Rolex Vintage Explorer II

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.