Reference:6534: Difference between revisions
| [checked revision] | [checked revision] |
Place the orphaned dial-detail image and add a 4th distinct angle (wrist shot from an already-cited lot) — genuine multi-angle coverage per policy |
Fix reffuter-verified errors: half-wrong Red Datejust dial-color claim (only 1 of 2 lots genuinely red), 3 omitted sold prices, fabricated Bonhams hammer-price splits, inconsistent caliber dates, missing 6609 redlink disclosure, misleading SEO date range, negation-shape prose |
||
| Line 3: | Line 3: | ||
{{#seo: | {{#seo: | ||
|title=Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date 6534 — Early Automatic Date & Auction Record | Rolexopedia | |title=Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date 6534 — Early Automatic Date & Auction Record | Rolexopedia | ||
|description=Rolex reference 6534: the smooth-bezel Oyster Perpetual Date of the mid-1950s, its Cal. 1035 movement, the early "Red Datejust" dial branch, and | |description=Rolex reference 6534: the smooth-bezel Oyster Perpetual Date of the mid-1950s, its Cal. 1035 movement, the early "Red Datejust" dial branch, and a documented auction record running 2008 to 2025. | ||
|image=Ref 6534 hero.webp | |image=Ref 6534 hero.webp | ||
|type=article | |type=article | ||
| Line 65: | Line 65: | ||
[[File:Ref 6534 case.webp|thumb|right|250px|alt=Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date ref. 6534 case and dial, tonneau shape, screw-down crown|Case No. 246***, Bonhams London 2019 — tonneau case, smooth bezel, screw-down crown]] | [[File:Ref 6534 case.webp|thumb|right|250px|alt=Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date ref. 6534 case and dial, tonneau shape, screw-down crown|Case No. 246***, Bonhams London 2019 — tonneau case, smooth bezel, screw-down crown]] | ||
By the mid-1950s Rolex was running two closely related automatic-date lines out of the same movement family. One kept the fluted bezel, typically a magnifying cyclops lens, and the Datejust name on the dial; the [[Reference:6609|6609 "Thunderbird"]] is a contemporary example. The other kept the smooth bezel and the plainer "Oyster Perpetual, Date" wording. The 6534 belongs to the second group. This wiki's own [[Reference:Movements|caliber page]] documents Cal. 1035 powering the Oyster Perpetual Date references 6518, 6530 and 6534 alongside the Datejust-branded 6609 — the same movement family serving two different dial identities depending on the case and bezel Rolex fitted it to. | By the mid-1950s Rolex was running two closely related automatic-date lines out of the same movement family. One kept the fluted bezel, typically a magnifying cyclops lens, and the Datejust name on the dial; the [[Reference:6609|6609 "Thunderbird"]] (not yet published on this wiki) is a contemporary example. The other kept the smooth bezel and the plainer "Oyster Perpetual, Date" wording. The 6534 belongs to the second group. This wiki's own [[Reference:Movements|caliber page]] documents Cal. 1035 powering the Oyster Perpetual Date references 6518, 6530 and 6534 alongside the Datejust-branded 6609 — the same movement family serving two different dial identities depending on the case and bezel Rolex fitted it to. | ||
That makes the 6534 one of a small immediate cluster of steel and gold Oyster Perpetual Date references from the same years — 6518, 6530, and the 18k gold 6537 — sharing the smooth-bezel case architecture and the 1030/1035 movement family that also powers the period's Air-King (6552) and Explorer (6610). None of that cluster has its own article on this wiki yet. | That makes the 6534 one of a small immediate cluster of steel and gold Oyster Perpetual Date references from the same years — 6518, 6530, and the 18k gold 6537 — sharing the smooth-bezel case architecture and the 1030/1035 movement family that also powers the period's Air-King (6552) and Explorer (6610). None of that cluster has its own article on this wiki yet. | ||
| Line 75: | Line 75: | ||
Case-number dating carries the usual fuzziness. Case No. 137,772, which Bonhams read as circa 1956 from its date code, falls inside the 63,425–139,166 band this wiki's [[Reference:Serial-numbers|serial-number guide]] dates to 1955 following Carlo Pergola's chart — a year earlier than Bonhams's own reading. Case No. 227,651, which Antiquorum dated 1957, falls inside Pergola's 147,691–261,715 band for 1956. Neither gap is large enough to treat as a real conflict; the serial-number guide's own caution against averaging conflicting dates into a precise year applies here as much as anywhere else. | Case-number dating carries the usual fuzziness. Case No. 137,772, which Bonhams read as circa 1956 from its date code, falls inside the 63,425–139,166 band this wiki's [[Reference:Serial-numbers|serial-number guide]] dates to 1955 following Carlo Pergola's chart — a year earlier than Bonhams's own reading. Case No. 227,651, which Antiquorum dated 1957, falls inside Pergola's 147,691–261,715 band for 1956. Neither gap is large enough to treat as a real conflict; the serial-number guide's own caution against averaging conflicting dates into a precise year applies here as much as anywhere else. | ||
One further example muddies the picture more seriously. Bonhams catalogued a 14ct gold 6534, case No. 446,128, as circa 1946 — a date that does not survive scrutiny. Cal. 1030 and its Cal. 1035 date derivative | One further example muddies the picture more seriously. Bonhams catalogued a 14ct gold 6534, case No. 446,128, as circa 1946 — a date that does not survive scrutiny. Cal. 1030 was introduced in 1955 and its Cal. 1035 date derivative in 1957 (per this wiki's own caliber page), a decade after Bonhams's stated date; case No. 446,128 sits inside the 437,255–530,168 band Pergola's chart dates to 1959. Bonhams's own lot description already flags the dial as a later replacement, so the watch was clearly serviced at some point; the more likely reading is a late-1950s case carrying a cataloguing-era date error. Both datings are recorded here rather than silently resolved. Taken together, the documented record runs from 1955 to at least 1958, with the gold case number pointing toward continued production into 1959. | ||
