Rolex GMT-Master II Super Clones with a Jumping Local Hour

Collector nicknames for the bezel color combinations on the modern GMT-Master II. Easiest way to keep them straight. Pepsi 126710BLRO is red and blue, the original 1955 colors for day and night, nicknamed after the Pepsi-Cola logo. Batman 126710BLNR is blue and black, named for the Dark Knight color scheme. Sprite 126720VTNR is green and black AND has a left-hand crown — crown at 9 instead of 3, date on the left side, built for lefty wearers. Root Beer 126711CHNR is brown and black on two-tone steel and rose gold. All four come on the Swiss GMT clone from $999.

Simpler than it looks. Hour and minute hands show local time like any other watch. The fourth hand — long arrow with the colored tip — rotates once every 24 hours. Set it to GMT or your home time zone and leave it alone. Read the second zone off the 24-hour bezel scale where the fourth hand points. Want a third zone, spin the bezel until your destination's hour aligns with the fourth hand. Land in a new city, pull the crown one click, jump the local hour forward or back to match. Seconds keep running, GMT hand stays home, date jumps at midnight. That's the part that earns the II in GMT-Master II.

The GMT-Master lives and dies on its second time zone. Pull the crown, snap the local hour into a new zone without stopping the watch, and the GMT hand stays on home time. We make no such claim for the Miyota we fit to other watches: on our Explorer II its 24-hour hand is set along with the hour hand. The second time zone needs the Swiss caliber, so the GMT-Master comes on it only.

The original 1955 GMT-Master had a 24-hour hand permanently linked to the regular hour hand. To change time zones you had to rotate the bezel. Fine for pilots checking GMT, inconvenient for travelers. GMT-Master II launched in 1983 and added the independently jumping local hour. Now the local hour can move on its own without disturbing the GMT hand or the seconds. Land somewhere new, adjust to local time in five seconds, never lose your home reference. Every modern Rolex GMT in production today is a II. Original is collector territory. Our catalog is modern II references.

Buy the Batman 126710BLNR. Blue and black works with everything you own — t-shirt, suit, swimsuit, winter coat — never feels loud the way the Pepsi does in bright light. Quietly the best-selling modern GMT for that exact reason. Pepsi is the second pick if you want the iconic original, and there's a real argument the Pepsi IS the GMT-Master and you should just buy one. Sprite (the lefty with the green bezel) is a great third option for left-handed wearers or anyone who wants something unusual — the green is more subtle than most people expect. Root Beer is the dressy two-tone gold choice, but two-tone gold is louder in practice than most people expect until they've worn it for a month. Start with Batman or Pepsi.

Yes. Bidirectional 24-hour bezel rotates fully with the click-stop feel of the real one. Cerachrom-style ceramic insert is real ceramic, not painted aluminum, so no fading in sunlight and no scratching from desk use. On the two-color references — Pepsi, Batman, Sprite, Root Beer — the colors meet exactly at 6 and 18 hours. That's the precision detail that separates a quality super clone from a low-grade build. Cheap ones get the colour join off-centre or use a smudgy transition. Ours don't.

Yes. It is a raised lens that enlarges the date, not a printed effect. Same Cyclops as on the Datejust and Submariner, sitting over the date window at 3 o'clock so you can read it without squinting. We quote no magnification figure and no lens material for it; the crystal it sits on is sapphire. On the lefty Sprite the Cyclops sits at 9 instead of 3, mirroring the real left-hand-crown layout. Cyclops is one of the most recognized features of any Rolex with a date window. Fastest way to spot a weak build is a flat printed-on Cyclops that doesn't actually magnify.