Page Dimensions

Approx. 7 7/8" x 10 3/4" (20cm x 27cm)

Story and Details

For better or worse, Tom Siatos is not the sort of conservationist you’ll find in a 21st century Rolex advertisement. Rhinoceros corpses are out and coral reefs are in. Nonetheless, Mr Siatos joined men of action such as oil well firefighter Red Adair, and tartan-clad race car driver Jackie Stewart, in the famous "If you were…" campaign that was the main form of print communication from Rolex in the late 1960s.

In this series of advertisements, the reader is told that special kinds of men needed special kinds of watches - watches engineered with such integrity that they were "ready to go anywhere, anytime, to meet any challenge." The mind doesn’t have to venture too far to understand our brand ambassador’s desire for a watch immune to humidity, heat, dirt, and grime. Also, its ability to "absorb constant shock" would have appealed to a man who ‘rolled his own’ big game cartridge, likely a rifle taking a .460 caliber, which was probably more painful to shoot than to be shot by.

As far as his watch of choice... Mr Siatos is promoting a GMT Master Ref. 1675. Not only did it have all of the usual advantages that come standard with a Rolex Oyster watch, but also the ability to track a second timezone or keep an eye on Zulu Time, which would no doubt have appealed to Siatos the traveler and Siatos the pilot.

The last sentence in the advert helpfully reminds us that, for about $5K, one could instead buy the GMT Master in 18kt. gold on a bracelet. When dangerous game was more common and conservation schemes less developed, hunters used to be paid bounties for the protection of livestock. The idea of a hunter buying a solid gold GMT after a particularly successful year rather brings to mind the line in the Italian Job: "You must have shot an awful lot of tigers, sir. Yes, I used a machine gun.’’

In addition to the subject matter being a little "off the reservation" (certainly today), the actual advertisement is a bit of an outlier. The "If you were..." series was mostly phased out in 1970. But this ad, and two others very-similar to it, were published between 1975 and into the early 1980s. I'm not sure why these three ads with Tom Siatos were still done in the "If you were" style...