BDE: Rolex Explorer I

To the uninitiated, the Rolex Explorer I is just a watch. It tells the time, with a bold “3-6-9” emblazoned on the dial. With this particular reference number being the 114270, it’s 36mm wide by a diminutive 44mm long (lug-to-lug) and 12mm high.

By most folks, the Explorer I can easily be dismissed as a “You’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all” kind of pieces. Upon first look, say at a watch meet holding it for 20 seconds, it doesn’t present itself with much of anything. As stated before, it only tells the time. No dive bezel to time your pasta cooking on the stove, nor a chronograph complication to track how long the stop light has been stuck on red. But doing even the lightest of Google-research tells me a much deeper story. With Explorers, they are a timepiece purely based in nuance.

Is the Explorer nameplate North or South of the pinon? Does the chapter ring have ‘Rolex’ plastered across its entire duration? Are the lugs drilled with solid end links in the bracelet? When searching for your ‘time-only’ daily Rolex, there are many facets and layers of information to keep in mind, and that hasn’t even scratched the surface of the watches’ 71-year history.

Now, finding this particular Explorer I being a 114270, I believe, is just the right sweet spot for a ‘proper’ Explorer. It’s low-key to anyone else in the room and never shouts about its price bracket, or that it’s the upgraded Caliber 3130. The broad “3-6-9” markers on the dial level out any sense of dainty elegance and bring with them a level of utility and overall cool, in my book. The watch reads perfectly symmetrical which paired with its lacquer black dial, provides a level of satisfying eye candy of its own.

Coming straight from the 42mm Glycine Combat Sub GMT review I had previously completed, and upon receiving the 36mm Explorer, I was immediately anxious with how small the watch was in person. “Oh what if I’m given this opportunity and I end up feeling that the watch is bland? What if any kind of preconceived notions from other people’s impressions just come up short of my experience?” With the last couple of review processes I’ve had, I’ve experienced a very similar cycle between them all. Starting from “Wow, I can’t believe I have this” to “Wow, this thing is awesome” to “Wow, I can see myself with this as a staple in my collection” to “Wow, this really feels like my watch” and ending with “Dammit, I have to give this back now.” As far as its place on my roster of attainable goals in the future, it’s punching higher than I ever thought it could. Only time will tell if it stays that way, or if it gets overshadowed by something else.

But unlike the larger Glycine and Speedmaster Professional, this 36mm case fits rather  perfectly for my wrist size. The case never hangs off or takes up too much real estate on my diminutive 6” wrists. Is this how everyone else feels about 40mm cases? Because I feel like a proper big boy wearing this after a week. All anxieties about not meeting expectations wash away after the first day.

Gripes. Everyone’s got them about something. So what do I have to say about the Rolex Explorer I? I feel like it’s a solid piece of kit, that is put together well, slides right under the radar, and can be worn on basically any occasion. But I don’t feel like it is quite functional enough for me in my daily life of time management. Despite being a millennial, I don’t actually enjoy checking my phone for the time, or the date. I’d like to just look at the watch on my wrist. Explorer I is time-only.

Also like with cars, and with this being a roughly 20 year old watch, you can expect some materials to wear down. The luminous paint on the indexes (that are not 3, 6, or 9) being one of those materials. Waking up in the morning, even with light trickling in through the blinds on the window of my bedroom can’t illuminate the hands or indexes of the watch. Walking inside from a sunny afternoon doesn’t do much of anything, and can only discern the green lume when shining a light onto the watch (ya know, nerd stuff) or holding the watch up to an open window in direct sunlight. Even then, the green glow is not long for this world.

Now, environmental versatility is what this watch packs in spades. I can roll into the office at 8 in the morning and throughout the day completely forget that I have the watch on. After work, I can put on a nice shirt to go out on a double date to a nice restaurant and not feel at all out of place. I can also jump in a car and head into the mountains to film a truck for my job. Checking the time only to find myself completely caught off guard by the fact that I’m doing kick-ass shit with a Rolex on. HELL. YEA. All the while writing this article and glancing down at the Oyster bracelet, the mirror finish of the dial mirroring the white-gold indexes, and I get completely lost in the romance of a simple little 3-hander.

God dammit... Do I really have to give this watch back? If I don’t want to be charged with Grand Theft, then I guess so… But if I were to run into the hills, evading the local constable, the Rolex Explorer I ref. 114270 would make for a pretty great companion.