else does. The work here reads as light, which is the distinction between a case that has been tidied and one that has been reshaped.

The watch is on an Oyster bracelet, reference 78790A, in great condition. That reference is a later Rolex bracelet than the 1996 case it is fitted to, being the solid end link revision of the 78790 that Rolex supplied on the 16570. Sag is the normal finding on a bracelet that has been worn daily for decades, so a bracelet presenting in great condition is a bracelet that has either been used lightly or looked after properly.

Dial and Hands

The dial and hands are in very good condition, and on this particular watch that grade needs reading in context, because the dial is a Rolex service dial rather than the tritium dial the case left Geneva with. It carries the words SWISS MADE at six o’clock. The hands were replaced with it, as they must be, since a tritium handset over a Luminova dial reads as two different colours under any light. The practical consequence is that nothing on this dial is ageing. Everything is presented as it was fitted. The glossy black lacquer, the applied markers in their white gold surrounds, the Mercedes hour hand and the red orange 24 hour hand are all judged on the same unforgiving basis as a modern dial, and a very good grade against that standard describes a dial and handset that are clean, even and complete, with only the minor marks a watch of this age collects in ordinary use.