1940's Oyster Commander

[JulBel]

I'm new here. Please help me with any information about vintage watch. Oyster Commander, number 3373.

[JulBel]

Please help me to find any info about this model. Thank you!

[Nick9]

Here’s a cut and paste from a vintage watch site I googled. I’ve seen similar information in other places. Your watch has an interesting inscription.

“The Oyster Commander forms part of a small group of vintage Rolex Oysters, all from the late 1930s and early 1940s, that were intended originally for sale in the Canadian market. These include the Oyster Centregraph, Oyster Lipton, Oyster Raleigh and the Oyster Aqua. We have never read an entirely plausible explanation for why these Canadian models exist, but it seems that somehow, this matter is linked to the fact that Rolex watches were not offered in the USA at this time as part of a complex legal agreement between the Jean Aegler company in Switzerland, which manufactured almost all early Rolex movements, Rolex, which sold its products in Britain, Europe and the British colonial countries, and Gruen, which also bought movements from Aegler and sold them in the USA. In slightly over-simplified summary, the situation seems to have been that Aegler effectively covered the market by authorising Rolex to operate in one set of countries while Gruen sold in the rest. Having agreed not to sell in the USA, it appears that Rolex tried to gain a foothold in the nearest possible alternative and created a series of models that were specifically tailored to Canadian taste. In fact, when examined closely, they aren’t actually very different to their British market equivalents and we strongly suspect that in reality, many of these Canadian variants were also sold in the UK as well.”

You can Google “Canadian market vintage Rolex”. There are all sorts of dial variants, and plenty of redials.