Rolex Hulk, Kermit, and Starbucks – What Each One Costs

Rolex has made three green Submariners and collectors gave all three a nickname. The Kermit arrived in 2003, the Hulk in 2010, the Starbucks in 2020. Only one of them is still in production, and it is the cheapest of the three. A Rolex Hulk that sold for about $9,050 new in 2020 now trades between $18,000 and $25,000, which is what happens when Rolex retires a configuration and never replaces it.

The nicknames get mixed up constantly, including by sellers who should know better. This guide separates the three references, gives you the current price on each one, and explains the single detail inside the Hulk range that changes what you are actually buying.

Green Rolex Submariner Prices at a Glance

Read that table twice. The Starbucks is the newest watch, has the better movement, and is the only one you can still order from an authorised dealer, and it is the least expensive of the three. That is the entire story of the green Submariner market in one line.

Three Green Submariners, Three Different Watches

People treat these as three versions of the same watch. They are not. The Kermit has a green bezel and a black dial. The Hulk has a green bezel and a green dial. The Starbucks went back to a green bezel and a black dial, which is why a section of the collector world calls it the Cermit, a contraction of ceramic Kermit.

Rolex calls none of them anything. The internal designation on all three is LV, for lunette verte, French for green bezel. Every nickname here came from buyers, which is exactly why searching for them turns up forums and dealers instead of an official product page.

The Rolex Hulk 116610LV in Detail

The Hulk is the only Rolex ever sold with a green dial and a matching green bezel. That is the reason it costs what it costs. Rolex produced it from 2010 to 2020, then replaced the whole 116610 generation with the 41mm 126610 family and quietly dropped the green dial. There is no successor. If you want a green-on-green Submariner, the 116610LV is the only watch that exists.

The case is 40mm Oystersteel, about 12.5mm thick and roughly 48mm lug to lug. It uses what collectors call the Super Case or Maxi case, with thicker lugs and heavier crown guards than the five-digit Submariners that came before it. Some people love the proportions and some find them slab-sided. Try one on before you commit, because this is the single most divisive thing about the watch and no photograph settles it.

The bezel is green Cerachrom, Rolex’s ceramic, with the graduations filled by platinum applied through vapor deposition. It does not fade and it does not scratch in normal use. The dial is a green sunburst produced by mixing gold dust into the lacquer, which is why it reads bright emerald outdoors and drops to a deep bottle green under indoor light. Chromalight lume sits in white gold surrounds in the Maxi dial layout.

Inside is the calibre 3135 with a Parachrom hairspring and a 48-hour power reserve, running at 28,800 vibrations per hour. The bracelet is the three-link Oyster with the Oysterlock clasp and Glidelock extension, adjustable in 2mm steps up to 20mm without tools. Water resistance is 300 meters.

The Rolex Hulk Went From $9,050 to $25,000

Retail at discontinuation in 2020 was roughly $9,050. By early 2022, at the top of the broader watch bubble, Hulks were trading somewhere between $28,000 and $40,000 depending on which dealer you ask. That spread is worth noticing. When two reputable sources disagree by twelve thousand dollars on the same watch in the same quarter, it means very few examples were actually changing hands at the top and the number was being set by asking prices rather than sales.

The market corrected. Completed sale data from 2025 and 2026 puts a well-kept Hulk between $18,000 and $25,000, with unworn full-set examples reaching $25,000 to $28,000 and honestly worn daily-driver pieces starting around $16,000. Sellers report a median time to sell of around sixteen days, which for a watch at this price is fast. Demand is real, not theoretical.

So the Hulk is down meaningfully from its 2022 peak and still worth roughly double what it cost new. Both things are true at once, and which one you hear depends on who is trying to sell you something.

Not Every Rolex Hulk Is Specified the Same

Here is the detail almost nobody mentions. The Hulk was produced for ten years, and in 2015 Rolex changed its own standards partway through that run.

Before 2015, a Submariner was COSC certified to the industry tolerance of -4 to +6 seconds a day. In 2015 Rolex introduced the Superlative Chronometer certification, tested after casing to -2 to +2 seconds a day, marked it with the green seal on the hang tag, and extended the international warranty from two years to five. A 2017 Hulk left the factory held to a tighter accuracy standard than a 2012 Hulk with the identical reference number on the caseback.

In practice a serviced early Hulk will often keep time as well as a late one, and the difference matters less than condition or completeness. But it is a real distinction between two watches sold at the same price, and it is worth asking the year before you buy. On the warranty, be clear with yourself: those five years run from the original retail purchase date, so even the last Hulks sold in 2020 are out of warranty now. Nobody is selling you a covered watch.

The Rolex Kermit 16610LV and the Flat 4

The Kermit came first. Rolex released it in 2003 to mark fifty years of the Submariner, pairing the standard black dial with a bright green anodized aluminum bezel insert. It was a limited idea rather than a limited edition, and it stayed in the catalogue until 2010, when the Hulk replaced it. Original retail was around $8,000.

