Advice for Collectors: Buying New vs. Vintage Rolex Watches

Let me start by telling you why I love vintage Rolex watches. Like most other vintage watches, a Rolex sports watch from the 1960s or ’70s has an aura of adventure; the wear on the case and bracelet show that the watches had something of a rough life; the things that the watch witnessed might have been awesome. The fun with vintage Rolex watches is that because there are so many of them around, you can usually find the exact “configuration” that suits your personal taste. For example, I don’t like the ones with the old tritium markers that have turned a mustard yellow color; I prefer them slightly off-white. I also don’t like spider-web dials and prefer them to be all-matte with big, round hour markers. And I would rather have a Cheap Rolex Replica that had decent servicing throughout the decades than a watch that still has its original crown, seals and crystal. But I know that there are dozens of people who prefer just the opposite.

I’ve learned that a lot about buying and collecting vintage Rolex has to do with aesthetics. There is little interest in the mechanical movement; people generally trust it to be good. (It is a Rolex, for crying out loud.) Many collectors tend to be more interested in a nice-looking dial, or matching pair of hands, than to making sure the movement is all nice and fresh. Nothing wrong with that, of course, and these movements are fairly easy to service, but I always make sure that the watch is in perfect technical working order as well.
Now, the other side of the story is that there is a lot of fraud going on in the vintage Cheap Rolex scene. As with all transactions in which serious money is involved — whether it be classic cars, paintings, real estate, even adopting babies — there are always those who want to cheat and scam other people who wish to own a certain commodity (in this case, a watch). There are dealers who claim to have million-dollar businesses selling vintage Rolexes, who claim to be able to supply whatever model you need or whichever is in demand at that moment. Be very careful of those types of dealers. I’d advise you to seek out a guy who trades vintage Rolexes as a hobby (or a passion), rather than to enter a store that has dozens of vintage Rolex Replica Watches that are labeled “exclusive” and carry crazy price tags.

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“Exclusivity” is another important issue. Most Rolexes are not exclusive, in terms of numbers, to start with, even vintage Rolexes. Rolex has always been a watch manufacturer with a high production capacity. Collectors have made them “exclusive” because of their needs for certain models with specific signs of aging or specific wording on the dial. In truth, if you have unlimited resources, you can buy just about any vintage Cheap Rolex Replica there is. You want a Paul Newman Daytona? No problem, as long as you can show the money. The only thing that makes a vintage Rolex “exclusive” is its price tag, to be honest. There are watches from other brands out there that are much harder to get, and perhaps also more technically interesting, but let’s face it. The demand for vintage Rolex watches is incomparable.

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It is no secret that a lot of people did complain about the lack of innovation at Rolex up until a few years ago. At the time, Rolex still used the clasp that looked as if it was made from soda-can material, the relatively small (40 mm) case diameters for its sports watches and the same movements it had been using for decades. In the last few years, however, Rolex has introduced more innovations and changes than it did in the previous four decades. Cheap Rolex upgraded its bracelets by adding new clasps that have a super-easy system for (micro)adjustment, started using ceramics for its bezels, tweaked its movements with the new Parachrom hairspring, and even made its watches appear bigger. “Appeared?” Yes. For instance, the latest Sea-Dweller 116600 and GMT-Master II 116719BLRO with Pepsi bezel are still 40 mm in diameter, but appear larger because of the dimensions of their lugs.

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Testing the Rolex GMT-Master II Replica

Some call it the “Batman” in honor of its black-and-blue bezel. For more than half a century, Cheap Rolex Replica fans associated Rolex GMT-Master II Replica with two bezel-color combinations.In this feature from the WatchTime archives, we test the first version of the Rolex GMT-Master II ever to sport this color combo.

The Rolex GMT bezels are so well-known that they have nicknames: “Pepsi” and “Coke,” respectively, because they call to mind those brands’ trade dress. So when a new, unprecedented, black-and-blue version of the Rolex GMT-Master II showed up in Cheap Rolex window at Baselworld last year, buzz abounded. Interest in the watch was so keen that every few minutes the booth’s cleaning team had to wipe from the window the fingerprints left by fairgoers’ pointing at it. It wasn’t long before the watch had earned a nickname of its own. Or, rather, a pair of nicknames: “Bruiser” and “Batman.” The bezel was notable not just because it was black and blue, but because it was black and blue and made of ceramic. No one had ever succeeded in combining two colors of ceramic in a single-piece insert. As long as the GMT bezels were made of metal, as they were for decades, it was no trick to make them two colors. But in 2005, when Rolex Replica Watches began to shift to ceramic bezels with the launch of a special 50th-anniversary model of the GMT-Master II, those new bezels were of necessity just one color. The advantages of ceramic over metal are that it is more scratch-resistant and less likely to fade after years of exposure to light. In 2006 and 2007, Rolex brought out, respectively, steel- and-gold and all-steel versions of the Cheap Rolex Replica GMT-Master II, both with all-black ceramic bezels.

