Reference:2136

Oyster → 2136

Rolex 2136 Oyster Perpetual

The 2136 is an early manual-wind Oyster documented in octagonal and cushion cases. The surviving record includes gold and steel examples, fixed wire lugs and small Aegler movements.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	2136
family	Oyster (early manual-wind)
production	about 1926–1940 (low confidence; see below)
case shape	octagonal (primary); cushion (c.1925 example)
case diameter	32×34 mm / 33 mm / 37×31 mm reported across sources
case materials	9ct yellow gold, 9K rose gold, 18K rose gold, stainless steel, nickel silver
lug style	fixed wire lugs (soldered, not spring bars)
bezel	smooth polished, integral with case form
crystal	mineral glass or early acrylic
movement	15-jewel manual, Hunter-type Cal. 10 (10½ lignes), rhodium-plated
balance	Rolex "Superbalance," Breguet overcoil, timed in 6 positions
caseback signatures	"R.W.C. LTD." and "Oyster Watch Co., Great Britain and U.S.A. Patents"

A second, distinct watch also carries the reference 2136: a c.1960 Precision with Cal. 1400. It is addressed at the end of this article. Everything above this paragraph refers to the early manual-wind Oyster.

Where it sits in the line

The 2136 is a product of Rolex's earliest Oyster catalog. When Hans Wilsdorf assembled the Perregaux/Perret screw-down crown, the Spillmann three-piece case, and the Aegler movement into the thing he trademarked "Oyster" in 1926, there was no reference-number system. Rolex described the initial Oyster range by case shape and size: octagonal or cushion, 28 mm ladies or 32 mm men's, in 9ct, 18ct, or 21K gold, silver, or chromium-plated base metal. Reference numbers arrived later, and when they did, they were applied retroactively to variants already in production.

The 2136 appears in the later reference system applied to early Oyster variants. The reference covers the men's octagonal Oyster through roughly the end of the 1930s, spanning the transition from the earliest Oyster construction into the beginning of the Bubbleback era. By the time 2136 production wound down, the first Perpetual references (1858, 3131, 3372) had already established the rotor-driven Oyster as Rolex's future. The 2136 is manual-wind throughout. It belongs to the manual-wind Oyster group that preceded the wider Perpetual range.

The closest siblings to the 2136 are the other early-reference manual Oysters of the 1930s: 1069, 1147, 1237, 1573, 1880, 2005, and the rest of the cushion-and-octagonal family catalogued in The Vintage Rolex Field Manual. None of these references is well documented individually. Production data is sparse, auction appearances are thin, and dealer descriptions blur together. The cited record includes several 9ct British-hallmarked examples, alongside less frequent steel and rose-gold listings.

What changed across the run

Within the 2136's span, the most visible change is material. Early examples, including the unusual c.1925 Antiquorum piece, appear in stainless steel. By the mid-1930s, when Glasgow and Edinburgh hallmarks start showing up on surviving examples, the cited examples include small 9ct yellow-gold octagonal cases with British hallmarks, silvered dials and blued leaf hands. Rose gold examples (both 9K and 18K) exist in parallel, and stainless steel surfaces occasionally. A nickel silver variant is documented in dealer listings but is rarely offered at auction.

The movement stays constant across the run. A 10½-ligne Hunter-style manual-wind caliber, fifteen jewels standard, rhodium-plated, with a straight-line lever escapement, a Rolex-patented Superbalance, and a self-compensating Breguet overcoil, timed in six positions for all climates. This is the same movement architecture Rolex used across its early 1930s manual Oysters. The six-position adjustment and Superbalance wording appear in the cited movement descriptions and period material.

What does not change is the lug configuration. Fixed wire lugs (thin, curved, soldered to the case rather than drilled for spring bars) are a defining visual feature of the early Oyster form. They are present on the cited 2136 examples. A candidate with spring-bar lugs needs case-level verification.

The 1926–1940 band used here has soft edges at both ends. The earliest indexed example is the Antiquorum cushion dated c.1925, which pre-dates the Oyster patent grant; the late-1930s Glasgow and Edinburgh hallmarks establish production into at least 1938. Whether the reference ran on into the early 1940s or was superseded by one of the newer Oyster references of that period is not documented. Neither is a production total: no figure has ever been published, and with the 2136 one variant among dozens of early Oyster references sharing small-batch runs, the available case-number record is not systematic enough to derive a production total.

Case and construction

• 
  9ct gold octagonal 2136, early 1930s.
• 
  Rolex Oyster 2136 in 18ct gold, octagonal case, an early-Oyster form.
• 
  9ct gold cushion-case 2136 — the alternate shape.
• 
  Caseback engraved "R.W.C. LTD." and the Oyster Watch Co. patent text

The 2136 appears in two case shapes, octagonal first and cushion alongside it. The octagonal form is the better-documented shape in the cited record and is visually distinct from the cushion examples.

