Then comes the point where that curiosity turns into a slow-building obsession. You began coming to sites like Hodinkee with increasing frequency. You started reading about watches called Ressence, MB&F, Urwerk, and Greubel Forsey and soon realized, “Shit, there’s a lot more to this than I thought.” But your own taste in watches always maintained as the obsession grew.

Since many of us are so far down the rabbit hole that it’s hard to remember who we were before we became that guy at a party quick to give a tip to a friend who absentmindedly muttered the word Rolex. “You definitely want to look at [insert watch here]. This watch has [insert historical anecdote here]. The truth is there’s just a ton of value with this one, you’ll never lose money on it – it’s better than the stock market!” We can’t help ourselves.

Okay, so maybe you don’t take things that far. But for some of us, we remember the days before watch enthusiasm crossed into the mainstream before our tastes were shaped by the sheer fact that a watch was unattainable – back in the days when we could freely have independent taste unshackled from the group think on Instagram and beyond.

One specific memory that comes to mind for me is a trip I took to Paris with my family in 2014. My father, who lived there as a teenager when his father was in the Foreign Service, was celebrating his 50th high school reunion. I was in my mid-20s and had firmly crossed the line into watch obsession to the point where my own selfish preparations for the trip involved scouting watch boutiques and vintage watch dealers just to see all the models I had only read about in the pages of Hodinkee.

What I was really after at that time was a Rolex GMT-Master II with blue and black bezel – what would go on to become the Batman. It had only recently been released art Baselworld a year earlier and I had my heart set on at least seeing one. It must have been the first or second proper day of the trip and I found myself in a Rolex AD, where I asked about the GMT. Bear in mind, this was just before the Rolex frenzy properly began. But a watch like the Batman was still new enough and popular enough that my efforts were in vain.

“I am sorry but we do not have this in the store, but hold on one second, I will show you something,” the specialist said to me. She returned with what many call a “coffin,” which is basically the plastic case that Rolex watches are delivered into the ADs. They are then removed from plastic and styrofoam before being transferred to the showcase or a box if someone ends up purchasing it.

She shows me this box, with a Rolex watch tightly concealed beneath the plastic. “Do you know what this is?” she asked me almost tantalizingly. And I did know. It was a Rolex Submariner ref. 116610LV, also known as the Hulk because of its bright green bezel and matching dial.

“We just got this in, and nobody has seen it yet, would you be interested?” In this time that effectively predated the now common practice of waitlists, I almost instantly had an answer for her.

The Hulk was not what I was there for. Your boy was on the hunt for the BLNR. The heart wanted what the heart wanted.

“No thank you, but I appreciate you showing it to me.” And then I left soon after.

I think about this moment a lot because the watch world has changed so very much in the 10 years since that moment took place. Within three years from then, waitlists and grey market shenanigans became commonplace as secondary market pricing would turn objects of affection into that of investments.

Had I walked into that store circa 2019, would my reaction have been different? It’s honestly hard for me to say. I mean, I do know myself and I never would have purchased a Submariner with intentions to turn around and sell it. But I cannot be sure that I would not have purchased it in place of a Batman simply because I understood the scarcity.

But in 2014, I was guided by nothing more than what I was after. And I would eventually track down and purchase a GMT-Master II Batman (you can read my story about that watch here). I write all of this preamble and personal meditation because I distinctly remember a time in Rolex fandom when it was basically Hulk vs. Batman when it came to hype models in the broader collection (sure the ceramic Daytona too, but that was effectively unobtanium from the jump).

I had a good friend who owned the Hulk, and there was a time when I had my own obsession with it. The Submariner is a model near and dear to my heart. As I have covered several times here on the ‘Dink, my father’s 1982 5513 was sort of the archetypal watch in my memory. Then at a very young age I came into possession of my grandfather’s ref. 5513 Submariner (which is on my wrist as I pen this essay). There was something different enough about the Hulk that I could make it make sense to own it and my 5513: green dial, green bezel, and date complication.

Speaking of which, I have done a good deal of emotional and philosophical explication without really digging into the nuts and bolts of the Rolex Submariner ref. 116610LV. Let’s first get into its origins. The watch was released at Baselworld 2010, when Rolex completely revamped the Submariner Date line in steel to match some major aesthetic changes it had made to the watch in both full gold and two-tone executions. This is when we saw Rolex do away with its classical proportions in favor of the “super case” with new maxi dial and use of Cerachrom for the bezel.

