Watch Paparazzi

Rapper Tupac Shakur 2pac spotted wearing Rolex

In a photograph dating to the early 1990s, Tupac Shakur — one of the most consequential figures in the history of recorded music — is wearing what appears to be a Rolex Submariner reference 16803 in a two-tone 18k yellow gold and stainless steel configuration, mounted on a gold Jubilee bracelet. It is a combination that stops serious collectors in their tracks.

The Rolex Submariner ref. 16803 was produced from approximately 1984 through the early 1990s and represented Rolex's effort to position the Submariner as a dual-purpose tool-dress watch. The case pairs a stainless steel body with an 18k yellow gold bezel and crown guards, housing the calibre 3035 automatic movement — a robust, in-house workhorse beating at 28,800 vph with a 48-hour power reserve. The black dial is classic Submariner: applied gold hour markers, Mercedes hands, and a unidirectional rotating bezel with a black aluminium insert graduated to 60 minutes. Water resistance is rated to 300 metres.

What makes this particular example exceptional is the bracelet. The vast majority of ref. 16803 examples left the factory on the Oyster bracelet reference 93153. The Jubilee bracelet — a five-link configuration originally introduced on the Datejust in 1945 — was an uncommon factory option on the Submariner line, and its presence on the 16803 makes any surviving example a genuine rarity. The Jubilee lends the watch a formal, almost cocktail-watch elegance that sits in deliberate tension with the Submariner's dive-instrument origins.

Tupac Shakur, who sold more than 75 million records and whose cultural influence has only grown in the decades since his death in 1996, was a documented Rolex collector. His taste ran toward pieces that signaled success without abandoning edge — and the two-tone Submariner on Jubilee does exactly that. It is simultaneously a serious watch and a showpiece.

On today's grey market, the Rolex Submariner ref. 16803 in two-tone configuration commands strong premiums, with Jubilee-bracelet examples sitting at the top of that range given their scarcity. Current market pricing for this reference in solid condition lands around $25,000 USD — a figure that reflects both collector demand for vintage two-tone Submariners and the increasing interest in documenting the watch culture of 1990s hip-hop.