1978 GMT Master 1675

[springer]

Originally Posted by Amphib44

Well, I think the consensus is that I have a 1978 GMT Master with an earlier Mk2 dial. I don't know when the dial was swapped, but certainly before my ownership.
I have owned the watch for 25 years, and have no intention of getting rid of it, I was simply curious about what, primarily, made the dial a Mk2.

All the dials have their own characteristics and the Mark designation further identifies the given name for a particular dial. Most of the various GMT dials have a particular coronet, fonts or dial layout that differentiates it from one Mark dial to the other Mark dials.

If you need to magnify your page to enlarge something on the internet whether it is a complete page or image on a page, hold down the control and then hit the + key once to enlarge. If you keep your finger on the control key and keep hitting the + plus key ... it will continue to enlarge the page or image. The more you push the + key, the more it will be enlarged. To reduce the size, hit the control and - key, keep hitting the - key to get your page back to actual size.

[opzxkl]

Mark 2

Serial Number Range: 28xxxxx-39xxxxx, 505xxxx-519xxxx*

Notes: The Mark 2 dial is very well balanced and has a nice boldness to the font so that people across the room could see your watch said ROLEX. The coronet is very similar to that of the Type C / Mark 0 but the ROLEX font is thicker and with a much different character to the E, amongst others. Oddly, the L and E maintain their close relationship relative to the rest of the word, similar to the Mark 1 / 1.5. The ‘oyster perpetual’ and lower text retain the heavy serifs of the Mark 1.5. The lume is flat and does not maintain the waffling of the late Mark 1.

*There have been several original owner examples with Mark 2 dials and low 5 million SN’s in this range. It is possible that Rolex used some left over MK2 dials in these cases. Some have said that this was a service dial used in that period but that would only make sense if those watches had a service case and not a service dial as, if it had a Mk 2 as a service dial, it would be on serial numbers earlier than the normal dial/SN rage (i.e. you have an earlier dial that was replaced with a MK2 at service). That is not the case here and if they were service cases why would they all have MK2 dials – we would have probably seen a variety of earlier dials and we do not have any knowledge of this range being used as a service case (though sure, it’s possible). This is a syllogism and not proof positive though, so look to the merits of the watch and not only my conjecture.

Source: gmtmaster1675.com