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Rolex 1018 Oyster Perpetual

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Oyster Perpetual › 1018

36mm steel 1018 with smooth bezel and silvered dial, 1968
36mm steel 1018 with smooth bezel and silvered dial, 1968

The 1018 is the 36mm member of the four-digit no-date Oyster Perpetual line. It uses 20mm lugs, a smooth bezel and a plain chronometer dial, with caliber 1560 followed by 1570 in the documented examples. The case diameter and movement family overlap with the Explorer 1016, but the 1018 has a different dial and reference identity.

Rolex production figures are not public, and auction houses measure the case inconsistently. Dated examples cluster in the 1960s, with Global Insurance world-map dials and a black-lacquer example documented as individual branches.


Core facts

detail value
reference 1018
family Oyster Perpetual
production documented from at least 1960; catalogue and marketing presence into the 1980s
case diameter 36mm
lug-to-lug 43mm
lug width 20mm
thickness 11.5–12mm
case material stainless steel in the main record; one unresolved steel-and-yellow-gold catalogue entry
bezel smooth, polished
crystal acrylic
movement caliber 1560 (to c.1965), then caliber 1570
certification Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified
date complication none
bracelet 7206 rivet Oyster, 6636 stretch rivet, later 78360; leather also original
predecessor 6614
closest relative Explorer 1016, same 36mm case footprint

Where it sits in the line

The 1018 is the 36mm, smooth-bezel outlier among the 34mm four-digit references. The Explorer 1016 shares the 36mm footprint and movement generation, but its 3-6-9 dial and Explorer marking make it a different reference. “Oversize” is a collector description rather than a Rolex model name; “Jumbo” and other trade labels should be attributed to the source using them. The 6614 and yellow-gold 1013 are useful case-family comparisons, but case, dial and movement details remain reference-specific.

Production outline

No Rolex production figure has surfaced for the 1018, and no catalogue page has been published that fixes its introduction date. The reference is documented from at least 1960, with marketing material carrying it as late as 1988, which makes the 1018 a long, quiet presence rather than a short run. Catalogued examples cluster far more tightly than that: almost every dated lot falls between 1961 and 1970.

Case numbers give the clearest sequence available. Antiquorum catalogued a 1018 with case number 675731 made in 1961, and a second with case number 1270063 made in 1965. Bonhams catalogued case number 1170967 as circa 1965 and case number 1293915 with an inner caseback dated IV.66. Antiquorum's Mondani Collection lot carried case number 1591267 made in 1967, and a further example with case number 1739989 dates to 1968. Later examples run into the 250xxxx band with casebacks stamped II.69. Dated serials in the collector literature extend the same picture: roughly 1.00M and 1.02M in 1964, 1.27M and 1.45M around 1966, and 2.09M and 2.12M around 1969.

The caliber change is the clearest division in the documented examples. Watches dated to the early 1960s carry caliber 1560, while later examples carry 1570. Dial, bracelet and service-part changes should be recorded from the individual watch rather than assumed absent.

Movement notes

Caliber 1560 ran from 1959 to 1965 across the whole no-date group, the 1018 and the Explorer 1016 included. It is a 25- or 26-jewel automatic beating at 18,000 vph, rhodium-plated, adjusted to temperature and five positions, with a free-sprung balance regulated by Microstella screws and a self-compensating Breguet balance spring. Chronometer certification is the point of the movement and the reason the dial carries the Superlative Chronometer text.

Caliber 1570 appears in later 1018 examples and runs at 19,800 vph with an approximately 48-hour reserve. Hacking was introduced within the 1500 family during the 1970s, but the exact production and service boundary should be checked on the movement. There is no date complication. See Movements for the family lineage.

Dial map

The dial layout that dominates surviving examples puts longer faceted white-gold markers at 3, 6 and 9 with shorter markers at the remaining hours. It reads as a baton echo of the Explorer's Arabic 3-6-9 rather than a copy of it, and it is the configuration most often seen on the market. Luminous baton hands are standard. Earlier examples turn up with dauphine, sword or alpha hands instead, and auction catalogues describing a 1018 with "obelisque" hands are describing the same faceted baton shape under a different name.

