Reference:16613: Difference between revisions

|title=Rolex 16613 Submariner Date — LN black, LB Bluesy, production and dial variants | Rolexopedia

|description=The 16613 is the two-tone Submariner Date of the caliber 3135 era, in production from 1989 to 2009 in two suffixes — 16613LN (black bezel and dial) and 16613LB (blue bezel and dial, the Bluesy).

|image_alt=Rolex Submariner Date 16613LB Bluesy — two-tone Rolesor with blue dial and blue bezel

[[File:Ref 16613 hero.webp|thumb|center|640px|alt=Rolex Submariner Date 16613LB two-tone Bluesy on its Rolex presentation box|Rolex Submariner Date 16613LB — the blue sunburst dial and blue aluminum insert that gave the reference its Bluesy nickname, on its two-tone Oyster bracelet]]

| 18k yellow gold surround, aluminum insert (60-click unidirectional) — black on LN, blue on LB

[[File:Ref 16613LB dial-standard.webp|thumb|right|250px|alt=Standard sunburst blue dial of the 16613LB|The standard 16613LB sunburst blue dial and blue aluminum bezel insert — the canonical Bluesy configuration, without the factory gem-setting shown in the gallery above.]]

The factory sub-variants of the LB:

 

* Standard sunburst blue — the canonical 16613LB dial. Blue radial sunburst, applied gold markers, gold Mercedes hands. Tritium lume on early watches, Luminova then Super-Luminova on later examples.

* Tropical purple — blue 16613LB dials that have oxidized over decades to a distinctly purple or plum hue. The shift is driven by long UV exposure and slow chemical aging of the blue pigment, and it is progressive and irreversible. Tropical purple dials appear either evenly across the full face or in uneven patches depending on how the watch was worn and stored. The collector market treats an even, attractive tropical purple as a desirable feature rather than a defect, consistent with the broader market for tropical vintage Rolex dials.

* Factory Serti — silver-base gem-set dial, diamond hour markers, sapphire indices in the cardinal positions. The name comes from the French ''sertissage'' (gem-setting). Rolex set these at the factory, and a clean factory Serti carries a substantial premium over an aftermarket gem-set dial that looks similar at a glance. The blue-bezel LB Serti is the more commonly encountered configuration of the gem-set 16613.

* Sultan dial (factory champagne Serti) — champagne base with diamond hour markers and sapphire accents, typically two baguette sapphires plus a triangular sapphire at twelve. The naming follows the collector convention used by the wider specialist trade: silver-base gem-set is "Serti", champagne-base gem-set is "Sultan". Neither name refers to the Sultanate of Oman or the Khanjar emblem, which is a separate provenance line entirely. Sultan dials are scarcer than silver Sertis and command premiums when papers and serial fall inside a coherent run.

[[File:Ref 16613LN hero.webp|thumb|right|250px|alt=Rolex Submariner Date 16613LN two-tone, black dial|The 16613LN — black gloss dial and black aluminum bezel insert, the other half of the two-tone pair alongside the LB.]]

* Standard gloss — black lacquer base, applied gold hour markers, gold Mercedes hands. Tritium lume on early watches, Luminova then Super-Luminova on later examples.

* Early raised-marker dial — some early examples carry raised markers associated with the preceding 16803/16808 generation; exact fitment should be checked against the case and movement.

* Serti dial — gem-set examples with diamond and, in some configurations, colored-stone accents. Factory origin and later alterations are difficult to separate from photographs alone, so provenance and movement/case consistency matter.

A mother-of-pearl 16613LB is documented at Bonhams London (Fine Wristwatches, 19 June 2019, lot 81): movement no. 657****, a mother-of-pearl dial with applied diamond-set gold dot hour markers and sapphire-set quarters, on the early 93153 hollow-end-link bracelet with a blue bezel insert. The watch was first sold on 2 January 1993, placing it at the very start of the 16613's production run. Its inner caseback is stamped 16610 rather than 16613 — the steel Submariner Date reference — a detail Bonhams' cataloguing notes without further comment; whether that reflects a shared case blank across the two references or a later service caseback is not established from the lot alone. The lot did not sell against an estimate of GBP 4,000-6,000. No mother-of-pearl 16613LN has surfaced in this pass.

