Jump to content

Rolex 6244 Oyster Royal

From Rolexopedia


Oyster → 6244

Rolex Oyster Royal 6244, case in the low 835,000s, Bonhams London, circa 1952
Rolex Oyster Royal 6244, applied baton dial, Bonhams London, case in the low 835,000s, circa 1952

The 6244 is a manual-wind steel Oyster from the 1950s and early 1960s, sold under the Oyster Royal name alongside plainer "Oyster" catalogue titles. Twelve auctioned examples across five major houses document the reference: three at Bonhams, four at Antiquorum, three at Christie's, one at Heritage, and one at Phillips. Every catalogued movement is hand-wound; nothing in the record supports the "self-winding" wording one thin Antiquorum lot used for a single example.

Case numbers split into two bands roughly 90,000 apart, and the two bands date very differently. The reference's own Cal. 710 is confirmed by name at four of the five houses. That makes 6244 the first reference in Rolex's 10½-ligne hand-wound Hunter family with an unambiguous caliber stamp; its siblings carry only a plausible, unconfirmed assignment.

Core facts

detail value
reference 6244
family Oyster (manual-wind)
catalogue names Oyster Royal; Oyster; Oyster, shock-resisting
production no single documented range; auction catalogues date individual examples from circa 1952 to circa 1963 across two case-number bands
case diameter 30–32mm across twelve catalogued examples
case shape tonneau
case construction three-body (Antiquorum) / three-part (Christie's); screw-down back and crown
crystal plastic, per one Christie's catalogue; not stated elsewhere
bezel smooth, polished
winding manual
movement Cal. 710, rhodium-plated, 15 jewels, straight-line lever, Superbalance, self-compensating Breguet balance spring, micrometer regulator
seconds centre seconds on every documented example
case materials stainless steel on eleven documented watches; stainless steel and gold on one
dial variants documented applied baton; tropical; gilt Arabic with red seconds hand; applied gold index; Stelline "star"; honeycomb/chequered with coronet markers
documented case numbers 834'991; ~835,000s; 836'438; 836447; 921,954; 921,962; 923'194

Where it sits in the line

Rolex kept a manual-wind Oyster line running well past the Perpetual rotor's 1931 debut. The 6244 belongs to that line, not to the Bubbleback and not to the modern automatic Oyster Perpetual. Every catalogued movement across all twelve auction lots is hand-wound; the sole exception is a single word in one Antiquorum listing, addressed below.

The reference sits apart from Rolex's contemporary "Oyster Royal Precision" sub-line — refs. 6426, 6427 and the earlier 2280 — which carries the Precision name in its own catalogue titles. No documented 6244 lot uses that name. The two branches share a decade and a case style; the Precision name is the dividing line between them.

Catalogue naming is not settled to one term. Bonhams and Antiquorum both use Oyster Royal for some lots and plain Oyster for others; Christie's uses Oyster and, on two lots, "Oyster, shock-resisting." Heritage catalogues its example as Oyster Royal. None of the auction descriptions ties a specific name to a specific dial or case configuration. The variation reads as inconsistent cataloguing, not as evidence of distinct factory sub-models.

Production outline

No single start-and-end date is documented for the 6244. What exists instead is seven case numbers across seven of the twelve auction lots, clustering into two bands that different houses date very differently.

The lower band runs from case 834'991 up to 836447. Phillips dates 834'991 to 1952. Bonhams dates its low-835,000s example (the last three digits are redacted in the published catalogue text) to circa 1952 as well. Christie's catalogued two more watches in this same band: case 836'438, dated circa 1959, and case 836447, dated 1962. The two Christie's cases sit only nine digits apart yet carry dates three years apart from the same house. The reference's own Serial-numbers page explains the mechanism: Rolex restarted its numeric case sequence in the mid-1950s, so a number in the low-to-mid 830,000s can fall in either the early-1950s pre-reset sequence or the early-1960s post-reset one, and the digits alone cannot settle which.

The upper band is tighter. Case 921,954 (Bonhams, dated circa 1960), case 921,962 (Antiquorum, dated "made in 1962"), and case 923'194 (Christie's, dated circa 1963) sit within about 1,250 of each other, and all three houses independently read them as early 1960s. None proposes an earlier decade for this band. That agreement does not exist for the lower band.