The cushion 2136 sold at Antiquorum in April 1999, dated c.1925, is the lone documented example of that shape in the indexed public record. If the dating is accurate, it pre-dates the Oyster patent grant and suggests either a pre-production piece, a misdated lot, or the reference being applied retroactively to a case from the earliest Oyster experiments. The Antiquorum catalog noted the case was fitted with a dust-protecting cap over the crown, an early-Oyster detail consistent with the pre-1930 period.

Case construction is three-piece: bezel, mid-case, caseback, threaded together. The caseback interior carries the reference number and the period signatures. Two inscriptions appear consistently across surviving examples: "R.W.C. LTD.," short for Rolex Watch Company Limited, and "Oyster Watch Co., Great Britain and U.S.A. Patents." The second is standard Oyster-era caseback text citing the patents used on early Oyster cases. The markings help compare a 2136 with related Wilsdorf alternate-brand Oysters such as Rolco, Aqua, and standalone Oyster Watch Co. cases.

The three-piece construction itself descends directly from François Borgel's 1903 Swiss patent for a hermetic screw case, "la lunette, le fond et la carrure se vissant toutes trois sur le garde-poussière": bezel, caseback, and middle case all screw onto the movement retaining ring. The 1926 Oyster case is a refinement of this architecture, adding the screw-down crown that Borgel's version lacked. Rolex's own pre-Oyster watches from about 1919–1920 used Borgel-made three-piece cases of this type (Boettcher, vintagewatchstraps.com). The 2136 caseback is structurally a Borgel-lineage case with Rolex's patented crown system added.

Dimensions

Reported dimensions vary across surviving examples: 32×34 mm, 33 mm excluding crown, and 37×31 mm have all been documented. The variance reflects real production variation across years and materials plus different measurement conventions on a shaped case: width across flats versus width across points, lug-to-lug versus case-only, inclusive or exclusive of the crown. The practical position for collectors: expect a 2136 to wear as a small watch by modern standards, somewhere in the 32–34 mm range on the short axis, with the octagonal form affecting how the dimensions read on the wrist.

The 15-jewel movement

The 2136 uses the usual early Hunter-type Oyster movement architecture. The naming is messy across sources, but the useful spec is stable enough: 15 jewels, Superbalance, and the early Rolex manual-wind format rather than anything later or more standardized.

The cited descriptions give six-position adjustment and Superbalance. Those details describe the movement’s regulation; they do not by themselves establish official chronometer certification. Movement plates on surviving 2136s are signed with the Rolex wordmark and the Superbalance designation; a few examples carry additional chronometer markings, though the 2136 was not submitted to official observatory certification as a matter of course.

These movements predate later shock-protection systems such as Incabloc and KIF. The Rolex-patented Superbalance is a regulation design, not a shock-protection system. The A.296 caliber of the late 1940s is identified in the cited material as an early Rolex shock-protected movement, more than a decade after the 2136's 10½ Hunter base.

Dial variants

Surviving 2136 dials span a wider range than the small auction corpus would suggest. Confirmed configurations include:

Silver or white dials with black Arabic numerals and subsidiary seconds at six o’clock appear on the cited 9ct British-hallmarked examples.

Two-tone silver-and-black dials carry a silver minute track around a black central zone or vice versa, a restrained Art Deco treatment consistent with period-dress-watch aesthetics.

Matted silver dials with painted Breguet numerals and auxiliary seconds turn up on mid-run examples, particularly rose gold cases from the mid-1930s. Breguet numerals are the distinctive curved, serif-heavy Arabic form.

Radium luminous dials with original luminous Arabic numerals and matching luminous hands are less common on the 2136 than on its sportier Oyster contemporaries, but they are documented. Radium dials on gold 2136 cases tend to show heavy patina, with the radium ageing to orange or brown against the silvered base.

California dials carry half Roman numerals on the upper half and half Arabic on the lower, with radium plots. The California configuration on the 2136 is unusual and probably represents late production (the California patent dates to 1941) or a service-era dial. Rolex's own term for this layout was Error-Proof or High Visibility; the California name came from 1970s–80s refinishers and stuck.

White restored dials are what the name suggests: refinished dials on original cases. Dealer listings include restored dials; originality and value require examination of the individual watch.

Blued steel leaf hands are the most common handset on gold 2136s. The Antiquorum c.1925 cushion example carried blued "Cathédrale" hands, the cathedral-window openwork design typical of very early Oyster production. Black pointed baton hands and blued hands with radium plots are also documented. Matching patina between dial and hands supports a period-original set, while mismatched aging is one sign of a possible service replacement.

Auction and dealer record

The cited auction record is concentrated in Antiquorum, Bonhams and smaller specialist houses. Antiquorum gives the earliest documented public example, Bonhams and several dealers fill out the British-hallmarked gold side, and dealer listings add examples with different materials, conditions, and asking prices, but they are not a controlled market series.

