By Joe Berk
I’m a big fan of GMT watches, and in that world, the Pepsi Rolex is perhaps the most desirable. This video (mentioned in my previous blog) tells the story better than I ever could, so I’ll let it do the talking:
The video is good from the perspective of the watch’s history and it is good in telling the story behind Rolex’s masterful control of supply and demand.
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, any Rolex was a status symbol. I know it sure was in the US defense industry. The most commonly-worn one was the Pepsi with an aluminum bezel (the ceramic bezel was still a few decades into the future). One of my fellow Yuppies in the Aerojet heirarchy explained to me that Pepsi with a worn aluminum bezel (like his, with a scratch or two, and faded colors) was even more of a status symbol, as the worn bezel implied that the wearer had been successful for a while. I don’t think that was true, but hey, it was his watch, he believed it, and it made him happy.
Most of the the Rolex GMT watches have bezels with two different colors, one for the a.m. hours and one for the p.m. hours. On the Rolex “Pepsi,” the p.m. bezel hours are blue, and the a.m. hours are red. The red and blue colors are similar to those on a can of Pepsi, hence the name. There’s also a Batman nickname, for bezels with blue and black, and a Coke nickname, for bezels in red and black. There are a few others, but I don’t know them all.
My Rolex is a two-tone watch (stainless steel and gold, as you see above). I just had mine serviced by the wizards at LA Watchworks in Pasadena and they did a great job. It wasn’t cheap, but hey, what is anymore?
Well, that’s a good question. I thought it might be cool to own a Pepsi, but I didn’t feel like shelling out $40K for a Rolex Pepsi. So I did the next best thing.
The Casio Pepsi dive watch above was on sale on Amazon for $53 a few weeks ago, and I couldn’t let that get away. And you know what? I am enjoying the Casio just as much. It actually keeps better time than the Rolex, too.
Time?
Is (no longer ) on my side.
It only runs in one direction.
Well I tried