SUB 600T REVISITED
© Dr. Peter McClean Millar - March 2022
It is approaching 20 years since I reviewed the SUB 600T. Hard to believe it was that long ago. I wore it for a while and then my wife gave me what was to become a very oft used expression: do you think you could resize the bracelet to see what it looks like on me? And just like that it was gone. I recently bought a Dirk Pitt dial version of the watch and after seeing the differences in the two watches both in production and in wear patterns, I though maybe it was time to revisit the 600T and do a follow up review. A lot has changed in the last 20 years for Doxa, the Marei era produced a boat load of models and now with the ICE era, Doxa has taken the brand in a different direction. How does the 2nd SUB from the Marei era stand against the test of time and the SUBs available to buy now? Spoiler alert: pretty darned well!
By way of explanation of the eras. Historically there have been:
Vintage - these are the ones from the late 1960s that defined what the SUB 300 and 300T became. 1965 - approximately 1970
Synchron - The 300T design changed very little - slightly different bezel markings but a thicker case. 1970 - 1978
Aubry - Aubry Freres bought Doxa and produced a number of different models: 250T, 300T, 600T, 750T, 1000T, different dial markings, different angular shaped case, a quartz movement and even a left sided crown 750T. 1978 - approximately 1983 (final date very hard to pin down)
Marei - named after Rick Marei who for almost the last 20 years re-establish and built the Doxa brand to what it is today. He stuck pretty much to the traditional SUB 300T / T-Graph design with a few exceptions. 2000 - 2019
ICE - This stands for Innovation, Consolidation and Expansion. 2019 -
Innovation - There is a new CEO in charge and from what I can see he is Innovating with the Carbon, the 200 and the C-Graph. Many purists including me are sometimes perplexed and sometimes scratching our heads at the direction and changes but I think we all agree that Doxa couldn't keep making basically the same watch over and over again.
Consolidation - The Jenny family brought sales, marketing, manufacture, distribution and service back under one organization.
Expansion - We are beginning to see the global expansion both in terms of geography and in sales outlets. It's a bold move and may not be plain sailing but again, I think it needed to be done to bring the Doxa SUB out of the niche market.
So there you have it. ICE is also cool and it doesn't take me to tell you just how cool a Doxa SUB is 
Before I start to look at the watches, here's a bit of advice.
So here is the thing about Doxa SUB bezels, they are scratch magnets and because they are polished you will easily see any kind of even small scratches. Most people don't like the scratches so the temptation is to polish the bezel, DO NOT DO IT, seriously, DO NOT DO IT. You should be able to see the difference, in the photo below, between the bezels on the 600T Professional and Divingstar which were gently worn and never polished and the 600T Dirk Pitt which had a relatively harder life and was polished a number of times. The paint in the numbers on the Professional and Divingstar are still intact and look great. When I received the Dirk Pitt version there was no paint in any of the black or orange numbers. It has proven almost impossible to restore the bezel to its former glory. The bezel has been polished so much that the depth of the numbers is reduced such that paint retention is very difficult. You can see it most at the edge of the bezel. The 8 in 80 is almost illegible now. The 600T numbers depth was not the greatest to start with but some 750T bezels were even worse and the paint literally fell out within weeks of the watches being worn. In the end I had an old Painty pen that isn't made any more, some nasty chemical in it. It worked but on close inspection the numbers are a little bit rough and ready. I'm happy enough to leave them as they are because any further wiping or messing with them could remove the paint again. Such a pity the previous owner / owners hadn't the sense to leave well alone.
If you really have to try to remove the scratches on your SUB bezel, here's Pete's tip for the top: use a small piece of Cape Cod cloth and very lightly rub the areas of the bezel with no numbers on it. There is enough free space that just by doing those areas, the bezel will look relatively scratch free. Don't take the Cro-Magnon approach that some people do. Polishing the bezel removes metal, it's not like putting wax on your table. You will end up destroying the bezel and they are irreplaceable for these SUB 600T models.
With the release of the SUB 600T, Doxa took a step backwards from the 300T Reissue. But that backwards step really was a move forward. The 300T Reissue was a beast in size and rendered it unwearable for many potential owners. I've owned three of them and sold them all because they were just too big and I ended up never wearing them. The watch looked like a Doxa SUB, the hands were Aubry style, the case had Tonneau shape elements but the bracelet was very divisive. More resembling a bicycle chain than the classic Beads of Rice (BOR).
The 600T used the same style locking clasp as on the 300T Reissue but the bracelet was now a Beads of Rice. The links were not individual beads as on the vintage bracelet but they gave the illusion they were. The outer pieces were brushed and the beads polished. It was a great look. Later versions of the bracelet had all the links brushed which made it look unfinished. The bracelet eventually came with individual polished beads and for the ICE era SUB 300T the clasp has been changed to one with an adjustable diver's extension. My own preference is for the 600T clasp. It is lighter, it just works. No fuss, no fancy. Just does its job.
The 600T bracelet also echoed the vintage SUBs by not using the more modern, solid end pieces. The 600T's were folded sheet metal with faux BOR elements stamped and polished into them. I would have preferred that they didn't have the faux BOR profile even though that has now become standard among modern Doxa SUBs. I think it was a move that the Marei era SUBs can either be praised and vilified for. Where the 600T endpieces really stand out is the fit and finish. Look at the image below and compare the 600T endpieces to the new ICE era 300T. The 300T endpieces are a travesty in my eyes. They protrude beyond the end of the case, they have limited the articulation of the bracelet and they have huge holes in the profile which forces the last beads to stick into the case. The 600T endpieces were far better and the 1200T endpieces were also excellent. The old expression comes to mind: if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
The endpieces on the vintage SUB 300 in the photo were ones I made to resemble the vintage ones. Not quite as good as the original, seen below.
