Rolex GMT-Master II 'Pepsi' Oyster Ref 126710BLRO 2022

Reference 126710BLRO is the Pepsi, and this one comes on the Oyster bracelet rather than the Jubilee — which changes the watch more than people expect. Brand new, 2022, and the plainer, more deliberate of the two ways Rolex fits this bezel.

The colours are not decoration. A GMT bezel is graduated over twenty-four hours, so half of it is daylight and half of it is night, and splitting the insert red over blue lets you see at a glance whether the hand pointing at your other time zone is sitting in someone's working day or the middle of their sleep. Read the 24-hour hand against the red and you can call; against the blue and you probably should not. That is the whole design argument, and it is why the two-tone bezel outlived every single-colour version Rolex tried.

Oyster or Jubilee is the real decision here. The flat three-link Oyster is broader, more brushed and considerably more sober; the Jubilee's five links catch light constantly and pull the watch towards dress. On the red and blue bezel — the loudest Rolex makes without leaving steel — the Oyster is the setting that keeps it a tool.

Calibre 3285, self-winding, approximately 70 hours of power reserve, waterproof to 100 metres. The case is 40 mm in Oystersteel with a screw-down winding crown, and the bracelet closes on an Oysterlock folding safety clasp with the Easylink extension for five millimetres of adjustment on a warm day.

Brand new, 2022, offered as a full set. Second hand only in the sense that it has been sitting in its box rather than on a wrist.

Every watch is authenticated by an independent watchmaker before it changes hands, never by us. Viewing by appointment at our Collins Street boutique in Melbourne, insured delivery Australia-wide. We buy Rolex outright and source specific references on request.