Our final live auction of the spring 2025 season, the New York Watch Auction: XII, takes place on 7-8 June, at our Manhattan headquarters. The auction includes 140 of the world's finest watches – and though we are loath to boast, we truly think it’s one of the best catalogues we've ever put together. We'll highlight several of the most interesting lots and stories featured in the sale over the next few weeks, including the watch highlighted in this article.
– By Logan Baker
Rolex and COMEX have a storied history that runs as deep as the Mariana Trench.
Beginning in the 1960s, Rolex partnered with COMEX (Compagnie Maritime d'Expertises), the pioneering French maritime engineering company founded by Henri Germain Delauze, to equip their saturation divers with specialized diving watches. These watches, marked with the distinctive COMEX logo on the dial, were never available to the public.
Instead, they were purpose-built instruments, engineered to withstand the crushing pressures of deep-sea exploration. Over the years, they've become some of the most sought-after and collectible Rolex dive watches ever produced.
Now, one of those rare watches is coming to auction at Phillips New York this June: a circa 1997 Rolex Sea-Dweller COMEX ref. 16600 that belonged to the legendary scuba diver Theo Mavrostomos – a man whose name is synonymous with underwater exploration.
Mavrostomos was born in Marseille, France, in 1953. After a stint in the French Navy, he joined COMEX in the early 1970s, embarking on a career as a saturation diver. Over two decades, he became one of the company’s most prominent divers, spending an average of 90 days per year in saturation, working on deep-sea operations that pushed the boundaries of human endurance and scientific understanding.
But it was the HYDRA X experiment in 1992 that would cement his place in history. During that mission, Mavrostomos and two other divers were compressed to a simulated depth of 675 meters – an astonishing 2,215 feet – to test the limits of human physiology under extreme pressure. While the two other divers halted their descent, Mavrostomos pressed on, eventually reaching 701 meters – 2,300 feet – the farthest a manned diving chamber has ever gone.
Inside a pressurized hyperbaric chamber, breathing a complex mix of hydrogen, helium, and oxygen, Mavrostomos remained at 701 meters for two hours. Over the course of 24 days, he and his teammates slowly decompressed to surface pressure. The entire dive took more than 40 days to complete.
The experience, which involved confronting symptoms of high-pressure nervous syndrome and navigating the intense physical and psychological strain of such depths, earned Mavrostomos not only the distinction of being the 'deepest man in the world' but also the French Order of Merit.
Following his record-setting dive, Rolex made Mavrostomos an official ambassador/testimonee.
Mavrostomos' watch, bearing serial number 3379, is a remarkable example of the ref. 16600, a model that enjoyed a 20-year production run from 1988 to 2008. According to research, only 200 examples of the ref. 16600 were produced with the COMEX logo on the dial, all of them delivered between 1992 and 1997. The present example is a complete set, with its original dial, case, bracelet, and special caseback engraving – an absolute time capsule of one of the most important partnerships in the history of dive watches.
What makes COMEX-signed Rolex watches so desirable? Beyond their rarity, these watches are tangible relics of a bygone era – a time when Rolex was actively engaged in pushing the limits of mechanical watchmaking to aid the world’s top divers. Unlike other Rolex Submariners and Sea-Dwellers, COMEX pieces were never offered to the general public. They were strictly tool watches, issued exclusively to COMEX divers who needed robust, reliable instruments capable of withstanding crushing pressures and hostile underwater environments. This provenance – and the fact that many of these watches were worn in extreme conditions – makes them particularly appealing to collectors today.
And in the case of this ref. 16600, the provenance is as compelling as it gets.
Theo Mavrostomos’ achievements as the deepest diver in history link this particular watch to one of the most ambitious and dangerous scientific experiments in the history of undersea exploration.
You can learn more, place a bid, and view the entire New York Watch Auction: XII catalogue right here.