Jason Statham Wears One of the Rarest Rolex Submariners

Collectors obsessing over off-catalog, gem-set Daytonas—cool as those watches are!—tend to forget that Rolex became famous as a tool watch manufacturer. In the mid-20th century, watches like the Submariner accompanied divers and soldiers beneath the waves, while the Explorer II helped spelunking scientists keep track of time in dark caves, and the Sea-Dweller plumbed the ocean’s darkest depths. It really wasn’t until roughly the 1970s—when Rolex began making certain of its sport models available in solid precious metals—that the tide began to turn inexorably toward full-on luxury at the Crown.

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Jason Statham clearly has a taste for these earlier, more utilitarian Rolex watches. The beloved British ass-kicking thespian rocked a Submariner ref. 5514 ‘COMEX’—perhaps the ultimate “IYKYK” Rollie—to the Burberry show last week in London. (Hat tip to watch spotter Nick Gould for eyeing this one.) This reference of the Submariner, much like the even rarer “MilSub” Submariners made for the British Ministry of Defense, refers to a special variation of the model that wasn’t available to clients walking in off the street. Instead, these are watches made under contract for a specific organization.

Statham’s watch was originally produced for COMEX (Compagnie Maritime d’Expertise)—a commercial French diving outfit based in Marseille. The company requested a watch from Rolex that would help resolve an issue its saturation divers were facing: Namely, that helium built up during deep dives was blowing the crystals straight off its divers’ timepieces during decompression. (And it wasn’t only COMEX commercial divers who were facing this issue: U.S. Navy aquanauts and researchers were encountering similar problems at depth. More on this in a moment…)

In order to fix this problem, Rolex added a special one-way valve—the “helium escape valve”—to the existing reference 5513. After several modified 5513s were made, Rolex gave this watch its own reference number, and the 5514 was born. Issued in incredibly small numbers to COMEX personnel, these watches are highly coveted by the collector community, and when they do surface at auction, they have the capacity to hammer for six-figure sums. The cool thing about Statham’s watch is that, with the exception of said logo on the dial, it otherwise looks like a run-of-the-mill matte-dial 5513, which is more like a $20,000 piece.

The helium escape valve that makes this Sub so special is borrowed directly from the Sea-Dweller, another famous Rolex tool watch that debuted in 1967. The Crown had begun working on this model built for deep-sea diving in the 1960s. Once the “Double Red Sea-Dweller” version of the watch (ref. 1665) hit commercial shelves in 1967, it formed the basis of a long line of dedicated models meant for diving well beyond the depth of the typical Submariner.

So why would COMEX have received the ref. 5513s and ref. 5514s when the ref. 1665 Sea-Dweller was available? Watch expert and dealer Eric Wind of Wind Vintage has a simple answer: He believes the reason might’ve had to do with expense. Due to the shallower depth rating, these modified Subs might’ve held a cheaper unit cost than the ref. 1665s. Though seeing as these watches were themselves later adopted by COMEX—along with a host of other Submariner references through the late 1990s—it also might’ve been that these divers required or preferred thinner watches, which have less of a tendency to snag on equipment and are more comfortable. Either way, the result is one of the most collectible vintage Rolex watches in the world, and one of the coolest.