Reference:114300: Difference between revisions

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Audit 114300 specifications, dial history and calibre conflict
 
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{{DISPLAYTITLE:Rolex 114300 Oyster Perpetual 39}}
{{DISPLAYTITLE:Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 ref. 114300}}
{{#seo:
{{#seo:
|title=Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 (114300) — 2015–2020, Cal 3132 | Rolexopedia
|title=Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 reference 114300 — dials, calibre 3132, catalogue history
|description=The 114300 was the Oyster Perpetual 39 — Rolex's 2015 answer to demand for a mid-size, date-free, Cyclops-free steel Rolex. Cal 3132, dark rhodium/red grape/blue dials at launch, black and white added 2018. Axed in 2020 for the 41mm 124300, right before the OP's Stella-dial fame.
|description=Reference guide to the 39 mm Oyster Perpetual 114300: documented dial options, Rolex specifications, 2020 catalogue change, and auction records with conflicting calibre attributions.
|keywords=Rolex, 114300, Oyster Perpetual 39, Oyster Perpetual, specifications, reference guide
|keywords=Rolex, Oyster Perpetual 39, 114300, calibre 3132, dial variants
|image=Ref 114300 hero.webp
|image=Ref 114300 hero.webp
|image_alt=Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 114300, dark rhodium dial on Oyster bracelet
|image_alt=Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 reference 114300 with dark rhodium dial
|type=Article
|type=Article
|og_type=article
|og_type=article
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<small>[[Reference:oyster-perpetual|Oyster Perpetual]] -&gt; '''114300'''</small>
<small>[[Reference:oyster-perpetual|Oyster Perpetual]] → '''114300'''</small>


The 114300 is the Oyster Perpetual 39: a 39mm steel Oyster with no date, no Cyclops, and nothing to talk about at the strap end of a dinner party except that it is a Rolex and it works. It launched in summer 2015, three dial colors at a time (dark rhodium, red grape, blue), and it ran only five years before Rolex retired it in 2020 for the 41mm 124300 — the reference that would go on to carry the loud lacquered "Stella" colors that made the Oyster Perpetual line famous. The 114300 predates all of that. It is the last Oyster Perpetual that was actually boring, in the way its designers intended.
<div class="rp-lead">[[File:Ref 114300 hero.webp|thumb|center|640px|alt=Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 reference 114300 with dark rhodium dial|Oyster Perpetual 39, ref. 114300]]</div>


Robert-Jan Broer at Fratello, reviewing it within weeks of release, called the size "a perfect in-between": bigger than the 36mm Oyster Perpetual, smaller and simpler than the 39mm Explorer it shares a case with, and free of the lightning-shaped hour hand and stubby minute hand some buyers found polarizing on that Explorer. Brice Goulard at Monochrome put it more bluntly — a Rolex "you will never get tired of," built with no complications to break and nothing on the dial to date-stamp it to a decade.
The Oyster Perpetual 39 reference 114300 is a 39 mm Oystersteel, time-only watch. Rolex introduced it at Baselworld in 2015 with three dial colors. Black and white versions followed in 2018. Rolex’s product sheet specifies calibre 3132; Phillips later catalogued calibre 3230 in two 114300s, a conflict detailed below.


<span id="core-facts"></span>
==Core facts==


[[File:Ref 114300 hero.webp|thumb|right|250px|alt=Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 114300, dark rhodium dial on Oyster bracelet|Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39, ref. 114300, dark rhodium dial]]
{| class="wikitable"
 
! Detail !! Documented specification
== Core facts ==
 
{| class="wikitable rp-facts"
|-
! detail
! value
|-
| reference
| 114300
|-
| family
| Oyster Perpetual
|-
| common name
| "Oyster Perpetual 39," "OP39"
|-
|-
| production
| Reference || 114300
| 2015–2020
|-
|-
| case
| Model || Oyster Perpetual 39; hours, minutes and centre seconds; no date
| 39mm steel Oyster, monobloc middle case, 904L Oystersteel, domed bezel, integrated lugs
|-
|-
| crystal
| Catalogue period || Listed in Rolex’s pre-refresh catalogue in August 2020; absent from the September 2020 snapshot, when the 41 mm 124300 appeared
| scratch-resistant sapphire
|-
|-
| crown
| Case || 39 mm Oystersteel case, monobloc middle, screw-down case back and domed bezel
| Twinlock screw-down, double waterproofness system
|-
|-
| water resistance
| Crystal and crown || Scratch-resistant sapphire; screw-down Twinlock crown
| 100m / 330 feet
|-
|-
| movement
| Water resistance || 100 m / 330 ft
| caliber 3132, self-winding, blue Parachrom hairspring, Paraflex shock absorbers, ~48h reserve, COSC certified
|-
|-
| dial (launch, 2015)
| Movement || Calibre 3132 in Rolex’s product sheet; automatic, Parachrom hairspring, Paraflex shock absorbers, approximately 48 hours’ reserve
| dark rhodium (light blue accents), red grape (bright red accents), blue (lime green accents)
|-
|-
| dial (2018 addition)
| Bracelet || Oystersteel Oyster bracelet with flat three-piece links and Oysterclasp
| black and white — the line's first monochromatic, no-accent-color dials
|-
|-
| bracelet
| Documented dials || Dark rhodium, red grape and blue at launch; black and white added in 2018
| Oyster, flat three-piece links, brushed finish, Oysterclasp
|-
| price at launch
| CHF 5,400 (2015)
|-
| predecessor
| none at this size — first 39mm Oyster Perpetual
|-
| successor
| 124300, Oyster Perpetual 41 (2020)
|}
|}