The 600T was very similar in size to the vintage 300 and 300T and not surprisingly, the modern 300 and 300T.
| Length (Lug to Lug) mm | Width (Including Crown) mm | Height mm | |
| Vintage SUB 300 | 44.8 | 44.6 | 11.9 |
| Vintage SUB 300T | 45.2 | 45.4 | 12.9 |
| SUB 600T | 44.5 | 44.6 | 13.3 |
| SUB 300 | 45.1 | 45.1 | 13.8 |
| SUB 300T | 44.5 | 44.2 | 14.0 |
One thing to note about the height of the vintage SUB 300. In the last 20 years I have seen three different Perspex crystals on them. The most common being a Top Hat crystal with a rounded profile where the side meets the top of the crystal, a very rare Top Hat crystal with very square side to top profile (these are usually excessively chipped at the edge) and a relatively common high domed crystal. Both of the SUB 300 watches I have owned came with the latter shaped crystal.
The image below really shows the differences between the 600T and the modern 300 and 300T. A watch thickness is made up of several elements: the crystal, the bezel, the case and the caseback and depending on the relative thickness of each, the watch can look and wear very differently. I discussed this in depth in my Perfect SUB review
The sharp eyed chaps among you will notice that the crystal on my SUB 300 Anniversary is not seated correctly. Little bit of a Quality Control failure. Probably not a good idea to dive with this one!
You will see the height difference better here.
The one thing that the 600T copied exactly from the vintage SUBs was the bezel was a 60 click rotation rather than the 120 click of the 300T Reissue and all the SUBs that came later. Certainly the 120 click bezel feels smooth when turning but there is just something satisfying about the larger movement and louder click on turning the 600T bezel. It really is a harken back to the early days of diving and dive watches.
In my initial review from 2003, I commented on how the crown was sharp and felt unfinished. The crown on the Dirk Pitt watch feels much better. I don't know if Doxa took my comment to heart and smoothed the edges of the crown somewhat or a previous owner filed the crown or maybe the edges just wore after almost 20 years of use but the Dirk Pitt 600T crown feels so much better.
The 600t was released initially at the end of 2003 with the orange dial Professional. Then came the black dial Seahunter and then the Yellow dial Divingstar. The Dirk Pitt edition was released in 2005 to coincide with the debut of the Sahara movie. I no longer have the Sharkhunter. I gave it to my uncle, who later gave it to someone else. Yep, you guessed it, most of my life falls under the expression: well, it seemed like a good idea at the time! This is a pic from back in 2004.
In order to give the caseback of the 600T the vintage look of the 300 and first generation SUB 300T, Doxa used a medal insert for the Jenny fish logo. It didn't end well for a number of watches as several fell out and were lost. That was how I received the Dirk Pitt 600T. Luckily, I had a spare medal which I epoxyed into the case. The initial medals were stuck in using superglue, this was replaced with epoxy on later production casebacks.
Doxa stopped using medals for all the rest of the Marei era watches but resurrected the practice for the Aubry era, angular case 600T Reissue. And that's the thing about using a medal. Even though the caseback of the Marei era 600T is relatively flat compared to later watches, it could have been also 1mm thinner and flatter if the logo had been stamped into the metal. Doxa have received a certain amount of negativity over the height and design of the Aubry 600T Reissue and I think there was a collective groan amongst Doxa fans when it was discovered they had used a medal in that caseback as it definitely increased the thickness of it unnecessarily.
People know I've been very vocal towards the Doxa ICE era management about bringing out a true Clive Cussler edition SUB. The Marei era had a number of Cussler watches. Number 1 of the SUB 300T Reissue was dedicated to and given to Clive. The 600T Professional and Sharkhunter have the words: Clive Cussler Edition on the caseback. The 600T Divingstar has Seahunters Edition on the caseback and the 600T Dirk Pitt has Sahara movie on the caseback.
There were also a number of 750T watches that had Dirk Pitt written on the caseback. The 600T and 750T watches were a tie in to the movie: Sahara based on Clive's book of the same name and the Sea Hunters TV show with Clive, Mike Fletcher and James Delgado.
Definitely worth having if you are a Cussler fan, but, there has never been a Dr. Clive Cussler Doxa SUB dedicated purely to the life and literary work of the man who through his character: Dirk Pitt, was single handedly responsible for keeping the Doxa SUB alive until Rick Marei picked up the torch and resurrected the Brand. Without Clive there most likely wouldn't have been a Marei and now ICE era Doxa. So if the Doxa gang happen to be reading this. Get your finger out, boys and do the decent thing. Oh yea and put something about Clive on your webpage too, you ingrates!!!!
The watch that Matthew McConaughy wore in the movie was sold. Here is a photo of the authenticity certificate and the watch.
All the modern SUBs use Super-LumiNova as the luminous material on the dial. It does not degrade like Tritium so even after almost 20 years the initial charge is still as bright as the newer watches. From left to right: 600T, 300, 300T.
The ICE era has seen the reissue of the Aubry era 600T, there are calls for a reissue of the Marei Era GMT. I'd be pushing for the reissue of this 600T. It is different enough from the 300T models that you can buy now to make it a valuable addition to the present stable of SUBs. The absolute icing on the cake would be a Clive Cussler edition in honor of the man who really did save the Doxa SUB from obscurity
My Dirk Pitt 600T has now become my daily wear. It is arguably the most comfortable wearing modern SUB. It is iconic and gets noticed and because this one has been worn and has a lifetime of wabi it will continue to be worn and acquire new wabi. This is not a safe queen; this is Dirk Pitt's watch. Let the adventures continue.