One page per reference: production years, caliber, case, water rating, and the lineage that connects it to what came before and after. No prices, no listings feed — the file reads the same in ten years.
| REFERENCE | PRODUCED | WHY IT MATTERS |
|---|---|---|
| Seiko 6217-8000/8001 "62MAS" | c. 1965–1968 | The first Seiko diver - 1965, internal design language that started everything |
| Seiko 6105-8110/8119 "Willard" | c. 1970–1977 | The asymmetric-case icon carried through the Vietnam era and immortalized on screen in Apocalypse Now |
| Seiko 6159-7000/7001 "Hi-Beat 300" | c. 1968–1969 | The 36,000 bph professional - a grail of the entire vintage Seiko catalog |
| Seiko 6159-7010 "Grandfather Tuna" | c. 1975–1978 | Launched June 1975 - the world's first titanium-case professional diver, designed by Ikuo Tokunaga with more than 20 patents on the case alone |
| Seiko 6309-7040/7049 "Turtle" | c. 1976–1988 | The definitive cushion-case diver - twelve years in production, first series with square crown guards then the -729A slim sibling |
| Seiko SKX007 (7S26-0020) | 1996–2019 | The people's diver - twenty-three years in production, the reference that introduced more people to mechanical watches than any other, discontinued 2019 |
| Rolex 6204 | c. 1953–1955 | The first Submariner shown to the world, at the 1954 Basel fair - though collectors still argue whether the big-crown 6200 was actually produced first |
| Rolex 6200 "King Sub" | c. 1954–1956 | The 8 mm big-crown professional and one of the rarest production Submariners - possibly produced before the 6204 despite the Basel debut order |
| Rolex 6538 "Big Crown" | c. 1956–1959 | The James Bond Submariner - on Sean Connery's wrist in Dr. No on a nylon strap borrowed on set, and in three more Bond films after |
| Rolex 5513 | c. 1962–1989 | The longest-produced Submariner - twenty-seven years as the non-chronometer workhorse, with more dial variants than any other reference in the line |
| Rolex 1680 "Red Sub era" | c. 1969–1980 | The first Submariner with a date - sources split its introduction across 1967, 1968 and 1969 |
The file fills in one family at a time. Greyed files are open but not yet written.
RefFile records what was made: the reference, its specification, its production window, and its place in the succession chain. Watch production figures are mostly unpublished and even manufacturer date records are approximate — Seiko has said as much about its own archive — so the file marks approximate windows "c." and cites what can be documented. A spec sheet for a discontinued reference is sealed forever; that is the kind of page we write.