Looking for wisdom from the herd— I saw this Rolex at a local shop, but they didn’t know anything about it. Does anybody know the reference for this? It’s really quite beautiful and the proportions were very nice. I’ve never seen numerals like these before on a Rolex.
Sadly, based on the single pic, I’m not sure it’s authentic. Hard to say without a book nearby. Couple items:
Really hard to tell if its real but if it is, it would likely be a hand winder from the 40's/50's.
This watch seller has a great archive section but nothing that quite matches your find.
https://www.vintage-wristwatches.co.uk/watches/archived-watches/rolex-watches-archive/page/12/
Thanks. I had seen a couple of air king references online from that era that have these types of numbers, especially with the smaller zero in the number 10. But none of them that I saw just say rolex oyster.
Looking like it ‘wants‘ to be from the 1945-1955 range, related to the Air King— refs 4499 or 6652… but… none have the words rolex and oyster on the same line. Hmmm… I’ll go back and see if I see a serial # tomorrow, and maybe they’ll open up the case to look inside.
The script reminds me of reference 2280, in a single line. I haven't seen numerals like that though. Like you mentioned, the movement will tell the story.