Rolex Day-Date Oysterquartz Ref. 19048 - Sapphire & Diamond String Dial with Papers

Straight Facts

The First Rule of Rolex: Rolexes Don’t Tick. (except when they do?)

It used to be that they way you knew a fake Rolex from a real one, was that Rolexes didn’t tick. They were known for that gentle perpetual sweeping motion. Surely a brand as vaunted as Rolex would never make a battery powered watch. Wrong.

The 1970’s were an interesting time for the watch industry. The Great Quartz Crisis from Japan offered the world better quality watches, that were more accurate, more reliable, and eventually more affordable. A bit of the kiss of death for mechanical watchmaking at the time - even the best of automatic watches will still lose accuracy overtime - something a quartz watch never has to contend with. Many of the great Swiss watch brands disappeared during this time. Brands like Universal Geneve, Gallet, Zodiac, and even Blancpain were wiped away some to disappear for decades. Rolex responded with their own version of the quartz watch - they called it the Oysterquartz. Housed in a more style-forward angular sports case that was desired in the 1970’s and using an in-house quartz movement … this is a real battery powered Rolex watch!

These are extremely rare - as they did not stay in the lineup for long. By the middle of the 1980s, the Swiss watch industry was able to pivot and re-establish itself as a luxury product worthy of higher prices that could justify the cost and complexity of making a mechanical watch. So this Oysterquartz is massively important in the history of Rolex representing the only time in its century of business that it was ever under siege in a truly threatening way.

That being said, the present Oysterquartz is a very up-market example, utilizing the Day-Date complication that has often been reserved for the brands most prestigious watches. As with all Day-Dates, this model is cased up in precious metal, 18K yellow gold, and to add another level to this - features a stunning and exceedingly rare Sapphire and Diamond String Dial. The dial gets its name from the thin string of diamonds (and in this case also sapphires) acting like an inner rail scale. Topping it all off is truly unprecedented condition with a fully in-tact caseback sticker, unpolished case, and punched papers. To have the Rolex that goes tick-tock - this is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

*Some marks or spots on the dial are reflections or dust on the crystal and are due to high intensity strobe lighting used while photographing. They are not actually on the watch or visible in natural lighting