New (to me, in way) Red Sub 1680

[Oliver37]

Hi all,

Thought I'd share a watch that my dad gave me for Father's day (I am very lucky, I know). It's a neat story, which I'll share below, but feel free to jump to the pics if you'd like.

In circa 1971 a buddy of his went to Switzerland, and my dad, an avid surfer, having saved up the money asked him to buy a Rolex so that he could surf with it. $230 later, plus a $34 import duty that my dad almost couldn't afford, he was the proud owner of one of the few waterproof watches around.

I was born about 9 years later, and while I do remember holding a positively humongous and heavy metal watch at various points of my childhood, watches were not a "thing" in our household and I didn't think much of it until I got into watches around 2015.

I knew that he had a Rolex and I recalled its basic appearance, and I remember mentioning to him that it might be worth something (I believed it to be a Submariner from childhood memories, but I wasn't sure). I remember telling him "old Rolexes are worth a lot now - it might be worth like $6k".

Unfortunately, he couldn't find it, and hadn't seen it for many years. I asked him about it periodically, but no dice. Bummer. But a year or so later, he found it in one of his dresser drawers. It had fallen from the sock drawer down into the drawer below it, where it had probably remained hidden for the last ten years.

I took a look at it, and, while I was not an expert on Subs, I did notice the red writing and thought I'd heard something about the mythical "Red Sub" on the internet somewhere. Sure enough, his $230 Rolex that he'd lost for many years turned out to be the holiest of holy grails - a probably all original Red Submariner.

It looks like it has a Mark IV dial and the 2951xxxx serial dates it around 1970 if I am not mistaken. He said he has had it serviced but not in the last 25 years. It's possible some components of it have been replaced, but it's also quite possible that none of them have. He doesn't remember, and may not have known it if they had.

The bezel seems to have fat-ish markings and the hand and index lume seem to be of the same color. The date wheel has the same "open 6" as the dial. The crystal has seen better days and it looks like the case has been polished at some point. It is holding time just fine though I haven't tested it. No box and papers, but maybe they'll turn up in another drawer someday

Would love to hear from the experts anything else that you can observe from the pics. I will never sell it and I'm not super concerned about determining its precise value, but I am of curious to learn as much about it as possible!