ROLEX SEA-DWELLER REF. 16600 "COMEX - Lot 90

ROLEX SEA-DWELLER REF. 16600 "COMEX Steel wristwatch, black lacquered dial, "Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date" at 12 o'clock and "COMEX SEA-DWELLER/4000ft=1220m/SUPERLATIVE CHRONOMETER OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED", white-line minute track, tritium-circled hour-markers, "Mercedes" hands, date at 3 o'clock, "SWISS - T<25". Unidirectional bezel, tritium ball. Case middle with helium valve. Signed screw-down crown, three points for Triplock technology. Steel caseback signed "Rolex Oyster", "Original Gas Escape Valve" and ROLEX 3250 COMEX on the outside, signed Rolex reference 16600, numbered N4459** on the inside. Mechanical self-winding movement signed Rolex reference 3135 with quick date, numbered 62177**. Steel Oyster bracelet reference 93160, folding clasp with Fliplock clasp signed Rolex, extension blade S. Watch functional at time of appraisal, without guarantee of future operation or condition of parts. Accompanied by its overbox labeled 16600, its green-sheathed wooden box, its protective cushion and envelope, its official chronometer certificate with serial number, its Rolex Oyster and Rolex Submariner booklets, its chronometer certification and serial number tags, its Sea-Dweller accessory anchor, a photo of the three divers on the HYDRA 10 mission, including Régis Peilho, the latter's letter of transfer to the current owner, dated and signed, and its Rolex document holder containing : a 1992/1993 calendar, multilingual chronometer certification booklet, its pump-plunger tool and screwdriver for links Ref. 2100, dive table card, L extension cable and two additional links. Circa 1993 Diameter 40 mm The Rolex Sea-Dweller reference 16600 "COMEX" presented today is special for two reasons. The first is the story of its owner Régis Peilho and his memorable actions during his missions for COMEX, which we'll detail below. The other is that of a watch of impeccable quality. A piece in near-new condition, never having been serviced or polished, and which comes "full set", meaning with everything the diver may have received in 1992 or 1993 when he acquired the watch. A piece probably offered by Rolex following the success of the HYDRA 10 mission, as was the case with the watch of his comrade Theo Mavrostomos. The COMEX 16600 is the last Rolex Sea-Dweller to be delivered to COMEX. The watches are divided into several groups, with our watch belonging to the first group, with around 100 pieces produced, bearing the serial number in -N, as well as a dial with the words SWISS - T, "straight" engravings on the case back and a type 32XX assignment number. - COMEX, or Compagnie d'Exploitation Maritime, is inextricably linked with the great men who made it world-famous. Founded by Henri Germain Delauze in 1962, the company specializes in underwater engineering. In the early 1960s, so-called "professional" diving was limited to unadventurous public works at depths of no more than 30 metres. But the 1960s, known for the search for major offshore deposits, would need the brains and arms of men, professional divers, to support this development at depths well beyond 50 meters. We owe all the major developments that followed to COMEX between 1965 and 1975. From caissons to special diving vessels, not forgetting decompression tables to rely on. To develop all this, COMEX set up its Centre Expérimental Hyperbare (C.E.H) in 1964, with a limit of 365 meters, and a little later, in 1968, a new site in Marseille with a dual objective: on the one hand, to develop underwater technologies in a 300-meter hyperbaric unit, and on the other, a saturation unit adapted for saturation diving under hydrogen and up to 800 meters. COMEX is not just about divers, it's also about an army of doctors, including Drs. Xavier Fructus and Maurice Comet, scientists and engineers. With activities starting in the mid-1960s and extending into the early 2000s, we can still boast impressive figures of 5,300 operations, 1,000 divers and 2,700 experimental dives. If two dives stand out, it's HYDRA 8 (1988) at a depth of -534 meters, where COMEX divers connected two sections of a pipeline, and HYDRA 10 (1992) in a chamber at -701 meters. It's the latter HYDRA 10 dive that particularly interests us, as the original owner of this Rolex Sea-Dweller Reference 16600 was one of the three divers on the mission, Régis Peilho alias "fusible". Régis Peilho's particularity, apart from having reached the -