Rolex Submariner 5513

The storyWhy this reference matters

Rolex launched the 5513 in 1962 and kept building it until the late 1980s. Twenty-seven unbroken years — no other Submariner has lasted anywhere near as long. The watch passed through three separate eras of watchmaking in that time, and you can read all three off the dials, which are the best calendar this reference has. First came the gilt dials, gold text over glossy black lacquer. Then the matte dials of the 1970s. And finally, in the 1980s, the glossy dials with white gold surrounds on the markers and hands.

The 5513 arrived as the uncertified version of the 5512. The whole difference between them fits on a sheet of paper: the 5512 carries a chronometer-certified calibre and says so with two extra lines of dial text, and the 5513 does not. Same case, same bezel, same silhouette — and today, two separate markets at very different prices.

For most of its life this was a tool, not an object of desire. The Royal Navy ordered its own version, with sword hands and issue markings on the case back for military inventory. That a watch this ordinary ended up on a pedestal says more about the last twenty years of the market than about the first twenty years of the watch.

SpecificationsThe numbers, in one table

IdentificationHow to tell it apart

The 5513 ran the calibre 1520 and the calibre 1530 over its lifetime, and neither was chronometer certified. That one fact settles a lot of arguments. If a 5513 dial carries the four lines ending in "Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified", either someone has fitted a 5512 dial or the watch is not what it claims to be.

The earliest examples, from 1962 and 1963, have pointed crown guards; they were rounded off later. It is one of the easiest things to check in a photograph, and one of the details that adds most to the price.

There is a much-wanted early variant with an Explorer dial, with Arabic numerals at 3, 6 and 9. It is genuinely rare, which is precisely why it turns up so often "recreated" in workshops that have nothing to do with Rolex. Faced with one of these, documented provenance matters more than the photograph.

CollectingWhat collectors check

On a 5513 the value sits almost entirely in the dial and the bezel, not the case. An original gilt dial with no staining can multiply the price of an otherwise identical watch several times over.

Hold the bezel insert up against the light. Originals from the sixties and seventies fade to a ghostly grey that is very hard to fake convincingly. A jet-black insert on a 1968 watch is nearly always a replacement — which does not rule the watch out, but it does change what it is worth.

And be suspicious of anything too shiny. These watches were actually worn. A flawless 5513 at this distance has either spent its life in a safe, which is rare, or been through a heavy polish that has eaten the edges off the case.

Common questionsWhat people ask us about this reference

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Close relativesThe ones it gets confused with