Platinum vintage Rolex - were they only special order or?

[/16610]

Originally Posted by miamiclay

Maybe we’re saying the same thing, but I’d assume the non-hidden platinum clasp would be the same style as the older one that was offered on other President bracelets. (It’s the same 7286 model number.)

Yes


For anyone curious, this listing shows it:

https://watchcharts.com/listing/1931...-ref-7286-8-55

[Incroyable12]

From what I understand fabricating platinum requires an entirely new set of tools and equipment so presumably what Rolex uses for their gold production wouldn't work.

Platinum also gets easily contaminated if it comes into contact with other materials.

[Boopie]

Originally Posted by Incroyable12

From what I understand fabricating platinum requires an entirely new set of tools and equipment so presumably what Rolex uses for their gold production wouldn't work.

Platinum also gets easily contaminated if it comes into contact with other materials.

Yes, from what I’ve read the hardness of the metal is why the platinum DD don’t have a fluted bezel.

I have the SS/platinum Yachtmaster (see avatar). When I brought my watch to my local RSC for service last year, they asked if I wanted the platinum bezel worked on. If so, they’d have to send it to another RSC (I think Dallas, but I’m not sure) for polishing etc. I said no, as it was fine as-is. So, they polished the SS bracelet there but only cleaned the platinum bezel.

They’d spent a ton of money acquiring all of the tools and equipment they needed to be an official RSC. Clearly the platinum watches are such a small percentage of what they work on that they didn’t get those tools just for the bezels and bracelets.

This has been very interesting. I appreciate the master catalogue excerpts.

I’d wondered the difference between the “ice blue” and the “glacier blue” dials on the platinum DD. Some of the blues on the platinum are just barely blue, and close to silver. The blue that’s currently on the DD40 today is very clearly blue.

Does anyone know whether the shade of blue on the platinum DD36 become more blue over the life of the model (eg roughly from its 2000 introduction to its 2019 discontinuation), or were shade variants more due to which factory produced the dial?

[Incroyable12]

There's only ever a handful of the 18206 on Chrono24 which probably means this reference is far rarer than anyone thinks.