Vintage WWII Rolex Trench Watch Model?

[pah5153]

Originally Posted by Prospector

Well, I can see that you're missing the point; so let me be clear, AGAIN. I'm not asking if this Rolex watch is real or not; nor am I soliciting opinions with regard to authenticity. Great uncle shuttled troops in a landing craft at Normandy Beach on D-Day, then went all the way to Berlin, and finally brought a number of interesting things back when he returned home. This was one of them and he recounted the history of its acquisition. Any attempt I might make to defend the piece is or would be futile--believe it, or don't--it's really not at all relevant to this thread's intent. I'm happy to hear opinions and pontifications about what's wrong about this or that, but I don't care about opinions and tried to make that perfectly clear in my opening to the conversation.

Do you have anything to say that's pertinent to the questions that I posed? I'd prefer to hear some facts related to those questions, if anyone has something constructive to add. Or keep spinning wheels trying to pick the watch apart. I'm just trying to stay on point with the purpose of starting this discussion, namely, the questions that I asked. Thanks.

You say your uncle shuttled troops in a landing craft to Normandy beach, that would mean he was navy. Next statement he then went all the way to Berlin. Really, first why would a naval personnel be going through Europe. Second US troops did not fight to Berlin, they stopped on the Elba. The Russians took Berlin. Seems like some glaring holes in your story.

[GLADIATOR]

Hi
Dial is an original ROLEX "enamel" dial from around 1915 to 1920s
The rest of the watch including case, movement and hands are not Rolex

The "shrapnel" guard, better termed glass protector will be an after market piece, and not from ROLEX
Their is normally a patent number on the protector, and with that I can give you all the details of its manufacturer
Adam

[offrdmania]

Originally Posted by GLADIATOR

Hi
Dial is an original ROLEX "enamel" dial from around 1915 to 1920s
The rest of the watch including case, movement and hands are not Rolex

The "shrapnel" guard, better termed glass protector will be an after market piece, and not from ROLEX
Their is normally a patent number on the protector, and with that I can give you all the details of its manufacturer
Adam

I question the dial as being Rolex too

[GLADIATOR]

Originally Posted by offrdmania

I question the dial as being Rolex too

Its an ENAMEL dial - not possible to rework it.
For certain the original RADIUM is removed, but dial is original ROLEX.

I have a fairly large collection of these and other WWI era pieces.

[Prospector]

Originally Posted by GLADIATOR

Hi
Dial is an original ROLEX "enamel" dial from around 1915 to 1920s
The rest of the watch including case, movement and hands are not Rolex

The "shrapnel" guard, better termed glass protector will be an after market piece, and not from ROLEX
Their is normally a patent number on the protector, and with that I can give you all the details of its manufacturer
Adam

Thank you very much, Gladiator, for a considered, informative, and non-pejorative reply to my opening post. I very much appreciate the courtesy of your tone and the effort to be helpful to me in better understanding this timepiece.

As a new member, it's refreshing to know that starting a new thread is not necessarily an open-door invitation that is viewed, based on most of the above responses, for forum veterans to initiate someone new by ignoring the questions initially posed with their pugilistic attitudes and purgative pronouncements which lack any documented expertise or authority. My research has been questioned--so, who here has written and published scholarly work--on anything? I don't think I see any hands raised; maybe I'm wrong. Much as I welcome Gladiator's constructive comments, I welcome the amusing, poorly-informed wisecracks that do no more than squeal "FAKE" and "move the thread" rather to point me to any research that they have published on the subject. Where's YOUR book on the topic? Enough of that, though.

I am a longstanding member of an international arms collecting society where new members without the full complement of appropriately-vetted collections, balance sheets, and proper contacts or introductions are occasionally berated by "the in crowd of experts" and told that their collected material is fake, spurious, altered, or otherwise worthless, and then further marginalized by these bullies who can't simply be polite and go quietly take a leak at a urinal next to the new guy without a loud mouth and a ruler in his hand.... "Ugh...me have bigger 'watch' more shiny, more expensive". I simply choose not to engage in such adolescent, intra-sexual, competitive caveman chest-beating exercises.

Gladiator, the case serial number range on my timepiece (matching both top and bottom of the clamshell nickel-alloy case) puts its date of manufacture, according to multiple sites which claim to be able to date a Rolex by serial number, to the year 1942. I will examine the glass protector (thanks for that terminological correction) for a patent number and let you know what I am able to find.

Something related to your observation of different dating and manufacture periods of the enamel dial, hands, case, and movement takes me back a couple of paragraphs to the subject of arms, specifically 18th century martial arms manufactured in America (in which I can claim to be a published scholarly authority with graduate degrees from Duke University and thirty+ years as a professional researcher, writer, and educator, for what that's worth). In the 1774-1776 years antecedent to the Revolutionary War, nearly all musket parts such as barrels, locks, stocks, buttplates, trigger guards, etc., were more often than not cannibalized by gunsmiths from other broken weapons to fabricate a working firearm as quickly as possible to meet an intensely growing demand by colonial militias as revolutionary conflict percolated towards full-blown eruption.