In 2010, the crown unveiled the classic black Submariner Date with the aforementioned updates but then surprised everyone with a watch nobody saw coming nor asked for: a green-on-green variation – the Hulk.

The watch featured a very bold green bezel in ceramic with the brand’s new platinum-filled numerals. Playing off that bezel was a sunray-finished green dial known as green gold by Rolex. The utilization of a colorful sunray dial on the Submariner was known in two-tone configurations but unheard of in steel.

And the truth is, the Hulk had precedent for its existence by way of the original “Kermit” Submariner released in 2003 to commemorate 50 years of the model range. That watch re-introduced the maxi-dial look with enlarged markers, and featured a green aluminum bezel, but still with a black dial.

The Hulk was – well – a Hulkified version of that watch, as if it had gotten so angry that the black dial surface had erupted to give way to the shiny green color beneath it. The proportions were all beefed up and those large markers glowed with blue chromalight. It remained 40mm on paper, but the more rectangular shaping of the case and lugs made this watch wear certainly less refined than its predecessors.

Inside beat the Rolex caliber 3135 with its chronometer certification and 48 hours of power reserve. The case was also now fashioned in 904L steel, an upgrade over the previous 316L grade. The new steel bracelet came equipped with the game-changing EasyLink extension clasp system allowing the wearer to make meaningful changes to the watch’s size on the fly. It remains, to this day, the best in the business.

Much like how my experience at that Paris boutique happened 10 years ago, the Rolex Hulk Submariner saw a somewhat brief 10-year production run. It was discontinued in late 2020 when Rolex surprised us all with a bevy of releases in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The entire Submariner range was sized up to 41mm, and the Hulk was replaced by a watch we now refer to as the Starbucks Submariner due to its green bezel/black dial format. In many ways the Starbucks is the modern successor to the original Kermit.

Which leaves the Hulk with its own very specific sort of legacy. That watch arrived on the scene at effectively the perfect time. It was certainly risky for the Crown to have revamped its steel sports models as aggressively as it did. If you think about it, the preceding and ensuing years saw changes across the lineup from the new Milgauss to the 39mm Explorer to the super case GMT-Master II.

Three watches really stood above all as the most radical departures from the known format: the green crystal Milgauss; the Batman; and of course, The Hulk Submariner. And if you were to track secondary market prices for these three watches they would ascend in that exact order. The Submariner has always been Rolex’s most popular sports watch, so it stands to reason that the Hulk would get the edge.

And even today, as the market has certainly softened to some degree, the Hulk has really maintained a strong position, consistently demanding prices right around the $20k mark and often higher. No doubt, its discontinuation has had an impact on that but its been four years now and it is steady as ever. And it’s not as if these were rare items. They were serially produced in significant quantities for an entire decade. The value ascribed to this watch speaks not just to the fact that you can no longer purchase it new at retail, but to the continued and sustained interest in it as a horological object, as a design object, as a status symbol.

I wanted to return to a watch like this because we often zip way back in time to the vintage days and say things like “Back then, you could buy a Submariner for $150.” Well, I have got to be honest – I sometimes like to look back to a more recent history I actually remember. Back in 2010/2011, the Submariner hovered around $8k with a date.

I did some digging around the Internet to read live reactions to the watch upon its release at Baselworld. Reviews seemed to range from surprise to tepid acceptance. As the months and years went on, some people were surprised to learn that the Hulk was slowly becoming possibly the most popular Rolex sports watch. We never really know what we have until it’s gone, which is why I write this as something of a Hulk appreciation post, a long overdue postmortem on the watch.

Because, if you really look at its lifespan, it withstood the introduction of several HOT Rolex releases: the aforementioned Batman, the return of the Pepsi GMT, the ceramic bezel steel Daytona, and the orange-hand Explorer II, among others. While each of those individual models had their own insane success, they took nothing away from the Hulk which remained hot as ever until its departure in 2020.

It’s hard to say where the interest will go with the Hulk as time marches on, but I think it’s safe to say it will continue to smash expectations. That being said, never count Rolex out when it comes to a revival. For all we know, Watches & Wonders 2024 or 2025 could see us saying farewell to Starbucks and hello again to the Hulk… to Hulk 2 I guess? But even if that happens it won’t change much when it comes to the OG. Just as we saw when Rolex reintroduced the Batman to the fray, collectors still respect and appreciate the original.