43    The correct spelling of “Gleitz” is “Gleitze”

100   Bottom left caption should read 3065 NOT 2940

111       Paragraph 2, line 21; the number of shares allocated to Herr Aegler should       read 6,960 NOT 6,090

114   Line 2: the word "name" should be "marketing"

148      Movement number in the caption should read L52491, not L 52941

153   Last paragraph, line 2; St. Imer should be St. Imier.

177   This watch is stamped on the outside only, although other Scientifics have been seen marked both inside and out.

191   The final paragraph on this page is truncated and another paragraph from Page 192 is printed in its place.

The correct text should continue:

many of them in steel, an unheard of move for a flagship watch. Rolex never reduced the price of the watch but they did not increase its price in line with other models, this meant that in its last year on the price lists, 1958, the watch was listed at 2.5% cheaper than an 18k "Datejust" SF 900 versus SF 921. The final failure of the watch can be put down to a number of factors but mainly to the fact that the Datejust was a more usable watch, it was easier to see the date through a window which was always in the same place rather than at the end of a moving arrow, the watch was intrinsically less waterproof than a Datejust due to the adjustment pushers which went through the case and there was also the fact that the watch looked very similar to triple calendar models produced by a wide variety of other companies; and of course, in the end people buy watches to perform functions they need and who really needs to know the phases of the moon?

195   Column 2, 2nd paragraph, line 5/6; the difference between the 6084 and 6085 was not the crowns, rather it was the milled bezel on the 6085 and the plain one on the 6084. Both these watches had Super Oyster crowns when new although most of these will now have been replaced with screw down crowns.

195   Note 34. The Convair 440 was a Turbo Prop; not a Turbo Jet.

216   Column 2, 1st paragraph, line 6: should read "allegedly wore one in the movie "Winning"......."Le Mans" starred Steve McQueen, please accept our apologies for confusing these two screen icons.

225   The watches on this page are listed with their correct model numbers, however bezels have been changed by their owners. The original specification is 6263 with black bezel and 6265 with metal bezel; however as these watches were so hard to sell when new, most stores would change dials hands or bezels in order to make a sale.

254   The watch shown is a 6538 NOT a 6238

261   TR Caption should read “,it has the much larger pre-triplock 8mm Brevette crown.”

262   The Submariner shown in the top right photograph is a 5508, not a 6508.

278   3rd Paragraph; This is wrong, an automatic watch uses momentum not gravity to wind it. 

4th       Paragraph; the GMT Master was first available in 18k gold as a model 6542, this watch continued in production (in gold only) for about 5 years after the introduction of the 1675. 

5th       Paragraph; the 1675 was followed by the 16750 as the first sapphire glass version; which was quickly replaced by the 16700 and the 16710.

300   Column 2, these 3 photographs have had their captions transposed, so the top one is, in fact, for the bottom one & vice versa.

331   The A. T. Oliver case making workshop was moved to Liverpool Museum, not the Prescot Museum

383   We can now answer two of the questions on this page: 

7, Yes Paul Newman has been seen wearing a "Paul Newman" dial chronograph;

9, The graduations on the 6541 Milgauss bezel are just for elapsed time, as on a Submariner. This information has come from the original

Milgauss brochure. It was the lack of 0s after the numbers, which fooled us all.

391   Photo index, model number 6304 should be 6034:

381       Appendix 3 Updated, enlarged and revised list follows:

There has never been full agreement about the case numbers on early Rolex Oysters. The company have refused to release details from their archives and the market has been left to flounder around with insufficient data to establish a correct dating/serial number sequence. However; help is at hand due to the fact that most of the early Oysters were sold in the UK they bear British hallmarks because it was a legal prerequisite for all precious metal items sold in Britain to be hallmarked by a government department. Hallmarking began in Britain around the late 12th. Century (eight hundred years ago) making the hallmarking regulations most certainly the oldest piece of consumer legislation still in effect. The hallmark on each watch case comprised three parts; a standard mark, giving the purity of the metal (silver, 9/14/18/22 carat gold), the assay office mark (where it was hallmarked) and the date letter (the year it was assayed). Using the date letter, which gives us the year in which the watch was sent to the assay office (because the watches could not be sold without a hallmark, the empty cases were sent for hallmarking and then returned to Switzerland to have the movements fitted and then returned to the UK for sale; so the hallmark date would be close to the date at which the completed watches would leave the factory). When we then compare this to the case number, it is possible to draw up a table of dates and case numbers. However due to the intervention of