The cited sales and dealer listings cover different materials, conditions and dates. They do not establish a current price range.

The Gleitze watch

Christie's 2000 lot 714 calls Gleitze's watch “Oyster Precision, No. 34075”; Sotheby's 2025 lot 134 calls it Oyster reference 34075. Both describe the same 9ct gold octagonal watch and distinguish it from the 2136. Sotheby's calls it a pre-production prototype. The catalogues leave its status as a production reference unsettled.

Both catalogues describe a 9ct gold octagonal case with wire lugs. Sotheby's places the stamps “R.W.C. LTD.,” “7 World's Records” and “Patent Applied for 114948” inside the caseback, and lists the Oyster Patent winding crown separately. It describes a 9¾-ligne Hunter movement upgraded to Cal. 600, without dating the work.

Christie's transcribes the exterior engraving for the Vindication Channel Swim on 21 October 1927. Rolex's history also describes Gleitze wearing an Oyster during a 1927 Channel crossing, without giving a reference number. The inscription connects this watch with the 21 October attempt.

The second 2136: c.1960 Cal. 1400 Precision

A distinct watch also carries the reference 2136. It surfaces in dealer listings as a c.1960 Rolex Precision with a Cal. 1400 movement (18 jewels, manual-wind) sharing no architectural DNA with the pre-1940 Hunter-type caliber of the early Oyster 2136. The case is typically a round Precision form in the 30–32 mm range, not octagonal or cushion. The Cal. 1400 places the watch in the late 1950s to mid-1960s Rolex manual-Precision production, a parallel universe from the early Oyster.

The later 2136 is thinly documented, and the cleanest reading is that Rolex reused the number. The movement separates the two records: a 10½ Hunter points to the early Oyster watch, while caliber 1400 belongs to the later Precision-era watch. These are different watches that happen to share a reference number.

Collecting considerations

British-hallmarked 9ct gold cases are the most common 2136 configuration, dating through the 1930s with Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Chester marks all appearing regularly. Hallmark dating is a useful date anchor for this period. Rolex serials in the 1920s–30s ran separate gold and silver series, according to Boettcher's research, so a serial estimate should be checked against the hallmark and case evidence.

The cited sources do not establish how many surviving 2136 dials were refinished. Check printing, lume or radium ageing, hand matching and movement fitment against documented period examples.

Fixed wire lugs are a defining structural feature. The lugs are soldered integrally to the case; replacing them with spring-bar lugs would require substantial case modification, so a 2136 with spring-bar lugs is not period-correct. Straps are fitted with loops over or around the wire lugs rather than clipped between them, which is normal for the early Oyster form and not evidence of tampering.

Period movements are signed with the Rolex wordmark and typically the Superbalance designation, with six-position adjustment text visible on the plate. An unsigned movement, or one with different caliber architecture, is either a service replacement or a sign that the watch is not what it claims to be.

The cited auction and dealer records are individual examples, not a valuation guide.

Related references

• Oyster Perpetual 2574
• Oyster Perpetual 3139, 1938–1947
• Oyster Perpetual 3359, 1934–1946
• Oyster Perpetual 4220
• Oyster Perpetual 5701, 1959–1988

See also the movement reference, bracelet & clasp guide, and serial numbers by year.

Sources

• The Vintage Rolex Field Manual — Colin A. White, Morning Tundra
• Antiquorum Geneva — Rolex ref 2136 SS cushion c.1925 — Antiquorum
• Bonhams Lot 89 — Rolex ref 2136 9K gold Glasgow 1937 — Bonhams
• Time Rediscovered — Rolex ref 2136 9K gold c.1938 — Time Rediscovered
• JP Timepieces — Rolex ref 2136 18K rose gold octagonal c.1930 — JP Timepieces
• Bachmann & Scher — Rolex ref 2136, 9K rose gold, 1938; the listing also attributes it to Gleitze, while the Christie's and Sotheby's records identify her watch as 34075 — Bachmann & Scher
• Olde Timers / Vintage Wristwatches UK — multiple Rolex ref 2136 octagonal/cushion listings — Olde Timers, vintage-wristwatches.co.uk
• Collectors Square — Rolex Oyster Ref 2136 Price Index — Collectors Square
• Sotheby's Geneva Important Watches Part I GE2504 Lot 134 — Mercedes Gleitze 'The Companion' Rolex Oyster ref 34075 — Sotheby's
• Christie's London, 12 June 2000, lot 714 — Oyster Precision No. 34075 and the Vindication engraving — Christie's
• Rolex history, 1926–1945 — Oyster and Mercedes Gleitze's 1927 Channel crossing; no watch reference is given — Rolex
• Wind Vintage — The Oyster Story (Part 1) — Owen Lawton / Wind Vintage, Wind Vintage
• VintageWatchStraps (David Boettcher) — Rolex Oyster Case, Hermetic, Submarine research — David Boettcher, vintagewatchstraps.com