Mechanically it is the same platform as the Hulk: 40mm Oystersteel, calibre 3135, 48-hour reserve, 300 meters. The bezel is the difference that matters. Aluminum fades, chips and scratches in a way ceramic never does, and a Kermit with an unfaded original insert is worth considerably more than one that has gone pale or picked up a ding at four o’clock.

Flat 4 versus Sharp 4

On the earliest inserts, the numeral 4 in the “40” marking has a flat top, closer to a trapezoid. Later inserts use a 4 with a pointed top. That is the whole difference, and it is worth ten thousand dollars or more.

Flat 4 inserts appear on early production examples, generally Y-series serials from 2003 and some F-series from 2004. Rolex only supplies the Sharp 4 style as a service replacement now, so every Flat 4 that goes in for a bezel swap disappears from the population permanently. Supply moves in one direction.

A standard Sharp 4 Kermit runs roughly $15,000 to $20,000, with the range reflecting bezel condition, case sharpness and whether the box and papers survived. A genuine Flat 4 sits at $25,000 to $30,000. Exceptional Y-series examples with full original documentation have gone past $45,000, though treat those as outliers rather than a price to expect.

Because the premium is so large and the difference is one printed numeral, this is the single easiest green Submariner claim to fake. Verify the insert against the serial range, and verify the serial against the papers. If a seller cannot show you both, price the watch as a Sharp 4.

The Rolex Starbucks 126610LV, and Why Some Call It the Cermit

Rolex launched the 126610LV in August 2020, the same year the Hulk went away. It moved the case to 41mm, kept the green Cerachrom bezel, and put a black lacquer dial back underneath it. Collectors named it the Starbucks because a green ring around a black center looks like the coffee logo. The competing name, Cermit, reads it as a ceramic-bezel Kermit, which is arguably the more accurate description since that is exactly what it is.

The movement is the calibre 3235, which is the genuine technical upgrade in this comparison: a 70-hour power reserve against 48, plus the Chronergy escapement. Take a Starbucks off on Friday evening and it is still running on Monday morning. Neither the Hulk nor the Kermit will do that.

Retail moved to roughly $10,950 with Rolex’s January 2026 adjustment. On the secondary market it trades between $13,000 and $18,000. Early MK1 dials from 2020 to 2023 sit around $14,000 to $16,000 and the revised MK2 from 2024 onward runs $15,000 to $18,000, which is an unusual case of the later version commanding more.

Hulk vs Kermit vs Starbucks

If you want the best watch, buy the Starbucks. Newer movement, longer reserve, ceramic bezel, current warranty if you buy it right, and the lowest price of the three. Nothing about that is a compromise except that thousands of other people can buy the same watch tomorrow.

If you want the watch nobody can replace, buy the Hulk. Rolex made a green dial once and stopped. You are paying roughly seven thousand dollars over a Starbucks for a dial color and a closed door, and that is a defensible thing to want as long as you know that is what you are buying.

If you want the collector piece, buy the Kermit, and buy the best bezel you can find. It is the only one of the three with a documented variant that carries a five-figure premium, and aluminum ages in a way that gives an honest example real character.

Why the Hulk Costs More Than a Watch You Can Still Buy New

It is tempting to call the Hulk rare. It is not. Rolex produced it in volume for ten straight years, and there are plenty of them. Scarcity is the wrong explanation.

The right one is that the configuration is closed. The 126610LV is the current green Submariner and it has a black dial, so as long as that stays true there is no new green-on-green watch to buy. Anyone who decides they want one, at any point from now on, has exactly one reference to choose from and a fixed population that only shrinks. That is a demand story rather than a supply story, and demand stories can reverse. Supply cannot.

The same mechanism explains the Rolex Milgauss, which also went up after Rolex retired it in 2023, and the opposite outcome on the Rolex Cellini, which was discontinued the same year and still sells below its original retail. Discontinuation on its own does nothing. Discontinuation of a steel sports configuration with a following is what moves prices.

What Actually Changes a Green Submariner Price

• Bezel condition, above everything else on the Kermit. A faded, chipped or replaced aluminum insert can take thousands off. On the Hulk and Starbucks the ceramic is effectively permanent, so this reverses and the bezel stops being a variable at all.
• Box and papers. A complete set commands roughly 5 to 15 percent over a watch-only sale across all three references, and more on a Flat 4 where the papers are what prove the serial range.
• Case sharpness. Repeated polishing rounds off the lug edges and softens the chamfers. An unpolished case with visible factory geometry is worth a real premium, and it is the hardest thing to fake convincingly.
• Bracelet stretch. Pinch the links. Separation means a long, hard life and a bracelet that may need replacing, which is not cheap.
• Production year on the Hulk. A post-2015 example carries the tighter Superlative Chronometer specification. It rarely shows up in asking prices, which occasionally makes a late Hulk the better buy at the same money.
• Dial mark on the Hulk and Starbucks. Both references went through dial revisions. On the Starbucks the later MK2 currently trades above the earlier MK1, which is the reverse of how these things usually go.

