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Reference:6241: Difference between revisions

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Three years of production, then closed. Erik Slaven's 2024 Monochrome history and ''The Vintage Rolex Field Manual'' both date the 6241 from 1966 to 1969. Volume estimates are looser than the dates. Roughly 3,000 examples across all materials is the working figure; Bob Ridley's 2017 Revolution bench dissection of a 14k yellow gold JPS 6241 puts the 14k yellow gold subset at fewer than 400, all bound for the North American market on the strength of US import-tax treatment that favoured 14k over 18k. No 18k 6241 production has been documented.
Three years of production, then closed. Erik Slaven's 2024 Monochrome history and ''The Vintage Rolex Field Manual'' both date the 6241 from 1966 to 1969. Volume estimates are looser than the dates. Roughly 3,000 examples across all materials is the working figure; Bob Ridley's 2017 Revolution bench dissection of a 14k yellow gold JPS 6241 puts the 14k yellow gold subset at fewer than 400, all bound for the North American market on the strength of US import-tax treatment that favoured 14k over 18k. No 18k 6241 production has been documented.


The 6241 sits roughly between the 1.3 million and 2.2 million serial range, with the bulk of examples in the 1968 to 1969 batch. Pre-letter serial era throughout: the single-letter year code did not enter the bracelet clasp until 1976, so a 6241 has neither a year-coded clasp nor a year-coded movement plate. Dating is done by serial against the Pergola chart and by movement caliber generation. Inside that span the 6241 received the same dial-cycle changes that ran across the 6239. The standard Cosmograph dial ran through the production, the Paul Newman exotic dial arrived as a slow-selling option from the 1966 introduction, and the JPS yellow-gold variant came in mid-production. The "Daytona" signature shifted from below "Cosmograph" at 12 to above the running-seconds sub-dial at 6 around the 1967 to 1968 cutover, mirroring the late 6239.
The 6241 sits mainly in the 1968–1969 production band and stays entirely in the pre-letter era. Dating depends on the serial chart and the movement generation, not on later clasp codes. Within that run it follows the same broad dial changes as the 6239: standard Cosmograph first, Paul Newman as the exotic option, and the yellow-gold JPS branch in mid-production.


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== Movement notes ==
== Movement notes ==


Inside is the Valjoux 72, the horizontally-coupled, column-wheel, tri-compax chronograph base that powered the 6239 and the late 6238 before it. The 6241 launches with [[Reference:Movements#cal-722|caliber 722]] (17 jewels, lateral clutch, 18,000 vph, no hack and no quickset) and picks up the [[Reference:Movements#cal-722-1|caliber 722-1]] revision on late examples in the same way the 6239 did. Ridley's Revolution bench look at a JPS 6241 confirms the 722-1 in both steel and 14k yellow gold late examples; the precise 722 to 722-1 cutover serial is not pinned in the published literature. The 18,000 vph rate held throughout. The frequency jump to 21,600 vph waited for [[Reference:Movements#cal-727|caliber 727]] in the 6262 and 6264 (1970 to 1971), so the 6241 sits inside a single beat-rate era alongside the 6239 and 6240.
Inside is the Valjoux 72 family. The 6241 starts on [[Reference:Movements#cal-722|caliber 722]] and picks up [[Reference:Movements#cal-722-1|caliber 722-1]] late in the run, just as the 6239 does. The beat rate stays at 18,000 vph throughout; the jump to 21,600 waits for the 6262 and 6264. US-bound watches carry the usual ROW import code on the bridge, while a smaller Swiss-kept batch does not.
 
US-bound 6241 movements carry an engraved "ROW" import code on the balance bridge. A smaller batch kept at Rolex Switzerland lacks the ROW engraving, useful as a forensic marker on Swiss-market provenance examples, including the no-ROW 14k yellow gold JPS documented in the 2017 Revolution piece (single-owner provenance, gifted in 1972 by a Swiss family friend).


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