I've been fascinated with Rolexes with shantung a.k.a. mosaic dials lately, and they seem to be one of the lesser-known secrets of the Rolex world. If I'm wrong about any of this, feel free to chime in.
Shantung is a woven silk fabric with an interesting texture. Rolex's shantung dials have silk threads painstakingly woven horizontally. They were apparently only made for Asian markets, and span roughly 1968-1978 (2.3-5.5 mil serial range). I've also read that Rolex Japan made them. (If anyone has seen original papers for a shantung/mosaic dial Rolex indicating an original sale outside of Asia I'd love to know about it!)
Here's a 1500, seemingly the most common model to feature a shantung dial:
"Isn't that a linen dial?" some of you might say. But no, linen dials have visible crosshatches, i.e. lines going up and down. There are
no vertical threads on shantung/mosaic dials! But many, many sellers incorrectly list shantung dials as linen dials. Poring through images of supposed linen dials is how I found many shantung dials. Here are all the other variations of shantung dials I was able to find:
1500 with blue shantung dial:
1603 with blue shantung dial:
1514 with brown shantung dial:
1503 with brown shantung dial:
1503 with silver shantung dial:
1005 with gold shantung dial:
1005 with silver shantung dial:
I would love to see more pics/info about shantung/mosaic dials if anyone has any!