Colours documented across the run are silver, a paler milky silver, grey, and black. Within silver there is real variation in finish: sunburst on some examples, a flat metallic linen texture on others, and a coarser textured silver on the promotional dials. Black splits into two distinct things. A matte black dial appears in the collector literature as one of the four standard colours; a glossy black lacquer dial with gilt printing is something else entirely, and the two documented examples of it are the strongest 1018 results on record.

Published guides and auction records in the cited set document silver, milky-silver, grey and black dials; they do not establish a factory blue variant. Blue dealer examples have been reported, but their originality and reference fitment remain unproven. A service or replacement dial is one possible explanation; the watch, dial construction and provenance need to be checked before assigning it to the factory set.

Typography is the identifying quirk. The 1018's dial text is noticeably smaller than the case would suggest, with "Oyster Perpetual" and "Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified" centred so tightly that neither line reaches past the hour markers. The explanation put forward in the published collector guide to the reference is that Rolex reused the dial printing clichés cut for the 34mm 1002 rather than making new ones for a case two millimetres wider. That reading is inference rather than documented fact, but it accounts for a proportion problem that is obvious once noticed and hard to explain any other way.

Water damage and service wear appear in some surviving examples. That is a condition observation, not a defining feature of the reference.

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    Standard 1018 dial layout
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    Matte black 1018 dial example

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

 
The 1018 on a suede strap; 20mm between the lugs, the same as the Explorer

The cited examples use a three-body stainless-steel Oyster case with screw-down caseback and crown, smooth bezel and acrylic crystal. Published measurements are about 36mm across, 43mm lug to lug, 20mm between the lugs and 11.5–12mm thick. Measurements vary by catalogue method, so record the actual case and crystal.

The case size is where the sources genuinely disagree, and the disagreement is worth knowing before buying. Antiquorum catalogued the reference at 36mm diameter and 12mm thickness in both the Mondani Collection sale of 2006 and a 2011 New York sale. Phillips and Artcurial have each put it at 35mm. Bonhams alone spans the widest range of any house: 34mm on a London lot of 2019, 35mm on a New York lot of 2014, and 37mm on the 2004 London world-map lot, which is the outer bound of everything published. Christie's listed one at 34mm. Auction measurements of vintage Oyster cases are casual by convention and often taken excluding the crown or copied forward from a previous catalogue, so the spread says more about cataloguing practice than about the watch. The practical resolution is the lug width. A 34mm 4-digit Oyster Perpetual takes a 19mm bracelet; the 1018 takes 20mm, the same as the Explorer. A watch measuring 20mm between the lugs is not a 34mm case.

Most cited 1018 examples are stainless steel. Antiquorum’s 2011 lot 188 is described as steel-and-yellow-gold with a fluted bezel and Air-King Super Precision designation, but its attribution conflicts with the 1018 record. Keep it as an unresolved catalogue outlier rather than a confirmed two-tone branch.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

Original delivery was on a rivet Oyster bracelet or on leather. The 7206 is the reference fitment, 20mm, non-stretch, with 58 end links, and it is the bracelet found on the best-preserved examples. The 6636 stretch rivet also appears. Late-production and service-fitted examples turn up on the 78360, which belongs to a much later bracelet generation and should not be read as original to a 1960s head. Leather deliveries came with the period buckle rather than a folding clasp.

Bracelet dating and case dating are separate questions. A clasp stamp dates the bracelet and nothing else, and after fifty years of service most 1018s no longer wear what they left with. The exception proves how rarely it survives: Bonhams catalogued a New York lot in 2014 with a case dated IV.66 on a riveted 7206 stamped 4.66, a head and bracelet from the same quarter still together. The cross-family detail sits on the bracelet and clasp guide.

