Posts Tagged ‘1803’
‘Doorstop’ Dial 1803 Rolex Day-Date, Pink Gold
Doorstops aren’t cool. But they’re insanely cool when placed on dials as indices. This is a pink gold 1803, which is a pretty sick thing in itself. But the two angled markers at 6 and 9 make it something I can get really excited about. Pink gold really isn’t a normal thing, most who know…
Read MoreGrey Ghost Dial 1803 Rolex Day-Date, Pink Gold
This looks like your average common or garden 1803 Day-Date at a glance, but it really isn’t. First, it’s in pink gold. No one knows exactly the fraction, but we know pink gold was but a fraction of overall production (something like 1 in every 100 examples or less). Pink was a slow seller, so…
Read More‘Amtlich Geprüft’ Dial 1803 Rolex Day-Date
If you look closely, you’ll see this doesn’t say ‘Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified’. Instead, it says ‘Superlativer Chronometer Amtlich Geprüft’. Now, it means the exactly same thing. But strictly speaking, this makes no sense. It’s half-English, half-German; a Christoph Waltz of Day-Dates. But why isn’t it all German? It reminds of strange Pre-Daytona chronographs where…
Read MoreGuilloche Dial 1803 Rolex Day-Date, Pink Gold
Until this year in the new 1908, the words Rolex and guilloché almost never went together. But very, very occasionally, there was a Day-Date with a hand engine turned dial. A quick Google will turn up the last one that came to market which we covered, a square pyrimidal cut. Some of the more famous…
Read MoreAnthracite, Matte Grey Dial 1803 Rolex Day-Date
Stone dials are fraught, Tiffany stamps are equally perilous, and the only thing less common than a Stella dial is one without a crack in the lacquer. That’s the cynic’s view of the state of Day-Dates, and it’s definitely somewhat supportable. However, not all that glimmers in Day-Date is quite so loud or need be…
Read MoreSequoia Wood Dial 1803 Rolex Day-Date
If you really know your Day-Dates, this wood dial will immediately look a different to what you’re used to seeing. It’s made of sequoia, not the birch, mahogany, or walnut you’re perhaps more familiar with, and it’s what came first. In fact, this isn’t just the first wood dial Rolex, it’s one of the earliest…
Read MoreCoral Red Stella Dial 1803 Rolex Day-Date
The emoji Day-Date isn’t the first time Rolex let their hair down, but when they did so in the past, man, it was just so much more tasteful and elegant. They say subtlety is an art that’s been lost on our generation and I’m inclined to agree. Back in the 70s, this ‘cherry’ red Stella…
Read More‘Japan No Lume’ 1803 Rolex Day-Date
Hardstone dials are all the rage these days. Day-Dates are synonymous with onyx, lapis, and jasper. But in the earliest days of the Day-Date, there weren’t stones. There were Stellas. And before there were Stellas, there were gilt pie-pans. An early Day-Date in white precious metal is just about the ultimate in discreet opulence as…
Read MoreSalmon Stella 1803 Rolex Day-Date
I’m as fond of a good metaphor for communicating my views on any given watch as China are of polluting oceans. The Day-Date, more than almost any other watch, lends itself to a particular analogy: drink. There are endless variants, each quite personally expressive, and they all get you to about the same place. In…
Read MoreHavana Dial 1803 Rolex Day-Date
The joys of Rolex Day-Date collecting are in many ways like the joys of mild alcoholism. In both, the satisfaction is to be found in minor variation. With any Day-Date, you are getting what is in essence the same functional capability, proportion, and design. But the details vary endlessly in extremely intricate ways such as…
Read More