Reading the two bands together, the reference was in the Rolex catalogue for at least part of the early-to-mid 1950s and again in the early 1960s. Whether it sold continuously across that stretch or the case numbers reflect the reset alone is not something the auction record settles; the honest reading is two documented production windows joined by a numbering ambiguity, not a single eleven-year run.

Movement notes

Every documented 6244 movement is manual wind. Bonhams, Antiquorum, Christie's and Phillips each independently name Cal. 710 for examples spanning both case-number bands: rhodium-plated, 15 jewels, straight-line lever escapement, Superbalance with a self-compensating Breguet balance spring, and a micrometer regulator. The Antiquorum lot with the fullest published movement description adds a shock-absorber to that specification. One Christie's catalogue names the movement only by size, a 10¾-ligne calibre, without giving the caliber number, but its jewel count and architecture match the Cal. 710 examples elsewhere in the record.

That level of agreement makes 6244 the exception in its own movement family. The reference's own Movements page groups Cal. 700 and 710 as a shared 10½-ligne hand-wound Hunter architecture. Its siblings 2765, 2595 and 3009 carry only a plausible caliber assignment, since none of their surfaced auction descriptions names one. The 6244 record names it, repeatedly and across houses.

One movement number is published: No. 16798 on the Bonhams circa-1960 example, alongside case 921,954. No other documented lot publishes a movement number.

A single Antiquorum catalogue entry describes one 6244 as "self-winding." No case, movement, or dial detail accompanies that listing beyond the word itself, and the same Antiquorum sale catalogued a second 6244 correctly as manual wind. Cal. 710 is a hand-wound caliber; nothing else in the record points to an automatic 6244; the simplest reading is a cataloguing slip on a thinly described lot, not a self-winding variant.

Dial map

Six distinct dial treatments are documented across the twelve catalogued watches, and no two houses describe the same layout in identical terms.

Rolex 6244 tropical dial with gilt baton markers, case 921954
Tropical (brown-toned) dial with applied luminous-tipped gilt baton hour markers and dagger hands. Bonhams London, case 921,954, catalogued circa 1960.

Bonhams catalogued three: a silvered textured dial with applied polished pointed baton markers and a black outer minute track (case in the low 835,000s, circa 1952); a tropical, brown-toned textured dial with gilt baton markers and dagger hands (case 921,954, circa 1960); and a silvered dial with applied gilt Arabic numerals, luminous dots, and a red centre seconds hand, on an undocumented case number catalogued only as "1950's."

Rolex 6244 white dial with applied yellow gold indexes, case 921962
White dial with applied yellow gold indexes and radium-coated "alpha" hands. Antiquorum Geneva, case 921,962, "made in 1962."

Antiquorum's fullest description covers a white dial with applied yellow gold indexes and radium-coated "alpha" hands, on case 921,962. Its three thinner lots add no dial detail beyond "black dial" for one and no description at all for the other two.

A beige dial with gold star numerals and black graphics appears on the Phillips example, case 834'991. This is a Stelline dial — Italian for "little stars" — and Phillips' own editorial history of the pattern places 6244 among the references that received it, alongside 2705, 6024, 6088, 6090, 6098, and the more complicated 6062. Star-shaped hour markers first appeared on Rolex dials in 1946 and are most common on dials made between 1950 and 1953, which lines up with the circa-1952 dating on this particular case. Stern Frères is believed to have been Rolex's sole supplier of the star-dial component.

Rolex 6244 honeycomb dial with coronet hour markers, case 836438
Honeycomb-textured dial with applied baton and Rolex coronet hour markers. Christie's Geneva, case 836'438, catalogued circa 1959, sold for more than three times its estimate.

A honeycomb, or chequered, textured dial with applied baton or coronet (crown-logo) hour markers appears on all three Christie's lots: case 836447 ("matte chequered textured dial with inlaid coronets and hour markers"), case 923'194 ("white honey comb dial with applied baton and coronet hour markers"), and case 836'438, where the house's lot essay calls the layout "an unusual honey comb dial with applied baton and Rolex coronet logos as hour markers, a rare detail for this reference." The wording varies lot to lot, but the pattern is consistent across three separately catalogued watches spanning both case-number bands.

