Explorer II · Spotting fakes
The Explorer II hides its tells in plain sight — a fixed 24-hour bezel and an independently jumping hour hand most fakes get wrong.
The single most telling check on the Explorer II is the bezel itself. The engraved 24-hour bezel is fixed and must not rotate at all — it is a stationary reference ring, never a clicking dive bezel. Many counterfeits borrow a GMT-Master style turning bezel or build in a faint rotation; on a genuine Explorer II the ring is solid, immovable, and the numerals are crisply engraved and filled, not printed on a spinning insert.
The Explorer II is defined by its bold orange 24-hour hand, from the 1655 “Freccione” through the modern 216570 and 226570. The orange must be the correct warm shade, evenly applied, with the arrow tip cleanly formed. Fakes drift toward a flat red, a washed pastel, or a muddy tone, and the arrowhead is often clumsy or undersized. The hand should track the fixed bezel precisely as it sweeps the 24-hour ring.
This is a genuine GMT complication, not a dressed-up date watch. The local hour hand should jump forward and back in independent one-hour steps without disturbing the minute hand or the 24-hour hand. When you set local time across time zones, only the hour hand moves in clean clicks. Many fakes drive all hands together or fudge the jump, so a hand that drags the minutes or refuses to index alone is a clear warning sign.
On the white “Polar” variant the dial is the giveaway. The Polar dial must read clean and bright white with crisp printing and lume plots that glow evenly across every marker. Patchy, dull, or mismatched lume is a fake’s tell. The date sits under a 2.5x Cyclops that should magnify and centre the digit, and current references measure 42 mm with the dense, precisely finished feel of a genuine Oyster case.
Treat every external check as a filter, not a verdict. Modern super-clones can now pass a casual glance, copying the fixed bezel, the orange hand and even the Polar dial convincingly. As an independent editorial reference in Naples, Florida, we do not sell or authenticate watches. The only conclusive step is to have a qualified independent watchmaker open the case and examine the movement, where the genuine calibre and its independent hour-jump mechanism cannot be faked.
Spotting fakes FAQ
No. The Explorer II uses a FIXED engraved 24-hour bezel that does not turn at all — it is a stationary reference ring, not a clicking dive bezel. If the bezel rotates in either direction, even slightly, treat the watch as suspect and have it examined by an independent watchmaker.
Set local time and watch the hands. On a genuine Explorer II the local hour hand jumps independently in clean one-hour steps without moving the minute hand or the orange 24-hour hand. If all the hands move together, the GMT complication is faked.
It should be a warm, saturated orange, evenly applied with a cleanly formed arrow tip, consistent across the 1655 Freccione and the modern 216570 and 226570. A flat red, a washed pastel, or a clumsy arrowhead points to a counterfeit.