<span id="where-it-sits-in-the-line"></span>
==Position in the line==
== Where it sits in the line ==
 
The 114300 exists because Rolex had a gap. By 2014 the steel time-only catalogue ran 36mm (Oyster Perpetual, 116000) up to 41mm (Milgauss), with the 39mm Explorer (214270) sitting in between but carrying a Mercedes hour hand, a stubby minute hand, and 3-6-9 numerals that not every buyer wanted. Broer at Fratello named the 41mm Milgauss and the 39mm Explorer directly as the two existing alternatives for someone who wanted a bigger no-date Rolex and disliked both — "the Milgauss has the odd looking second hand and the Explorer in 39mm isn't as 'pure' as the previous 36mm version according to some." The 114300 answers that gap directly: same 39mm case, bracelet and caliber 3132 as the Explorer 214270, wearing a plain dial instead.
 
That shared-case relationship makes the 114300 the Explorer 214270 with the numerals, the Mercedes hand and the "EXPLORER" text all removed — a fact Fratello's own 2018 white-dial review makes explicit, describing it as a stand-in for "the non-existent white-dial Explorer 1." Monochrome frames the reference differently: not as an Explorer without a name, but as a category of its own, "neither dress nor sports watch," closer in spirit to "a Levi's 501" than to anything with a bezel.
 
The reference sat outside the hype the Oyster Perpetual line would later attract. Fratello ran the 114300 against a Grand Seiko in a 2020 reader poll for "best beater," a comparison nobody would have proposed for the reference's colorful successor a few months later. Lex Stolk's own accounting of the moment: the 39mm OP "was axed in 2020 and replaced by the larger 41mm Oyster Perpetual," right as Rolex "decided it was time to brighten up the Oyster Perpetual collection" with dials nicknamed for the 1970s Stella palette. The 114300 missed that transformation by months.
 
<span id="production-outline"></span>
== Production outline ==
 
Rolex introduced the 114300 in summer 2015 as the first 39mm Oyster Perpetual, with three sunray dials — dark rhodium, red grape and blue, each carrying a contrasting accent color on the hour markers (light blue, bright red and lime green respectively) rather than the plain luminous fill used elsewhere in the catalogue. Broer's Fratello review, published within a month of release, priced it at CHF 5,400 and photographed the dark-rhodium example.
 
Baselworld 2018 brought the reference's only documented running change: Rolex added black and white dials, its first monochromatic options for the 114300 and, per Monochrome's contemporary review, the line's first true "no accent color" dials — a matte, slightly textured white in place of the sunray finish used on the 2015 colors, alongside a black dial in the same finish. Case, bracelet and caliber 3132 carried over unchanged; only the dial palette moved.
 
Production ended in 2020, when Rolex discontinued the 39mm size entirely rather than carrying it forward. The Oyster Perpetual line was rebuilt that year around a 41mm flagship (124300) and a widened, lacquer-dialed color range inspired by the vintage Stella palette — the launch that turned the Oyster Perpetual from an overlooked entry point into one of the most chased configurations in the modern Rolex catalogue. The 114300 was gone before any of it happened.
 
<span id="movement-notes"></span>
== Movement notes ==
 
Caliber 3132 is the no-date sibling of caliber 3135, built on the same architecture Rolex used across its late-2000s/2010s time-only and simple-complication movements: a paramagnetic blue Parachrom hairspring, Paraflex shock absorbers, bidirectional self-winding via the Perpetual rotor, and roughly 48 hours of power reserve. It shares its core with the caliber 3130 used one size down in the 116000 and 114200, differing mainly in a slightly larger balance assembly scaled to the 39mm case. Every 114300 carries COSC chronometer certification, with "SUPERLATIVE CHRONOMETER OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED" on the dial.
 
<span id="dial-map"></span>
== Dial map ==
 
Five dial colors are documented across the five-year run, in two batches separated by the 2018 Baselworld refresh.


