The Rolex Submariner ref. 1680 holds a special place in the dive watch canon—not for where it began, but for where it ended. Introduced in the late 1960s as the first Submariner to feature a date window (and with it, the now-iconic cyclops magnifier), the 1680 redefined the line’s balance between utility and everyday practicality. For nearly a decade, the earliest examples carried the name “Submariner” in red—a flash of color that would come to define the “Red Sub” era.
But in 1976, something shifted. The dial turned quiet. Rolex phased out the red print, and the final chapter of the 1680 came to life in stark, utilitarian white. Produced only for a few short years until 1979, these “White” 1680s were in fact far rarer than their red-lettered predecessors—and among them, the very first dials, now known as MK1, remain the most elusive. These MK1 white dials are distinguished by their bold, serifed fonts and slightly warmer tritium tones—details that hint at a transitional moment between vintage soul and the sharper edges of what would become the five-digit Submariner era.
There’s a certain poetry in the MK1 White Sub’s restraint. It arrived just as Rolex began refining its tool watches into icons of global luxury, and it quietly bridged the world of no-nonsense diving steel with the rising appetite for timeless design. It’s the last word of a reference that wrote much of the Submariner’s modern identity—and one that serious collectors now look back on with a keener eye than ever before.