==Movement notes== | ==Movement notes== | ||
| Line 89: | Line 89: | ||
The standard dial, seen on the majority of documented examples, is silvered with applied dart-shaped luminous hour markers, a black outer minute or fifths-of-a-second track, and "ROLEX / OYSTER PERPETUAL / DATE" printed above "OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED CHRONOMETER." Two of the four Bonhams lots describe the date aperture at 3 as "magnified" — collector shorthand for a cyclops lens — though the lens is subtle enough in catalogue photography that it is not obviously present on every example, and a third lot's description omits the word entirely without indicating a genuinely flat-crystal variant. Hand shapes vary across the small documented sample: lance, leaf, and sword hands all appear, without an established chronological pattern tying a given shape to a particular production year. | The standard dial, seen on the majority of documented examples, is silvered with applied dart-shaped luminous hour markers, a black outer minute or fifths-of-a-second track, and "ROLEX / OYSTER PERPETUAL / DATE" printed above "OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED CHRONOMETER." Two of the four Bonhams lots describe the date aperture at 3 as "magnified" — collector shorthand for a cyclops lens — though the lens is subtle enough in catalogue photography that it is not obviously present on every example, and a third lot's description omits the word entirely without indicating a genuinely flat-crystal variant. Hand shapes vary across the small documented sample: lance, leaf, and sword hands all appear, without an established chronological pattern tying a given shape to a particular production year. | ||
The Red Datejust dial is the reference's one clear special branch. | The Red Datejust dial is the reference's one clear special branch, and it is narrower than it first looks. Case No. 138,008 (Antiquorum, 2008) is a genuine example: the dial reads "Oyster Perpetual, Datejust, Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified" with "Datejust" printed in red. A second, similarly early example, case No. 138,538 (Antiquorum, 2011, catalogued as "Steel Datejust" rather than "Red Datejust"), carries the same "Datejust" wording in ordinary grey-black print; the only red on that dial is the date-wheel numeral, an unrelated roulette-date feature also seen on other 6534s. Only one confirmed Red Datejust dial is documented here, on an early transitional case that predates the plain "Date" script covering every later example. | ||
The 14ct gold example's dial is not original. Bonhams catalogues it as a later Rolex dial — champagne, with applied gold batons — fitted at some point after the watch left the factory, consistent with the service history implied by its cataloguing-era date discrepancy discussed above. | The 14ct gold example's dial is not original. Bonhams catalogues it as a later Rolex dial — champagne, with applied gold batons — fitted at some point after the watch left the factory, consistent with the service history implied by its cataloguing-era date discrepancy discussed above. | ||
| Line 119: | Line 119: | ||
| 275140 | | 275140 | ||
| Steel, retailed by Serpico Y Laino | | Steel, retailed by Serpico Y Laino | ||
| | | CHF 5,160 | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Antiquorum, Geneva | | Antiquorum, Geneva | ||
| Line 125: | Line 125: | ||
| 138008 | | 138008 | ||
| Steel, Red Datejust dial, sold without reserve | | Steel, Red Datejust dial, sold without reserve | ||
| | | CHF 2,880 | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Antiquorum, New York | | Antiquorum, New York | ||
| Line 137: | Line 137: | ||
| 446128 | | 446128 | ||
| 14ct gold, later replacement dial | | 14ct gold, later replacement dial | ||
| | | GBP 1,140, inc. premium | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Antiquorum, Geneva | | Antiquorum, Geneva | ||
| 27 Mar 2011 | | 27 Mar 2011 | ||
| 138538 | | 138538 | ||
| Steel, | | Steel, Datejust dial (grey-black print, not red) | ||
| | | CHF 1,875 | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Antiquorum, New York | | Antiquorum, New York | ||
| Line 161: | Line 161: | ||
| 245*** | | 245*** | ||
| Steel, on Oyster bracelet | | Steel, on Oyster bracelet | ||
| | | GBP 2,250, inc. premium | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Bonhams, London (25395/86) | | Bonhams, London (25395/86) | ||
| Line 179: | Line 179: | ||
| 137772 | | 137772 | ||
| Steel, on associated leather strap | | Steel, on associated leather strap | ||
| | | GBP 1,020, inc. premium | ||
|- | |- | ||
| Antiquorum, Geneva (online) | | Antiquorum, Geneva (online) | ||
| Line 201: | Line 201: | ||
* [[Reference:6098|Oyster Perpetual 6098]] — contemporary flat-caseback Oyster Perpetual, same 1030-family movement architecture without the date | * [[Reference:6098|Oyster Perpetual 6098]] — contemporary flat-caseback Oyster Perpetual, same 1030-family movement architecture without the date | ||
* [[Reference:6609|Datejust 6609 "Thunderbird"]] — fluted-bezel, cyclops-lens sibling sharing the Cal. 1035 movement | * [[Reference:6609|Datejust 6609 "Thunderbird"]] — fluted-bezel, cyclops-lens sibling sharing the Cal. 1035 movement, not yet published | ||
* [[Reference:6530|Oyster Perpetual Date 6530]] — smaller-cased running mate, not yet published | * [[Reference:6530|Oyster Perpetual Date 6530]] — smaller-cased running mate, not yet published | ||
* [[Reference:6537|Oyster Perpetual Date 6537]] — 18k gold version, not yet published | * [[Reference:6537|Oyster Perpetual Date 6537]] — 18k gold version, not yet published | ||