Quote:
Originally Posted by padi56
Well not many fake Airking dates around today but you could get the back off and check the movement. And today many Airking models are now becoming collectible especially the Airking dates especially the red date roulette type.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 and under were the average size.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 S.steel even a TT plus all gold but mainly then 9ct.And were in production from the mid 1940s to early 1950s when they were all dropped,except for the Airking.Now over the next few years the Air king gained a auto movement and now the same size as OP,and some of the most sort after Airkings now are models like the 1960s 5504 with the honeycombed dial that type of dial was a Rolex first.Now the first Airking date arrived on the scene late 1960s Ref 5700 and were only sold in the then Commonwealth countries like Canada and the UK.Now they made a 5700n Explorer Date but that was only sold in the USA.Later on in the 1970s the 5701 Airking dates had the cal.1525/35 movements,and they made a TT version of the 5701 quite rare not many of those around, but again made for the Canadian only market but the Airking date faded out of production in the 1980s. IMO a shame the Airking has quite a lot of history, and IMHO now a very underrated watch.
Might I suggest you both try and research a bit of the history on Rolex watches.
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Thanks for all the info...was a big help...but would you be able to tell me what dial (face) the Air King Date come in? The particular one I am looking at is a champagne dial with gold bars and the date on the 3 and I have seen it online in a white dial with gold bars and the date on the 3. Would it be wise to change the dial of the Air King Date? If so, what precautions should I be taking? I have also read up on the letter that appears on the dial should be authentic and should read in bold as ROLEX (then below) OYSTER PERPETUAL then below in (upper and lower case) Air-King-Date and below the Arms is will read PRECISION. In your opinion does this look like an authentic Rolex Air-King-Date?