OVERVIEW

By the early 1960’s it had become apparent that radium lume posed at least a minor health risk so watch companies had already begun to experiment with different lume mixtures to avoid using it. By 1963, it actually became against the law for watch companies to use Radium at all and by then the common mixture was a Tritium + Zinc Sulfide lume. While this watch lume consists of the Tritium mixture, Rolex used the same dials they designated for their Radium dials, but added a — under the Rolex logo to distinguish between the two. As always, here is another example of Rolex never wasting its spare parts.

CONDITION NOTES

CASE: Sharp and thick “pointed crown guard” (PCG) with even lugs and wide chamfers.

DIAL: Gorgeous galvanic gilt glossy dial with perfect lume plots. Very minor marks that can only be seen in direct light including faint lacquer deterioration towards the edge and minor hand drag from the past. Despite this its still one of the best dials I’ve seen in a while and if I didn’t mention it you might not even see it. Ask me for a sunlight video.

HANDS: Excellent original flat gilt handset with matching patina and original lume.

MOVEMENT: Looks great and keeping time as well as any 60 year old watch should.