Case, bezel, crystal, and crown

The catalogued watches are tonneau-shaped, 30 to 32mm depending on the house's own measurement convention, with a screw-down back and crown. Antiquorum and Christie's independently call the construction three-body and three-part respectively, on separate watches from the two different case-number bands. One Christie's catalogue specifies a plastic crystal; no other cited description gives a crystal material. The bezel is smooth and polished on every documented example; none carries an engine-turned or fluted treatment.

Eleven of the twelve catalogued watches are stainless steel. The exception is one Antiquorum lot described only as "stainless steel and gold," with no further detail on which parts carry gold or how much.

Bracelets, end links, and clasps

Bracelet and strap presentation varies watch to watch. The Phillips example, case 834'991, came on a stainless steel Rolex Oyster bracelet, 175mm maximum length, with an end link stamped 63 and a stainless steel Rolex folding deployant clasp stamped 3.55. The wiki's own bracelet and clasp guide documents clasp date stamps in a Roman-numeral quarter format (for example, I.65 for the first quarter of 1965); Phillips' Arabic "3.55" does not match that format cleanly enough to read with confidence as a quarter-and-year code, so it is recorded here as a stamped reference rather than dated. The two Christie's honeycomb-dial lots with published bracelet detail both came on a steel Rolex Oyster bracelet and deployant clasp, without a stamped code. Antiquorum's case-921,962 example came on a stainless steel Rolex expanding bracelet. Bonhams presents the most varied set: a black leather strap on the circa-1952 example, a stainless steel expandable bracelet on the circa-1960 example, and, on the undated 1950s example, what the catalogue explicitly calls a later-fitted Rolex bracelet — period Rolex, but not documented as original to that watch.

Auction record

Venue Date Case No. Dial Result
Phillips, Hong Kong 2016-05-31 834'991 Beige, gold star numerals (Stelline) HKD 93,750 (est. HKD 50,000–80,000)
Christie's, Geneva 2013-11-11 836'438 White, honeycomb, baton and coronet markers CHF 16,250 (est. CHF 3,000–5,000)
Christie's, Hong Kong 2008-12-03 836447 Matte chequered, inlaid coronets HKD 47,500 (est. HKD 40,000–50,000)
Bonhams, London Knightsbridge 2019-11-19 ~835,0xx Silvered, applied baton markers Unsold (est. GBP 700–900)
Bonhams, London Knightsbridge 2018-05-22 921,954 Tropical, gilt baton markers GBP 875 incl. premium (est. GBP 700–900)
Antiquorum, Geneva 2008-03-16 921,962 White, applied yellow gold indexes CHF 1,440 (est. CHF 1,700–2,700)
Christie's, New York 2013-06-11 923'194 White, honeycomb, baton and coronet markers USD 8,125 (est. USD 7,000–9,000)
Bonhams, London Knightsbridge 2009-11-24 not published Silvered, gilt Arabic, red centre seconds Unsold (est. GBP 400–600)
Heritage Auctions 2025 not published Silver, applied hour indices Not recovered (listing behind a bot-check)
Antiquorum, Geneva 2018-11-11 not published Not described CHF 2,000 (est. CHF 1,500–2,500)
Antiquorum, Geneva 2018-11-11 not published Not described ("self-winding" per catalogue text; see Movement notes) CHF 1,000 (est. CHF 1,000–2,000)
Antiquorum, Online 2021-09-22 not published Not described (steel and gold) CHF 1,062 (est. CHF 1,000–2,000)

The Christie's Geneva result for case 836'438 is the strongest in the record relative to its own estimate, closing at more than three times its CHF 3,000–5,000 low end. Currencies, sale years, and dial conditions differ enough across the twelve results that they do not form a price series; what the table does show is that honeycomb-dial and star-dial examples with published case detail consistently outsell the thinly catalogued, undescribed lots.

Related references

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

Sources

Retrieved from "https://rolexopedia.net/index.php?title=Reference:6244&oldid=10224"