WW II in 1939, the numbers cease at this point; being able to date the watches produced between 1926 and 1939 is a considerable improvement on the previous situation we all faced. The next problem arose in the 1950s; whilst it took Rolex almost 30 years (from 1926 to 1953) to use all the numbers between 20,001 and 999,999; at this point the obvious thing to do would have been to add a seventh digit to their case numbering machine(s) and continue into the millions.

Rolex, as any student of the company will tell you, was never a company to follow the obvious path and so they chose to re-use previously issued numbers on the new cases. They, once again, chose not to follow the most logical path and begin at 0001; rather they began at 100,001 once again, a number previously used in the midst of WW II. Fortunately when they began to reuse these numbers it was during the period when they were also stamping the date of construction inside the case back; this code consisted of a roman numeral I, II, III or IV representing the four quarters of the year and the last two digits of the year (for example II 54, representing the period April to June 1954). Using these date codes it is now possible to give definite dates to the previously uncertain period in the mid 50s. It was not until the late 50's that Rolex began to use the seventh digit and from this point the numbering sequence became logical and able to be followed with any hope of accuracy.

The period in which logic was any use lasted shorter than anyone could have hoped; after Rolex reaches 9,999,999 they chose to initiate a new sequence based on the letters RLEX, the letter "O" was left out because of its resemblance to the number "0". The new sequence began in 1987 and ran through to

November 1991. Then a completely new system of case numbering was brought in and is as follows:

S serial numbers were introduced in 1993 and W ones first came in during 1994 andT serial numbers were first introduced in May 1996

BUT

<B>All these are still current; </B>with this new numbering system numbers are generated almost randomly.

The reasons for this were not disclosed to me, despite asking the question. I was met with the telephonic equivalent of an "enigmatic smile". If you think things are now really confused........it gets worse!!

The letter U was introduced in August 1997; and will run concurrently with S, T &W. However, things were not yet complex enough for Rolex, so the letter

A was introduced in November/December 1998 and will also run concurrently with W & U.

21691             1927

23969             1928

24747             1928

28290             1930

29312             1932

29933             1933

30823             1934

35365             1935

37596             1936

40920             1937

43739             1938

71224             1939

99775             1940

106047            1941

143509            1942

230878            1943

269561            1944

302459            1945

387216            1946

529163            1947

628840            1948

710776            1951

840396            1952

929426            IV 1953

930879            I 1953

931080            II 1953

937170            I 1954

941699            I 1953

952892            1 1954

955466            IV 1953

964789            IV 1953

973697            1V 1953

973930            III 1953

116578            IV 1953

132562            III 1953

139400            I 1956

139477            I 1956

282632            III 1955

321884            IV 1957

345500            II 1957

360171            I 1958

383893            I 1958

362214            I 1958

385893            II 1958

391528            III 1958

426074            IV 1958

412128            IV 1958

693808            II 1960

763663            II 1962

764754            I 1962

869868            IV 1962

985015            I 1964

1041729           II 1964

1182076           III 1964

1259699           II 1965

1345681           IV 1965

1871000           1966

1994956           III 1966

2163900           1967

2426800           1968

2555384           II 1970

2689700           1969

2952600           1970

3215500           1971

3478400           1972

3741300           1973

4004200           1974

4267100           1975

4538000           1976

5008000           1977

5482000           1978

5958000           1979

6434000           1980

6910000           1981

7386000           1982

7862000           1983

8338000           1984

8614000           1985

9290000           1986

9766000           1987

9999999           1987 ˝

R00000            1987 ˝

R99999            1988

L000000           1988

L999999           1990˝

E000000           1990˝

E999999           1991˝

X000001           1991˝

N000001           Nov 1991

C000001           1992

S000001           1993

W000001           1994/5

T000001           1996

U000001           August 1997

A000001           November/December 1998

P000001           Jan 2000