Rolex

1927 Rolex Oyster - New Addition

Just can't contain the happiness

a dealer friend found this piece and it had my name on it :O presenting,

The 1927 Rolex Oyster (in silver), the same model as Mercedes Gleitze's and is was what catapulted Rolex to stardom. All Oysters after owe their genes to these pieces.

First, There are a couple possible replacement parts with this piece (Possible Replaced hands/dial. The winding wheel is replaced with a Gruen Veri-Thin from the same type of movement, Rolex's 600 is compatible with the Gruen 819) but for a 90 year old timepiece it looks good

and I can't really say for sure as it has had a lot of patina and services that could have contributed to this (similar Oysters in Silver have had substantial patina but I'll reserve these photos for the guide), with the lack of information on these timepieces it is hard to say what is replaced and what is original and all we have to rely on is the Rolex Ads from the time period which provide some clues but not all.

I've written a little guide on the possible variants on the 1920s Oyster which I'm trying to fine tune and make available in a week or two.

Just presenting the piece tonight with some pics

and will go from there, thank you all for any comments.

As with all the oldies, you can see the wear and tear on the piece. Patina really adds a bit of character to this timepiece.

Caseback, most of the information on this piece is missing, I've seen similar Silver casebacks with a substantial amount of patina that has degraded them I'm assuming that this was the case and in the process of polishing out during a service some information was removed (should state the Swiss patents numbers and below it the serial number). Due to the "20 World's Records" it narrows down the piece to a 1927 year range.

The Rolex 600, it has had many variations (I'll highlight the options in the future guide), my usual watchmaker checked the movement out and cleared it for wear. The flash makes the movement look worse than it is in person.

and just an overall picture without the Nato, Swiss Made is missing and the lume seems to give it a replaced or refinished dial vibe. I can't say for sure.