Ed:

Indeed, the reference to Winn-Dixie and Dominos Pizza was in jest, and not a real comparison, but I did go some years wondering about the connection to the Commodities Exchange! In all seriousness, I imagined that these Rolexes were given as gifts or bonuses to the best young traders, and I was curious about why they were so cherished by collectors.

Thanks for this excellent capsule information!!

Jeff

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

: COMEX is a French diving company founded in
: 1961 to explore the depths of the oceans..
: The NASA of the deep sea..

: From 1970 to 1997 COMEX worked closely with
: Rolex and many of their deep sea divers were
: issued Rolex SD as a tool to do their work.
: Rolex used this as a way to test some of
: their new watches and to resolve some with
: issues from COMEX such as decompression
: divers and their watches not being able to
: withstand depths.. The Helium Escape Valve
: (HEV) was deleloped and tested on 5513 and
: 5514 for COMEX before being commercially
: available in the original SeaDweller in
: 1967.

: COMEX watches have also been associated with
: records and experiments such as the max
: depth of 701 meters or the Hydra experiments
: and its common to see those watches engraved
: with specifics about the experiments, etc.

: What makes them very collectible is that they
: were never sold by stores (AD) only issued
: to divers or officials and that they were
: made in extremely low quantities even after
: all those years with COMEX. They also have
: special characteristics and unique COMEX
: serial numbers and engravings in the
: casebacks which make them very interesting
: for collectors.

: They played a big part of the development of
: the watches that we wear today.

: Kindly
: delgado