Reference:6074: Difference between revisions

The reference has appeared at auction once. Antiquorum catalogued a platinum 6074 as lot 67 of "The Art Of Rolex," its Vicenza Oro sale of 18 January 1992 — more than two decades before Goldberger's book — describing it as "produced in 2 examples in 1950 for 'The Rolex Jubilee-Custom made The noblest of metal,'" tonneau-shaped, self-winding, with a platinum Jubilee bracelet, against an estimate of ITL 30,000–35,000. The lot notes add that the watch had already appeared in "Orologi Rolex," an earlier Italian-language citation. Case, engraving and bracelet all match the example Goldberger later photographed closely enough that this is very likely the same physical watch on its way through the market rather than a second, independent example. No further public sale has surfaced since. One detail in the 1992 catalogue text does not match the later reading: it calls the dial simply "black" with "'Dauphine' platinum hands," where the reading built from Goldberger's photography gives faceted dagger markers and white-gold hands of a long alpha profile — a genuine discrepancy between the two descriptions of what may be the same watch, not one this article resolves.

The precise calibre in the 6074 is not published by name. The Ovettone references either side of it run the A.295 and its 29.6mm evolution the A.296, and the sources disagree about where the changeover falls: the reference literature puts the A.295 in the 6031 and the 6075, while Le Monde Edmond, working from Phillips photography, gives the 6075 an A.296. Neither reading has been tested against the 6074, whose movement number Goldberger does not record. The 1992 Antiquorum catalogue entry for the watch (see Production outline) does give a movement description, independent of Goldberger's later book: "9 3/4''' rhodiumed, 17 jewels, lever escapement, Superbalance balance adjusted to 6 positions, antishock system, self-compensating Breguet balance-spring, micrometer regulator." That's a ligne size and finishing description, not a calibre name, so the honest statement remains that the watch belongs to the A.29x family without a documented calibre reference. The [[Reference:Movements]] page holds the wider lineage.

There is no active market for the 6074 in any useful sense. One example has a documented trail — the 1992 Antiquorum lot, very likely the same watch Goldberger later photographed — and the second has not surfaced since Goldberger recorded its absence. What the reference offers a collector is calibration: it marks the outer edge of what Rolex was willing to build in 1950, and it gives the rest of the Ovettone cluster a ceiling to be measured against.

The practical warning is about attribution, and it is not hypothetical. Antiquorum's own Geneva sale of 8–9 November 2025 catalogued a lot as "Rolex, ref. 6074, Datejust 'Ovettone'" in 18K yellow gold, on a leather strap with a gold-plated buckle, its case number "no longer visible" — and sold it for CHF 7,500. That is precisely the pattern the published literature does not support: nothing in Goldberger, the earlier Antiquorum lot, or any other source documents a gold-cased 6074, and with the case stamp gone the reference number on that watch cannot be verified at all. A gold Big Bubbleback of this period is far more likely to be a 6030, a 6031 or a 6075, all of which exist in numbers and none of which are worth less for being correctly identified.