Rolex Vintage Explorer I

The Explorer is the Rolex that actually went up Everest, or at least the brand has been happily reminding everyone since the 1953 ascent. It's deliberately, almost defiantly simple: a clean black dial with big 3, 6, and 9 numerals, sized to slip under a cuff and shrug off whatever your day throws at it. Its bigger, busier cousin the Explorer II adds a 24-hour hand and a fixed bezel that cavers and polar researchers used to tell day from night when the sun wasn't around to help. Between the two, this is the no-drama, go-anywhere corner of the Rolex world, the watch you'd grab if you could only keep one.