Gifted a Rolex from my father, need advice on servicing

[dannyp]

Originally Posted by Brokegunner

Hi Larry, thanks for replying. Can you help me understand how you can tell the watch has been serviced and parts replaced from just looking at the photo?

I am not "concerned with wearing it", I just want to know if it is recommended to have them serviced and lubricated after so many years. Since I know nothing about watches, I thought I would ask instead of finding out later that I may have caused accelerate wear by not having it serviced.

Originally Posted by hutch300

The dial and hands appear to be service replacements. If you want the piece of mind of a service you could use many good independents in CA do it. It would help to know where you are located if you don't want to ship.

Besides looking newer than the rest of the watch, the clue to me that it's a service dial is that there are no "T" marks on either side of "Swiss Made" (which indicate a dial with tritium lume). In searching online, I cannot find any examples of an all gold OP Date produced after Rolex moved away from tritium. Good news is that a service dial means it was most likely serviced by a Rolex service center or authorized watchmaker.

By the way, the "service center" in Fresno will be an "Authorized Service Center" which is a Rolex dealer-based watchmaker certified to do certain warranty work and provide a Rolex service warranty upon completion.

Originally Posted by HogwldFLTR

For some watches no polish is a really good thing. That would be for watches in good shape that are highly collectible. This doesn't fall into that category. I'd get it service and made new and enjoy it if it were me. Also, I believe Larry misread your post mistaking "many years of service" for it having been serviced. There's no way to tell if it's been serviced by looking at it.

Generally true. But I would only want a gold watch polished by someone I really trusted. Had a conversation w/a jeweler once (not Rolex AD) who told me that many jewelers have a tendency to over polish gold in general because the accumulated dust is worth thousands a year in scrap gold. So the incentive is there to polish off a little more than necessary.