LOT 223
COMEX-SUBMARINER COMEX THE COMPANY-A SHORT HISTORY
Comex, deep diving operations for the offshore oil industry.
When Henri G. DELAUZE founded COMEX in 1961, in Marseilles; industrial deep-sea diving did not exist yet. Very soon however, COMEX created this new technology and became a pioneer in deep diving operations for the offshore oil industry. For over 30 years, divers of COMEX, then world leader in sub-sea engineering and in manned and unmanned sub-sea interventions scoured all the seas on earth and worked at depths of over 300 meters thanks to the use of helium/oxygen in the breathing mixtures. During the past 20 years, COMEX has continued its development and diversified its activities by entering the robotic and automation fields, with the creation of CYBERNETIX, and the nuclear industry with COMEX NUCLEAIRE. Nowadays, still chaired by H.G. DELAUZE, COMEX S.A. holding company defines the main orientations and the long and mid-term strategy for the COMEX Group
1982-1986 Submariner Sapphire Ref. 16800 Approximately 100 examples without Helium escape valve have been delivered with matt or gloss dial.
From 1967 to 1997, COMEX worked closely with Rolex and many of their Deep Sea divers were issued with Rolex watches as part of their standard equipment.
Rolex used this as a way to test some of their new watches and to resolve some issues, such as decompression problems for the wristwatches worn by the Comex Divers.
The Helium Escape Valve (HEV) was developed and tested on 1665, 5513 and 5514 (reference for COMEX only) for COMEX before being commercially available in the original Sea Dweller in 1971.
What makes Comex Rolex’s very collectible, is that they were never sold by Authorized retailers and only issued to divers or officials and that they were made in extremely small numbers even after all those years with COMEX. They also have special characteristics and unique COMEX serial numbers and engravings on the case-backs, which make them very interesting for collectors.
They played a big part of the development of the watches that we wear today.
condi t ion re ports pages 75-82 in f o@wa t c h e s of k n i g h t s br i d g e . com
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