Rolex Explorer II 1655

Rolex launched the Explorer II 1655 in 1971 with a very specific problem in mind: keeping track of day and night when daylight disappears. That purpose explains the parts that make the reference instantly recognizable in the hand. The bezel is fixed and engraved, so it cannot be used like a traveler’s timing ring. Instead it acts as a permanent 24 hour scale, and the oversized orange 24 hour hand reads against it as a high contrast indicator of time of day.

The same decision shows up in the movement behavior. Sources describing the 1655 are explicit that it is not a dual time watch in the later sense. Its 24 hour hand is coupled to the main hour hand, so it does not jump independently, and the fixed bezel means there is no rotating reference for a second zone. What Rolex did, in effect, was take the GMT architecture of the era and tune it for legibility and certainty rather than flexibility.

Within that stable concept, the physical watch kept moving under the surface. Collectors divide the reference into multiple dial “Marks” because Rolex revised coronet geometry, font weight, and text layout over time, and the later dials add different tritium text at 6 o’clock. Separately, the seconds hand exists in straight and later “lollipop” forms, and the bezel itself has more than one execution with changes in numeral thickness and spacing. Rolex did not document these transitions publicly, and the published cutoffs do not align neatly, which is why the 1655 has become a reference where originality is judged by coherence.

Late in the run, the story becomes easiest to see from arm’s length. The overall design stays the same, but the parts get incrementally more standardized, and the range of late dials and bezels shows Rolex closing out a niche tool watch before the line’s 1980s reset. When the Explorer II returned as the ref. 16550 around 1984 to 1985, it kept the fixed bezel but pivoted hard toward the modern dual time idea with sapphire crystal and an independently adjustable 24 hour hand, making the 1655 the one Explorer II that belongs wholly to the acrylic, matte dial era.

The 1655 makes the most sense when it is bracketed by what came next in its own line and by the Rolex travel watch it quietly borrows from. The ref. 16550 shows the Explorer II’s pivot into a sapphire crystal, independently adjustable 24 hour hand era, while the GMT-Master ref. 1675 highlights how unusual the 1655’s fixed bezel and dial-forward 24 hour scale really are.

Buying a Rolex 1655 is less about finding “a 1655” than finding a 1655 that has not been quietly rebuilt. The reference is famous for independent, collectible part timelines, and it is also a watch that often saw real tool use, which makes later service dials, replacement hands, and softened cases common.

The safest path is to decide what kind of correctness matters most, then let the watch prove it visually: matte dial printing that matches a known Mark family, tritium that ages consistently across plots and hands, and a bezel whose engraving style and sharpness make sense for the rest of the build. A sapphire crystal is a hard stop, because the 1655 is the only Explorer II made with acrylic.

At its best, owning an Explorer II 1655 feels like wearing Rolex’s most literal 1970s instrument, a 39 mm sports Oyster whose quirks are the point. The watch is still robust enough for regular wear if it is serviced properly, but its value is carried in fragile details like printing, patina, and untouched geometry, so the daily experience is equal parts tool watch and careful stewardship.