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What brought bi-color back was a new manufacturing method that Rolex itself invented and patented. It involves applying a metallic salt to half of the bezel before the component is fired in a kiln, where the color is created. In a Cheap Rolex GMT watch, a bi-color bezel serves a practical purpose: it makes it easy to distinguish the second time zone’s a.m. hours from its p.m. ones. Rolex’s new color combination is more than practical, it’s attractive. Furthermore, it makes sense: blue is a more logical choice to indicate the daytime hours than is red.The downside is that the difference between black and blue can be nearly impossible to detect in poor light, but the upside is that blue is much less flashy than red, so this watch can be worn with a business suit. To match the bezel, the 24-hour hand is now blue, rather than green as on the black-bezel model. The lettering on the dial is all white; on the black-bezel version, the words “GMT-Master II” are green. All in all, this new version makes a very harmonious impression.

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Updating the Rolex Datejust Replica

The new Datejust that Rolex unveiled at Baselworld 2016 scarcely differs from the Rolex Datejust II. The similar design characteristics set Rolex watches apart from other brands.A fluted bezel, a Cyclops magnifying lens above the date window and an Oyster bracelet: the new Datejust 41 shares these elements with many other Cheap Rolex Replica models. These design characteristics are the secrets of the brand’s success. The approximately 800,000 watches that Rolex sells each year produce estimated annual revenue of $4.39 billion and make it the most successful manufacturer of luxury watches.

The cornerstone of this singular distinction was Rolex’s founder, Hans Wilsdorf, a native of Kulmbach, Germany, who registered the brand name in 1908. He put his faith in Cheap Rolex at an early date and set out to rectify their shortcomings: for example, wristwatches were notoriously less accurate than pocketwatches. But Wilsdorf’s Rolex wristwatches soon ticked so precisely that they earned official certification as chronometers. He patented his first watertight watches in 1926, followed by patent protection for automatic winding in 1931. With these two functional abilities, the optimal wristwatch was born — and Rolex Replica Watches positioned itself as the technical leader for precise, watertight, self-winding watches. The label successfully advanced along this path with its divers’ watches, while simultaneously creating structures that guarantee high quality and an outstandingly accurate rate.

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But without a convincing design, none of these efforts would have led to long-lasting success for the brand. Take this test: When you think about Cheap Rolex Replica, which characteristic stylistic element appears in your mind’s eye? Is it the magnifying lens above the date, the so-called “Mercedes” hands, the dial with its typical duo of bar-shaped and circular indexes, or the Oyster bracelet? Or is it the fluted bezel and the Jubilee bracelet? More than a few unique attributes distinguish a Cheap Rolex. Now take another test. What images come to mind when you think about other watch brands, e.g., Jaeger-LeCoultre or Omega? Even big brands with design icons in their collections usually have only one or two unmistakable stylistic elements. Often, it’s only the shape of the case. And some classics have no unique design characteristics whatsoever and are recognizable only because they combine familiar stylistic features.

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Rolex Replica Watches makes ample use of its large selection of unmistakable stylistic elements. Viewing the watches in Rolex’s contemporary collection, one cannot fail to notice that the designs aren’t very diverse: the hands, for example, come in only two different forms; the shapes of the cases likewise vary only minimally; and the difference between the two most successful models, the Submariner and GMT-Master II, lies solely in the numerals on the rotatable bezel and in the additional hands. The Sea-Dweller is essentially a Submariner without a date magnifier. The Deepsea differs from the Sea-Dweller only because of its size and the broad ring that surrounds its dial and increases its water resistance. The Cheap Rolex Datejust Replica Yacht-Master has exactly the same dial layout, the same hands and the same case; only the numerals and the rotatable bezel are raised and the color scheme of the dial and bezel is different. Even the Explorer II shares the same design characteristics as other models, although it sets itself apart with a different bezel and a different time-zone hand. Adding the Submariner without a date display, one reaches a total of seven models that differ only in details. All of the abovementioned models have the same Oyster bracelet, the same Mercedes hands, and dials with bar-shaped and circular indexes. These seven models are responsible for a large percentage of Rolex’s sales.

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