Special branches

Global Insurance promotional dials

 
Global Insurance promotional dial, the letter G encircling a world map -- Antiquorum lot 298-102

Two 1018s made for the Global Insurance Company have passed through Antiquorum. The earlier, case number 675731, was made in 1961 and carries a textured silver dial with the letter G encircling a world map, luminous steel dauphine hands and caliber 1560. The later, case number 1270063, was made in 1965. Antiquorum catalogued both as extremely rare, and the pairing establishes that Rolex supplied this dial over at least a four-year window rather than as a single batch. A third watch falls inside that window: Bonhams sold a 1964 1018 with caliber 1560 and a monogrammed world-map dial in London in November 2004, without naming the company it was made for.

Logo dials of this kind sit at the boundary between original delivery and later addition on most references. Here the corporate customer, the spread across at least three years and the consistency of the dial across separate catalogues put these on the original side.

Serpico y Laino

Christie's offered a Serpico y Laino signed 1018 in the Dubai online sale of October 2022, a silvered-dial steel example dated to around 1964. The Caracas retailer signed a large volume of Rolex dials through the 1950s and 1960s, and a Serpico y Laino 1007 has also surfaced, so the signature is not unique to either reference. The lot went unsold. Its catalogue entry also describes the movement as manual-winding and the case as 34mm, neither of which can be correct for a 1018, which is a useful reminder that a house signature on the lot title does not guarantee accuracy in the body.

Black lacquer with gilt printing

 
Black lacquer dial with gilt graphics, cal 1570, c.1968 — Phillips Hong Kong lot 1042

Phillips sold a black-lacquer 1018 with gilt dial graphics in the Hong Kong Watch Auction: THREE in November 2016, lot 1042, case number 1'744'608, dated to around 1968 and running caliber 1570 on a matching Oyster bracelet. Phillips catalogued that case at 35mm, adding to the published measurement spread. The lot sold above estimate; a second black-dial example appears in a 2014 Bonhams lot. Two examples establish a documented branch, not a universal price distinction.

Auction record

The auction table mixes steel, black-lacquer, corporate-logo and plain silver examples from several houses. Results vary with condition, dial originality, provenance and venue. The black-lacquer and Global Insurance lots are individual results, not a reference-wide price hierarchy.

date house configuration result
Nov 2016 Phillips, The Hong Kong Watch Auction: THREE, lot 1042 black lacquer dial with gilt graphics, cal 1570, c.1968 HKD 93,750 (est. HKD 30,000–50,000)
Jun 2014 Bonhams New York, lot 96 black dial, case 1293915 dated IV.66, on 7206 rivet dated 4.66 USD 6,000 (two-watch lot with a ref 6305)
Apr 2016 Antiquorum New York, lot 102 Global Insurance logo dial, case 1270063, made 1965 USD 4,750 (est. USD 3,000–5,000)
Dec 2013 Antiquorum New York, lot 299 Global Insurance logo dial, case 675731, made 1961, cal 1560 USD 3,750 (est. USD 3,000–4,000)
Nov 2004 Bonhams London, lot 197 monogrammed world-map dial, cal 1560, 1964 result not published
Sep 2019 Bonhams London, lot 109 sunburst silvered dial, cal 1570, caseback II.69, Oyster bracelet EUR 2,532
May 2006 Antiquorum Geneva, The Mondani Collection, lot 113 silvered dial, cal 1570, case 1591267, made 1967 CHF 2,832 (est. CHF 2,000–3,000)
Jul 2011 Artcurial Monte-Carlo, lot 553 silver dial with gold batons, c.1969, crocodile strap EUR 1,913 (est. EUR 900–1,300)
Mar 2011 Antiquorum New York, lot 188 steel and gold, fluted bezel, case 1591271, made 1966 USD 1,350 (est. USD 1,500–2,500)
May 2017 Bonhams New York, lot 139 metallic silver linen dial, cal 1560, case 1170967, c.1965 USD 1,000
Oct 2022 Christie's, Watches Online: The Dubai Edit, lot 191 Serpico y Laino signed, silvered dial, c.1964 not sold (est. USD 8,000–12,000)

Related references

See also the Oyster Perpetual family index, movement reference, bracelet & clasp guide, and serial numbers by year.

Gallery

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    1018 documented example
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    1018 documented example
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    1018 documented example
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    1018 documented example
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    1018 documented example
  •  
    1018 documented example

Sources

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