Rolex 1811 Day-Date
Day-Date › 1811
The 1811 is the Morellis-finish Day-Date. It is a 4-digit President built on the same 36mm gold case and caliber 1555/1556 movement as the fluted 1803, set apart by a fine watered texture, the moiré or "Morellis" finish, on the bezel and the President bracelet's center links. The finish belongs to the same late-1960s fashion for decorated gold that produced the Florentine 1806 and the bark 1807. The Morellis is the rarest and least-seen of the three, made in small numbers and easy to misread, which is why it turns up in listings under several different names.
Core facts
| detail | value |
|---|---|
| reference | 1811 |
| family | Day-Date |
| production | late 1960s into the 1970s (4-digit era) |
| movement | caliber 1555 (to c. 1965), then caliber 1556; hacking from 1972; no quickset |
| case | 36mm 18k gold President — yellow, white, pink/rose gold |
| crystal | acrylic |
| bezel | Morellis (moiré) finish |
| bracelet | President with Morellis-finished center links |
| dial | the 4-digit Day-Date catalogue, shared with the 1803 |
| crown | Twinlock screw-down |
| sibling references | 1803 (fluted), 1804 (gem-set), 1806 (Florentine), 1807 (bark) |
| predecessor | originals-era 6610 / 6611 / 6612 cluster |
| successor | 5-digit 18xxx era |
Where it sits in the line
The 1811 is one of the 1803's decorated siblings, the group that split the 4-digit Day-Date by surface finish, on a shared case and movement. The 1803 took the fluted bezel, the 1804 a gem-set bezel, the 1806 the Florentine cross-hatch, the 1807 the coarse bark, and the 1811 the Morellis moiré. Each carried its texture onto the bezel and, on the 1806, 1807 and 1811, onto the bracelet center links so the finish ran the length of the watch.
The naming is where the 1811 gets slippery. Collector and trade usage settles on "Morellis" for the watered moiré texture, while some listings call it Florentine and conflate it with the 1806. Everything else is 1803: the 36mm gold case, the President bracelet, the caliber 1555/1556 movement and the dial catalogue all carry over, and the 1803 entry holds the full account.
Production outline
The Morellis 1811 ran through the late 1960s and into the 1970s alongside the plain 1803, in small numbers. No Rolex production figure has surfaced, and like the other textured references it sold slowly when new, which makes it scarce today. Documented examples cluster in the late 1960s on the caliber 1555 and run into the 1970s on the caliber 1556. The decorated-finish references faded as taste returned to polished and fluted gold, and the texture did not carry into the 5-digit era the way the bark did on the 18078.
Movement notes
The 1811 uses the standard 4-digit Day-Date movement, caliber 1555 from the start of the run and caliber 1556 from around 1965. The 1556 raised the beat to 19,800 vph through a gear-train change, carrying over the free-sprung Microstella balance of the 1555; hacking seconds were added to the caliber mid-production in 1972. No 4-digit Day-Date has quickset, so date and day advance only by running the hands through midnight. The Reference:Movements page holds the caliber lineage, and the 1803 entry covers the 1555-to-1556 transition in detail.
Dial map
The 1811 carried the standard 4-digit Day-Date dials, champagne and silver with applied gold markers most common, and as a catalogue sibling of the 1803 it could take the same special dials. A champagne "Doorstop"-dial 1811 is among the documented examples. The Morellis finish is what defines the reference; dial choice is shared across the 4-digit group, and the 1803 entry carries the variant taxonomy.
Case, bezel, crystal, and crown
-
The Morellis grain up close: textured bezel and bracelet center links against polished outer links -
A yellow gold Morellis 1811 with a champagne dial
The case is the 36mm three-piece gold Oyster shared across the 4-digit Day-Date, with a Twinlock screw-down crown, screw-down caseback and acrylic crystal. The defining feature is the Morellis finish on the bezel, a fine watered moiré, finer than both the Florentine cross-hatch of the 1806 and the coarse bark of the 1807. It came in yellow, white and pink gold to match the case.
Bracelets, end links, and clasps
The 1811 wears the President with the Morellis finish carried onto the bracelet's center links, so the moiré runs unbroken from the bezel down the length of the bracelet. As with any vintage President, a clasp date code dates the bracelet, which may be older or newer than the head, and the Reference:Bracelets page holds the cross-family bracelet detail. Decades of service often replaced textured center links with plain ones, so an 1811 that keeps its full original Morellis bracelet is the harder thing to find.
Special branches
The decorated 4-digit references
The decorated 4-digit group is the Florentine 1806, the bark 1807 and the Morellis 1811, each replacing the 1803's fluting with a worked surface carried from the bezel onto the bracelet center links. Because the textures are easy to mistake for one another, attribution rests on the reference number engraved between the lugs.
Auction record
The Morellis 1811 shows up at auction now and then rather than as a regular fixture, in line with its small production. Antiquorum sold a yellow-gold example in New York on 8 December 2016 (Lot 211): a 1967 piece, cal. 1556, satiné silver dial, 36mm case on a President bracelet with textured center links, complete with its original Chronometer Certificate and booklet. The catalogue text calls the bezel finish "moiré crosshatch," which is the primary-source confirmation behind the collector "Morellis" name. Estimated at USD 8,000-12,000, it sold for USD 17,500.
A second Antiquorum lot, Hong Kong, 28 May 2022 (Lot 211), catalogues a yellow-gold example from around the same period: case no. 1,672,343 by Genex of Geneva, cal. 1555, on a President bracelet the lot text describes as "hammered" rather than moiré. Both lots record a second number stamped alongside 1811 on the caseback (1803 in the 2016 lot, 1601 in the 2022 lot), without further explanation in the catalogue text. Whether "hammered" and "moiré crosshatch" are two words for the same texture or mark a genuine sub-variant is not settled by these two lots alone. Estimated at HKD 95,000-144,000, the piece sold for HKD 115,000.
An original Morellis bracelet carries much of the value in both cases, since service swaps to plain links are common on surviving examples.
Related references
- Day-Date 1803 — Fluted President (1960–1977)
- Day-Date 1804
- Day-Date 1806
- Day-Date 1807
- Day-Date 1831
- Day-Date 6510 — 1956–1957
See also the Day-Date family index, movement reference, bracelet & clasp guide, and serial numbers by year.
Sources
- The Vintage Rolex Field Manual — Colin A. White, Morning Tundra
- Monochrome editorial, "In-Depth: The History of the Rolex Day-Date, The Presidential Watch", Monochrome Watches
- Sotheby's editorial, "The Rolex Day-Date: A Complete Collector's Guide", Sotheby's
- Fratello editorial, "Rolex Day-Date — Historical Overview Of Rolex's Flagship", Fratello Watches
- WatchBase editorial, "Rolex Day-Date History", WatchBase, 2015-02-21
- Italian Watch Spotter editorial, "The History of the Rolex Day-Date", Italian Watch Spotter
- The Beautiful Watch editorial, "A Brief History of the Rolex Day-Date", The Beautiful Watch
- Jake Ehrlich, "1956 — The Very First Rolex Day-Date", Rolex Magazine (Jake's Rolex World), 2010-09
- Ottuhr editorial, "Rolex Day-Date 1803 Reference Report", Ottuhr
- Rolex Forums community, "Rolex Forums — 1803 Presidential Unusual Finishes", Rolex Forums
- Antiquorum, "Rolex Ref. 1811/1803, moiré crosshatch finish", Important Watches & Jewelry, New York, 2016-12-08, Lot 211
- Antiquorum, "Rolex Ref. 1811/1601, hammered finish", Hong Kong, 2022-05-28, Lot 211