Rolex

The GMT in the picture looks wonderful.  I found it in the Bucherer website.  Now: it seems to me that a vintage watch of this sort is not really “vintage” in as much as most likely many of its parts are not original to the watch.  I also believe that this discussing is rather… silly as many topics of this nature are.  That is, who cares.  Unless you’re investing.  Or if you prefer an all original watch.  Why?  Because.  And that’s all fine.  What do you think?  

But lots of people love patina and un-messed-with vintage.

vintage watches from the Rolex Certified Pre-Owned watches program is that nearly all of them have replacement hands. In the old days when they used to accept vintage watches for service (in NYC), they always suggested and sometimes insisted on changing the hands to luminova hands. Non matching hands on vintage Rolex watches always bugged me. Frankly, it always meant “no deal” for me.

Happy New Year my friend,
Steve

...but the times that I did have service, I insisted on no polishing and keeping all hands, dial, bezel, etc. intact. I don't mind that they're old. It's history...

insisting on changing everything out and that’s when I started using very competent watchmakers in Manhattan.

it if it’s over 25 or 30 years old. I forget exactly whether it’s 25 or 30 years because it was so long ago since I collected vintage.

Might be worth a try though. Maybe the policies have changed since I had some vintage pieces so many years ago. Good luck and please let me know.

absolutely does not entertain such request. So it is up to each location to decide?

Thanks.

It’s so different in Europe and Asia though 👍

I don’t know how many times pulling & replacing hands can be done safely. I do have a “hand opening adjuster/clamp tool” to snug down an overly-loose pipe but I’d rather not do it if I don’t have to.

Since watches like this rarely get opened and serviced, I’d guess Rolex over the decades has developed a service / replacement philosophy that makes the most sense to them… the cost of a set of hands is negligible compared to getting the watch back for cosmetic or functional warranty claims (hands slipping or falling off).

Cazalea

The superluminova hands on this example would drive me nuts… going vintage has its limits. I would prefer well done relumed tritium hands, but you have to know where to go to get it done right

This looks like a 16750, with a matte dial. I have owned the same watch for about twenty years.

I like the older GMT, for instance, because of the slimmer case and shape in general.  But the new hands in that particular watch, the one in the picture, look somewhat out of place.  However, I tend towards function rather than form.  In any case, I’ll enjoy the journey towards an old GMT that will warm my heart.  

For a vintage collector, this is a pass.  In restoring a vintage, ideally every component is period correct but unless one has access to all the parts and stuff, minimally, the crystal, dial, insert, hands, bracelet should match; interior components have to be original Rolex (even if not from the same period which is not easy to source and verify).

The Rolex CPO program may not be for the Rolex maven but for the layman or even a bumpkin such as myself with a little homework I think a fan of the old-fashioned Rolex look can find a nice everyday watch from the CPO offerings. Pictured are four CPO watches I think would be nice everyday watches: 16750 w/ matched dial-hands, 5512 w/ Luminova dial-hands, patinaed 1680 and a 1655 w/ Luminova dial-hands; of course these watches don't have the newer fancy bracelets but having worn the 78360 and 93150 bracelets forever they seem perfectly suitable to everyday life (people wore them for decades in olden days).

It is concerning that a brand like Rolex is either unable or unwilling to guarantee the coevality of its vintage watches, even when sold as CPO, effectively limiting their guarantee to functionality alone. This raises serious questions about the historical coevality of many pieces currently circulating on the market.

Over the decades, numerous vintage watches have undergone parts replacements, often because original components were no longer available. Nevertheless, a portion of the market continues to present them as coeval, sometimes even as genuine time capsules.

Exaggerated valuations are supported by a well-established narrative that tends to reinterpret original defects and manufacturing limitations of the period such as patina, tropicalization, and dial color changes as supposed marks of quality. In reality, these are flaws resulting from the materials and production processes of the time, now romanticized because they serve the vintage marketing narrative.

Skepticism toward this narrative is not ideological, but stems from observing how knowledge in the vintage watch world has largely been built retrospectively. Systematic cataloging of models, variants, and correct configurations mostly occurred with the advent of the internet, not during the original production period.

Many of the certainties taken for granted today are based on field experience acquired by collectors and experts who only began seriously studying these models in the late 1980s, when most Plexiglas watches were already out of production. In other cases, reference comes from period catalogs or spare parts catalogs, which are often incomplete, rarely accompanied by accurate and detailed images, and therefore insufficient to establish configurations and variants with certainty.

Consequently, presenting many of these watches today as untouched or fully coeval is problematic. At best, we are faced with probabilistic and interpretive reconstructions, not objective and continuous documentation. This does not mean denying any value to these watches, but it does call for reassessing a value often exaggerated even at auctions: in the absence of coevality and historical certainty, one cannot speak of genuine collectible value, but at most of residual value.

In light of the above, the issue of coevality can only be addressed by Rolex. Greater transparency is needed: the opening of historical archives and thorough training of personnel to ensure absolute certainty regarding a watch’s appraisal, both when it enters and when it leaves restoration workshops.

Unfortunately, this is not currently the case. We have witnessed incidents highlighting serious shortcomings: serial numbers rewritten without identification as such, replacement of supply parts without the owner being consulted, and facilities such as the Certificate Pre-Owned program for modern watches or the Atelier de Restauration in Geneva for vintage pieces do not, in reality, guarantee any coevality.

It is therefore evident that Rolex must take concrete action. Only in this way can collectors have the certainty and protection they deserve, truly transforming vintage watches into pieces that are authentically certified and faithfully preserved in the history of the brand.

The only way one can be sure as to the originality of a vintage watch is to own it from new.