=== 2015 launch dials ===
The 114300 brought the Oyster Perpetual to a 39 mm case. It has a plain, no-date dial and shares calibre 3132 with the 39 mm Explorer 214270. The available evidence supports that movement overlap; it does not make the two models interchangeable descriptions of the same watch.


Dark rhodium, red grape and blue, each sunray-finished and each paired with a contrasting accent color on the applied hour markers rather than a neutral luminous fill: light blue on the rhodium dial, bright red on red grape, lime green on blue. Fratello's Lex Stolk later recalled the red grape configuration in stronger terms, writing that a "39mm OP in purple" was, for him, the standout of the whole Oyster Perpetual color story — red grape reads close enough to a deep aubergine purple under some lighting that the two descriptions likely refer to the same dial rather than a separate configuration.
==Production and dial changes==


=== 2018 black and white dials ===
Rolex introduced the 114300 at Baselworld 2015. Contemporary reviews by Fratello and Monochrome list three initial dials: dark rhodium with light-blue accents, red grape with red accents, and blue with green accents. They describe the dials as sunray-finished. “Red grape” is the published color name; descriptions of it as purple are visual shorthand, not a separate factory dial name.


Added at Baselworld 2018, three years into the reference's run. Both are monochromatic with no accent color, a first for the 114300, and both carry a matte, slightly textured finish in place of the 2015 dials' sunray pattern. Monochrome's contemporary review reads the white dial as giving the 114300 "a slightly more 'Professional' look," and notes it functions as the white-dial Explorer Rolex has never actually catalogued, since the 114300 shares the Explorer 214270's case, bracelet and movement under a plain dial.
At Baselworld 2018 Rolex added black and white versions. A 2019 review describes the black dial as sunray-finished; Monochrome describes the white dial as matte and lightly textured, with blue Chromalight on the hands and applied markers. The five documented dials therefore do not divide neatly into three sunray and two matte versions. The surviving product material and reviews establish these five configurations; they do not establish that no other market-specific or service configuration existed.


All five configurations use applied stick or baton hour markers (with the color-matched accents on the 2015 dials only), applied baton hands with Chromalight luminous fill, and a plain black minute track with no numerals, date window or text beyond the Rolex signature and chronometer certification line.
Rolex’s catalogue still listed the 114300 on 9 August 2020. A 3 September 2020 snapshot shows the 41 mm 124300 in the refreshed Oyster Perpetual range and no longer lists the 114300. These snapshots bracket the catalogue change; they do not identify the date the last 114300 left the factory.


<span id="case-bezel-crystal-and-crown-notes"></span>
==Movement==
== Case, bezel, crystal, and crown ==


The case is a monobloc-middle 39mm Oyster in solid 904L Oystersteel: integrated lugs, mirror-polished casebands set against brushed flat surfaces, and a domed bezel with a bevelled, mirror-polished edge rather than the flat bezel used on the smaller Oyster Perpetual sizes. Rolex's own catalogue copy for the reference singles out the polished bezel bevel as the model's one visible design flourish on an otherwise unadorned case.
Rolex’s product sheet for the 114300 names calibre 3132 and gives an approximate 48-hour power reserve. It lists the Parachrom hairspring, Paraflex shock absorbers, bidirectional automatic winding, and Superlative Chronometer certification after casing. The current Oyster Perpetual range uses other calibres, so its specifications should not be projected backward onto this reference.


Crystal is scratch-resistant sapphire without a Cyclops lens — a deliberate omission on a no-date watch. The crown is a Twinlock screw-down, rated with the case to 100 metres.
Phillips catalogued a white-dial 114300, case P470X511, as calibre 3230 in its 2023 Geneva sale and 2025 Hong Kong sale. The case number and June 2020 guarantee date suggest that both records concern the same watch. Phillips also catalogued a circa-2015 blue-dial 114300, case 908YN729 with a July 2015 guarantee, as calibre 3230. These catalogue entries conflict with Rolex’s calibre 3132 specification. They do not settle whether a movement was replaced or the calibre misidentified. Treat 3230 as an auction-catalogue attribution for these lots, not as an established factory change to the reference.


<span id="bracelets-and-clasps"></span>
==Case and bracelet==
== Bracelets, end links, and clasps ==


The 114300 wears the standard-generation Oyster bracelet: flat three-piece links in brushed 904L Oystersteel, closed with a folding Oysterclasp. It is the same bracelet platform fitted to the Explorer 214270 that shares the 114300's case and movement, and to the contemporary 116000 and 114200 one size down.
Rolex specifies a 39 mm Oystersteel case, monobloc middle, screw-down case back, domed bezel, Twinlock crown, sapphire crystal, and water resistance to 100 m. Its product sheet lists a three-piece Oyster bracelet and Oysterclasp. These specifications describe the model; an individual watch may have replacement parts or service history that a catalogue entry alone cannot resolve.


