Rolex Explorer 1016 Tropical Gilt DialBorn for high altitude Himalayan climbing, the Explorer arrived in the 1950s, launching in the same year as the Submariner and the Turn O Graph. As Rolex once put it in an advertisement, We built the Rolex Explorer as there are no watch repair shops on top of the Matterhorn. To say it was a major year for Rolex and for watches more broadly would be an understatement. It helped shape the company Rolex would become, defined the modern sports watch