Newbie in NY with lots of questions about 1949 Rolex models.

[XJGPN]

Hi,

I'm very new to Rolex's. My father and I have always been into watches, but haven't been serious enough to know all of the different models etc. His 60th birthday is coming up this coming year and I thought a fun gift would be to get him a birth year Rolex. As I had said though, I know very little about Rolex models and such so I wanted to know if anyone could help guide me in the right direction. From what I'm seeing 1949 Bubblebacks, Oyster Precisions, and Oysterdate Precisions seem to be what I'd be looking for, but I'm not certain of a few things.

1) What other models were available in 1949?
2) Is there any reason beyond aesthetics why I should focus on one over the other?
3) I'm having some difficulty figuring out serial numbers. The chart I'm seeing most on this page has a hole at 1949 for some reason:

529163 1947
628840 1948
710776 1951
840396 1952


But I found another chart that uses completely different serial numbers:
478300 1947
543400 1948
608500 1949
673600 1950
738700 1951

So, I'm not sure what serial number range I should be focusing on. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[XJGPN]

Hmmm... Should I have posted this question in a different section of the forum? Since I am a newbie, and it is a pretty newbie question, I'm hesitant to clog up other sections... but I'm not getting any responses here?