Random Thoughts: Rolex Quality Control in the 70's and 80's

[Beaumont Miller II]

I have come to believe and have felt for a while now that the quality control at Rolex in the 70's and 80's was not as tight as we might think...and, I must confess that I am ok with that. I don't believe it was ever their intention to make watches for people to collect but rather to make watches for people to wear in difficult and tough environments. When I think of the 70's and 80's I think of the Ford Mustang II, ouch. During the same time period Rolex was making Submariners with blue dials that turn purple and then gold, Submariners with black matte dials that turn brown, GMT's with gloss dials that crack (the so called Spider Dial). They were also using tritium that turns yellow and then brown and bezel inserts that fade to all sorts of shades between black and grey and silver. I do realize that the dials were subcontracted out to companies like Singer and Beyler. I think it is interesting that many collectors place a high premium on the watches mentioned above like a meters first Red Submariner with a chocolate brown dial. I celebrate this thinking because as I have stated in another thread, part of the fun of collecting vintage watches is finding one that is unlike the others. Where the cases are concerned is a similar story. Do we know for sure that all of the Submariners, GMT's, and Sea Dwellers that left the factory in the 70's and 80's had lugs that were all the same width? I mean to the millimeter. Do we know that the crown guards were all large and even to begin with? I am not talking about chamfers or beveling on the lugs here, as this was discussed in tremendous detail in an earlier thread. The question is not were some all even, but were all the lugs on every Submariner the same when they left the factory during a given time period. More specifically to the point, consider this picture of a Sea Dweller from the Rolex brochure.



Note the crown guards. If this was an individual's personal watch we might conclude that the crown guards may have been polished. I have seen other Sea Dwellers from the same time period sold with Box and Papers from reputable dealers with crown guards significantly larger than this. Perhaps they were transitioning from thick crown guards to thin during this time period. Who knows? Part of me wonders whether this might explain why some crown guards on these sport models are a tad small considering the size of the lugs i.e. being fat. And here I have been looking for examples with the fattest lugs and crown guards I could find. What do you all think?

[dsio]

Perhaps it comes down to experiments going bad?

The blue dials were recent at the time, much like the green gold on the LV is now, and they looked spectacular and unique when new, perhaps they pushed the design too far, along with the early spiderweb gloss dials.

Quality control would be more a matter of defects going unnoticed from the factory, these watches were ok from the factory and degraded later due to unforeseen use cases, and unknown longterm durability of new designs and technology... almost every french car ever made has suffered this same sad fate.

What becomes more interesting, is... if its not QC, but rather teething problems, it would make sense that we didn't see these issues in the 90s so much, as Rolex did very little (ok, the Daytona came out, and from memory there were movement related teething problems on them as well as the Patrizzi colourchange dials).

More recently, a new clasp design came out, and has had spot weld failures, ceramic bezels have chipped and cracked, and there have been claims of GV crystals being different shades of green, and easily chipped. Could it just be that whenever they experiment with something new, they bring it to market before its been tested to death?

[Clay]

My 1665 from 1977.........Still keeping time well within COSC Standards...

[mike]

It's an interesting point and one that can be argued both ways. Who would have thunk back then what was to come.

Personally I've never had reason to complain about the quality of vintage pieces I have or have owned, but certainly we see "experimentation" for want of a better term in some of these pieces.

One point is the known fact that Rolex experimented with the tritium mixture (is this one reason why some dials "turn" while others seem to keep their milky white tone?) Perhaps it's a part of the reason.

The spidering of the dial paint is something generally thought to be a flaw in the paint matrix of some pieces after the switch to gloss with WGs, but for those gilt gloss examples perhaps it's a function of time as well.

One does wonder, given the number of pieces made back then as opposed to now how many people "complained" about quality.

My guess is most of those back in the day bought the watch for different reasons than most do now.

[Racer X]

Originally Posted by dsio

The blue dials were recent at the time, much like the green gold on the LV is now, and they looked spectacular and unique when new

I think the faded-purple blue dials look spectacular now! If I had an extra $25k laying around, I'd pick up a nice 1680/8.