That undertaking often required an assemblage of parts from various other weapons that were taken in battle, confiscated from Tories by Committees of Safety for the use of colonial militias, or hand-crafted, cast or forged hardware. For example, an American stock might be built to accommodate a Brown Bess English barrel and use a French or Belgian flintlock, while the gunsmith made his own castings of trigger guards and buttplates from what was available to him. My point is that to be a Revolutionary War musket, a firearm need not have been in conformance with a standardized pattern. Improvisation was the key to keeping troops with working arms supplied and routinely reworked at arsenals throughout the colonies. What the naysayers and denigrators of my watch are doing is tantamount to telling me that a given musket is fake, never used during the Rev War, concocted by some crooked weasel gunsmith in the 1930s--but with nothing to back it up. I've made no claim that my watch is perfect. I think the crown has been replaced sometime during its life; and there's probably some other stuff that's been done to it, either at the factory or in the field. I've made no claims about the watch other than where it came from and where it's been since 1945. Maybe there are holes in the story of its history--I certainly wasn't there. But what happened to being polite in discourse?

So who's the authority, and where's the published material, I ask ye worshipful masters of all matters pertaining to vintage Rolex timepieces, that says a similar haphazard process was not the used in a way with watches made by Rolex in the early years of WWII? I am open both to criticism of my watch and to denials of its authenticity; but denials plucked from the air are as irrelevant as telling me that this or that feature of a Revolutionary War musket means it's a fake. Which of you authorities with thousands of posts and hundreds or more watches in your safes or display cases, has anything at all factual that proves that Rolex, in its haste to meet the production demands of contract deliveries to multiple countries, had to have made them all the same?

I have aimed not to be unduly argumentative, but where's the meat on your bones of denial of the authenticity of my watch? Where's the proof of Swiss precision production practices exercised in the midst of a continental, soon to be world war? Why doesn't Rolex have, or at least share, their "Extracts from the Archives" as some do to prove that everything was uniform?

Does anyone know how many Colt-branded Model 1911 .45 ACP handguns were produced during the two world wars by dozens of manufacturers, some of which were reworked at the Springfield Arsenal with parts from these various manufacturers? Then reworked again for Korea and Vietnam? From most of the logic heretofore expressed in posts, there's been NOTHING other than opinion and a few photos of examples of Rolex specimens from WWI and WWII to buttress an argument. This is akin to making authoritative declarations about a Colt Model 1911 not being real because it just doesn't look quite right to you for some reason. Only a couple of people so far in this thread, which I'm guessing the bigwig moderator experts will now shut down or make disappear, rather than just moving, have shown any knowledge whatsoever, metaphorically, of how the pistol breaks down, where the serial numbers are, how to reassemble, maintain, and properly discharge the weapon. But you claim to be experts? "Enthusiasts" is more accurate a term in large measure--and so far, that demonstrates no real connoisseurship in my book.

If someone in the forum can get behind the pulpit with a proverbial "good book" and preach something with any speck of factual authority, let's have it. Otherwise, it seems to me that I have come to a place where I'm not wanted, to offer a pearl of scholarly and historical interest, whose value, although of a great price, is not recognized, to a group of people determined not to accept it even as a gift for critical exploration.

Thanks again, Gladiator, for your helpful insights and observations. I'll probably have to get that patent number info later. Just have a gut feeling that I'll get flamed, banned, booted, or whatever the term is, for expressing my opinions in a way that rubs someone the wrong way and make everything disappear with a keystroke. Even though I have tried to be very polite and congenial. Seems that's how the world has become in recent times. Erase history, delete argument that doesn't suit your agenda, war is peace, etc., etc., etc.

Best regards, chaps, and I do really mean that, If I'm still on the forum in a few days or weeks, I'll look forward perhaps to some lively discussion and to learning some things. Remember: not argument, but debate. Cheers!

Prospector

[freefly]

Originally Posted by offrdmania

I question the dial as being Rolex too

It's isn't. Not one single thing on the OP watch is genuine Rolex. It looks like your typical slapped-together "Ukraine special".

[freefly]

Originally Posted by GLADIATOR

Its an ENAMEL dial - not possible to rework it.

You can't "rework" an enamel dial, but you can very easily add "Rolex" to an unsigned one (which most of the early ones were).
That was common practice even on the genuine unsigned Rolex dials by retailers to "add value" (and brand recognition) to them.
Obviously the counterfeiters caught on and have been adding "Rolex" to unsigned non-Rolex enamel dials for decades.