Our full breakdown of what determines the value of a Rolex covers how these factors stack across the rest of the catalogue.

Is the Rolex Hulk a Good Investment?

The honest answer is that it has been a good store of value and a poor investment for anyone who bought at the wrong moment.

Someone who bought at retail in 2019 has roughly doubled their money. Someone who bought at the early 2022 peak paid something in the high twenties or above and is still underwater in 2026. The reference did nothing differently in either case. The market moved around it.

What can be said with more confidence is that the Hulk has a structural floor most watches lack, because the green dial cannot be bought any other way. It has also been appreciating modestly over the last twelve months rather than falling. Buy it because you want to wear a green Rolex. If it holds value, and the evidence suggests it will, treat that as the consolation rather than the thesis. If you want a documented figure for insurance or estate purposes, a professional appraisal is worth more than any online estimate, and our guide to insuring a luxury watch covers what happens after that.

What to Check Before You Buy a Pre-Owned Green Submariner

• Confirm the reference against the dial and bezel combination. Green bezel with green dial is a Hulk, 116610LV. Green bezel with black dial is either a Kermit or a Starbucks, and the case size and bezel material tell you which. Listings mislabel these constantly.
• Check the serial against the claimed year, particularly on a Kermit sold as a Flat 4 and on a Hulk sold as a late example.
• Inspect the bezel insert under angled light. Aluminum fade is obvious once you tilt it. On ceramic, look for chips at the edge, which happen even though the surface does not scratch.
• Look at the lug edges from the side. Rounded lugs mean the case has been polished more than once.
• Ask for service history. A calibre 3135 that has not been serviced in fifteen years is a bill waiting to happen, regardless of how well it is running today.
• Have the watch authenticated independently if you are buying privately. Our walkthrough on how to authenticate a Rolex covers what a proper check involves. The Submariner is among the most heavily counterfeited watches in the world, and the green references attract the same attention as the rest of the line.

Buying or Selling a Green Submariner in West Palm Beach

WPB Watch Co keeps green Submariners in stock and each one is inspected and authenticated in house before it is listed. You can see current Rolex Submariner inventory, including Hulk, Kermit and Starbucks examples when available, or browse the wider pre-owned Rolex collection.

If you already own one and want to know what it is worth today, we buy Submariners outright and can give you a real number rather than a range pulled off a chart. Our page on how to sell your Rolex explains how the process works. Come see us at 1601 Forum Pl #1010, West Palm Beach, or call 561-220-9107 and we will tell you what your watch is doing in the current market.

Rolex Hulk FAQ

Why is the Rolex Hulk so expensive?

Because it is the only Rolex ever made with a green dial and a matching green bezel, and Rolex discontinued it in 2020 without a replacement. The price reflects a closed configuration rather than genuine scarcity, since Rolex produced the reference in volume for ten years.

What is the difference between the Rolex Hulk and the Kermit?

The Hulk, reference 116610LV, has a green ceramic bezel and a green dial. The Kermit, reference 16610LV, has a green aluminum bezel and a black dial. The Kermit was made from 2003 to 2010 and the Hulk from 2010 to 2020. Both use the calibre 3135 in a 40mm case.

Was the Rolex Hulk discontinued?

Yes. Rolex discontinued the 116610LV in 2020 when it replaced the entire 116610 generation with the 41mm 126610 family. The new green model, the 126610LV, has a black dial, so the green dial went out of production with the Hulk.

Is the Rolex Starbucks the same as the Cermit?

Yes, both nicknames refer to reference 126610LV. Starbucks comes from the green ring around a black center resembling the coffee logo. Cermit is a contraction of ceramic Kermit, reflecting that it is a modern take on the original green-bezel black-dial layout. Rolex uses neither name.

How much is a Rolex Hulk worth in 2026?

Roughly $18,000 to $25,000 for a well-kept example, with unworn full-set pieces reaching $25,000 to $28,000 and heavily worn examples starting near $16,000. That is down from a peak in early 2022 but still around double the $9,050 retail price it carried when discontinued.

Is the Rolex Hulk a good investment?

It has held value well over the long term and has appreciated modestly over the past year, but buyers who paid peak prices in early 2022 are still down. The green dial cannot be bought in any other reference, which gives it a structural floor, though no watch should be purchased primarily as an investment.

What is a Flat 4 Kermit and why does it cost more?

On the earliest 16610LV bezel inserts the numeral 4 in the 40 marking has a flat top instead of a pointed one. These appear mainly on 2003 Y-series and early 2004 F-series watches. Rolex now supplies only the pointed Sharp 4 as a service part, so the population shrinks every time one is replaced. Flat 4 examples run $25,000 to $30,000 against $15,000 to $20,000 for a standard Kermit.

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