== Related references ==
==Auction records==


* [[Reference:214270|Explorer 214270]] — same 39mm case, bracelet and caliber 3132, under Explorer branding
Phillips Geneva 2023 lot 21 is the white-dial watch with case P470X511. It was catalogued with calibre 3230 and a June 2020 guarantee, and sold for CHF 6,985. Phillips offered the same case number again as Hong Kong lot 8048 in 2025, again identifying calibre 3230; it sold for HK$57,150. These are two sale records for one watch, not independent evidence of two 3230-equipped examples.
* [[Reference:116000|Oyster Perpetual 36 (116000)]]
* [[Reference:114200|Air-King 114200]] — same caliber 3130 family one architecture generation down
* [[Reference:1002|Oyster Perpetual 1002]] — vintage no-date OP lineage the modern line descends from


See also the [[Reference:oyster-perpetual|Oyster Perpetual family index]], [[Reference:Movements|movement reference]], [[Reference:Bracelets|bracelet & clasp guide]], and [[Reference:Serial-numbers|serial numbers by year]].
Phillips Hong Kong 2025 lot 924 is a blue-dial watch, case 908YN729, with a July 2015 guarantee. The catalogue calls its movement calibre 3230 and records a sale at HK$60,960. As above, this is the auction house’s description; it conflicts with Rolex’s published calibre 3132 specification. Auction results document these lots and their recorded sales, not a general price range for the reference.


== Sources ==
== Sources ==


* [https://web.archive.org/web/20190328160157/https://www.rolex.com/watches/oyster-perpetual/m114300-0004.html Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39, ref. 114300 — official specifications, archived] (rolex.com via Wayback Machine, 2019)
* [https://content.rolex.com/dam/media/brochures/oyster-perpetual/m114300-0004.pdf Rolex, Oyster Perpetual 39 product sheet for ref. 114300] — case, movement and bracelet specifications.
* [https://monochrome-watches.com/rolex-oyster-perpetual-39mm-114300-2015-review-price/ Brice Goulard, "Hands-on Review – The 2015 Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39mm Ref. 114300", Monochrome Watches, 2015]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20200809001853/https://www.rolex.com/watches/oyster-perpetual.html Rolex catalogue, 9 August 2020] and [https://web.archive.org/web/20200903185812/https://www.rolex.com/watches/oyster-perpetual.html 3 September 2020] — snapshots bracketing the catalogue change.
* [https://monochrome-watches.com/rolex-oyster-perpetual-39-114300-white-dial-baselworld-2018-review-price/ Brice Goulard, "Hands-on: The New Rolex Oyster Perpetual 39 Ref. 114300 with a White Dial", Monochrome Watches, 2018]
* [https://www.fratellowatches.com/the-new-rolex-oyster-perpetual-in-39mm-will-it-make-the-difference/ Robert-Jan Broer, Fratello, 2015] and [https://monochrome-watches.com/rolex-oyster-perpetual-39mm-114300-2015-review-price/ Brice Goulard, Monochrome, 2015] — launch context and initial dial options.
* [https://www.fratellowatches.com/the-new-rolex-oyster-perpetual-in-39mm-will-it-make-the-difference/ Robert-Jan Broer, "The New Rolex Oyster Perpetual in 39mm – Will It Make The Difference?", Fratello, 2015]
* [https://monochrome-watches.com/rolex-oyster-perpetual-39-114300-white-dial-baselworld-2018-review-price/ Brice Goulard, Monochrome, 2018] — black and white additions and white-dial details; [https://www.tokemar.com/39-ref.114300-ja-2/ WatchMonster, 2019] — black-dial finish observation.
* [https://www.fratellowatches.com/the-rolex-tiffany-oyster-perpetual-doesnt-exist/ Lex Stolk, "The Rolex 'Tiffany' Oyster Perpetual Doesn't Exist", Fratello, 2021]
* [https://www.phillips.com/detail/rolex/189941 Phillips Geneva 2023, lot 21], [https://www.phillips.com/detail/rolex/HK080125/8048 Hong Kong 2025, lot 8048], and [https://www.phillips.com/detail/rolex/225422 Hong Kong 2025, lot 924] — individual watch descriptions and sale records.
* [https://www.fratellowatches.com/pre-owned-picks-rolex-oyster-perpetual-watches-with-funky-dials/ Ben Hodges, "Pre-Owned Picks — Rolex Oyster Perpetual Watches With Funky Dials", Fratello, 2020]
* [https://www.watchguys.com/pages/rolex-oyster-perpetual-guide Robertino Altieri, "Rolex Oyster Perpetual Buyer's Guide: History & Prices", WatchGuys]


[[Category:Oyster Perpetual]]
[[Category:Oyster Perpetual]]