File:Ref_16613_detail_3.webp|alt=Wrist presence — two-tone steel and gold with blue dial|Wrist presence — two-tone steel and gold with blue dial

File:Ref_16613_bracelet.webp|alt=Two-tone Oyster bracelet with steel outer links and 18k gold center links|The 16613 two-tone Oyster bracelet — steel outer links and 18k gold center links, shared by both the LN and the LB

=== Later bracelet: 93253 (solid end links — SEL) ===

The 93253 brought solid end links — SEL, in collector shorthand — to the two-tone Submariner. Solid end links close the gap between bracelet and case more tightly than the older hollow type and give the watch a more substantial feel on the wrist. The transition landed around 2000, parallel to the SEL rollout on the steel 16610 and the gold 16618. Rolex had introduced solid end links on the Sea-Dweller first, then spread them across the Submariner family.

[[File:Ref 16613 government-panama-canal.webp|thumb|right|220px|alt=16613 Panama Canal two-tone limited edition dial|16613 Panama Canal — black dial with gilt canal emblem above 6 o'clock]]

Seventy-five two-tone steel and yellow-gold 16613s were produced in 1999 to commemorate the December 1999 transfer of the Panama Canal from the United States to the Republic of Panama, retailed exclusively by Mercurio Joyero in Panama City. The dial carries a gilt Panama Canal emblem above six o'clock with the inscription "Panama Canal — Canal de Panamá"; the caseback is engraved with the limited-edition number around its periphery. A parallel run of seventy-five steel examples uses the same dial layout and circulates as the [[Reference:16610|16610]] Panama Canal. Sotheby's Watches Online March 2020 lot 4 (c.1999, A946579, numbered 57/75, estimate CHF 25,000–40,000) is the strongest documented two-tone example. The Panama Canal commemoratives were issued on black-dial watches; no parallel LB commission is documented.

A Khanjar 16613 — the curved dagger emblem of the Sultanate of Oman — is documented as a caseback engraving rather than as a dial signature. By the late 1990s the Omani commissions had moved off the dial and onto the caseback, fulfilled through Khimji Ramdas, the Omani retailer. Bukowskis lot 1023 (c.1998, serial U365470, Khanjar caseback engraving, Khimji Ramdas warranty card, Khanjar-stamped outer box; 140,000 SEK against 130,000–180,000 estimate) anchors the caseback-Khanjar 16613 in the late-1990s. ItalianWatchSpotter places the dial-to-caseback shift at the start of the 2000s. Khanjar dial 16613 examples are not documented; treat any claimed example as misidentified.

[[File:Ref 16613LN tiffany.webp|thumb|right|250px|alt=Tiffany & Co.-signed 16613LN dial|A Tiffany & Co.-signed 16613LN — "TIFFANY & CO." printed above SUBMARINER on the black gloss dial.]]

A Tiffany & Co. retailer-signed 16613 is documented at Sotheby's London (Fine Watches Including Masterworks of Time, 14 April 2021, lot 8, c.1991, serial X723491, black dial, signed case, dial, and movement). The lot text notes Tiffany 16613 examples are rare and that the consigning party was the original purchaser with the signature also present on the original guarantee. Cartier-signed and Bucherer-signed dial examples are not documented for the 16613 — the New York Cartier-retailing window had largely closed by 1988, and Bucherer 16613s typically circulate as non-double-signed certified pre-owned inventory.

* [https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/rolex-submariner-reference-points Hodinkee: Reference Points — Understanding the Rolex Submariner] — 16613 and successor context

* [https://www.rolexforums.com/archive/index.php/t-120033.html Rolex Baselworld 2010 Submariner technical material] — contemporaneous comparison for the following ceramic generation

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolex_Submariner Wikipedia: Rolex Submariner] — family chronology

* ''The Vintage Rolex Field Manual'' — Colin A. White, Morning Tundra

* [https://www.rolex.org/ ''Submariner'' — Nicholas Foulkes, Rolex, 2024]