Quote:
Originally Posted by mikey
There actually was a Space Dweller Jonathan and also an Air KIng Date as well.
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Air-King models.
4365,4499, 4925, 5500, 5501, 5506, 5520, 6500, 6552, 7784,
14000, 14000M, 14010, 14010M
Airking dates now are becoming quite collectable especially the red date roulette.Now before WW11 Rolex was always popular with the armed forces in the UK.Now old Hans being a good business man saw there was a market for a slightly bigger watch.Now watches at these times were quite small 30m was the average.Now Rolex started producing 33m models under the names of Air Lion,Air Tiger,Air Giant and the Air king.They all used a 15 jewel manual wind movement,then came in steel even TT plus all gold but 9ct.And were in production from the mid 40s to early 50s when they were all dropped,except for the Airking.And over the next few years the Air king gained a auto movement and now the same size as OP.Today some of the most sort after Airkings are like the 1960s 5504 with the honeycombed dial.Now the first Airking date late 60s 5700 were only sold in the then Commonwealth countries like Canada and the UK.And they made a 5700n Explorer Date but that was only sold in the USA.Later 70s 5701 Airking dates had the cal.1525/35 movements,and they made a TT version of the 5701 but again for the Canadian only market but the Airking date faded out of production in the 80s. IMO a shame the Airking has quite a lot of history, and IMHO a very very underrated watch.
The Explorer type watch has had quite a few names its its life including Space-dweller, some say it was after the Russian Sputnik satellite launch. The explorer is one of Rolex longest production runs,a great Rolex classic.The vintage 1016 is now becoming very collectible and original dialled space-dwellers now telephone money.Now the large triangle at '12' was first used by Rolex on the mixed Roman and Arabic dials in the 1940s. Rolex registered the Explorer name before the Everest expedition in 1953.And the first Explorers 6350 model used what they call the large bubbleback 10-1/2" A296 movement.Most of the early 6350 dials were also unusual in the fact that they are honeycombed a Rolex first.In 1963 the Explorer changed again,and with a new 1560 cal movement it was renamed the 1016 and it became the longest running explorer from 1963 right up to 1989.Twenty six years without a much of a change ,the second version of the 1016 was really the second version of the 1560 calibre now called 1570 basically the same but now a hacking movement.Now these 15XX series movements IMHO are the finest Rolex has ever made.And around 1989 the Explorer disappeared from the Rolex catalogue but around 6 months was reintroduced,the new Explorer bearing the model 14270, sported a new case, dial, movement, and crystal. IMHO it was because of the Jackie Chan movies where he wears one, the Japanese market when crazy for Explorers,very much like Daytona fever today. And the Explorer at this time was very hard to get world wide just like Daytona today.At this time was changing hands for as much as double retail price.Now with these new modifications brought the Explorer in line with all the other Rolex models. And because the real cosmetics of the new watch was so much changed from that of the old one,like the 1016.Now the price in the vintage collectors market is going up and IMHO if you can get hold of a good 1016,IMO will only go up in serious value