White 1680 Original and Service Dials

[stevedssd]

ROLEX 1680 WHITE ORIGINAL AND SERVICE DIALS

Much has been written about the Red 1680 dials but in terms of both the original White dials and Service replacement dials, there are some great threads on the forum but no overall summary and some areas particularly in respect of service dials are not set out in a single thread.

White 1680’s will never achieve the market values of Red’s but in the UK at least they are becoming much harder to find. As I type there are just three White 1680’s for sale in the UK on Chrono 24. One is a Red with a White Service dial, another a White with a Service dial, leaving just one White with an original dial.

I don’t profess to be an expert, just someone with a sad obsession for the White 1680 dials and I know that there are members with extensive knowledge, who will be able to provide further input. I must warn you that the more you stare at the dials, the more the text seems to move!

It would be remiss of me not to set out right at the start, that so much of my research led me to work previously conducted by Marchello Pisani and without his incredible knowledge much of what follows would not have been possible.

ORIGINAL DIALS

Rolex did not manufacture the dials for the White1680 and instead used the dial manufacturers Lemrich and Beyeler. Three different dials were produced commonly referred to as Marks 1,2 and 3. All three Marks of dial are found in watches across the entire serial number range for White 1680’s, so they were in use simultaneously, rather than one Mark following another.

Mk1

The Mk1 dial was made by Lemrich, key points to note are the shape of the Coronet with long spikes and a small mass of white at the bottom; the L in Rolex centred underneath the coronet, the sixes in 660 are closed and directly underneath the SUB of Submariner. The F in ft is quite upright.

The back of Lemrich 1680 dials have a stamped set of numbers that begin with 121

http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483458840

http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483458840

Mk2

The Mk2 dial was made by Beyeler, key points to note are the shape of the Coronet with shorter spikes and a larger mass of white at the bottom; the L in Rolex is positioned to the left of the centre underneath the coronet, the sixes in 660 are closed and on a line of text that is shorter than SUBMARINER above. The F in ft starts directly under the right end of the letter M above, whereas on the Mk1 and Mk3 it starts in the middle of the letter M above.
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483457322
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483457322

Mk3

The Mk3 dial was also made by Lemrich and is very similar to the Mk1, with the same shaped Coronet with long spikes and a small mass of white at the bottom. The main difference from the Mk1 is that the L in Rolex is to the left of centre and the F in ft has more of a slope than the Mk1. Like the Mk1 the sixes in 660 are closed and directly underneath the SUB of Submariner. The back of the dial has a stamped set of numbers beginning with 121 as per the Mk1.
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483457594

WHITE 1680 SERVICE DIALS

All the White Service Dials were manufactured by Beyeler and then from around the mid 90’s by Rolex themselves (Beyeler was taken over by Rolex in 2000).

The evolution of Beyeler dial backs is important in evidencing that the service dials were made after the White 1680 had ceased production and so could not have been originally installed.

The following thread by Marchello, sets out the evolution of Beyeler dial backs and from that what an original 1680 White dial back would look like compared to the later produced service dials.

http://www.rolexforums.com/showthread.php?t=193211

Originally installed White Mk2 dials had the repeating Beyeler Geneve punch shown above.

Beyeler’s punch then changed to numerical and letter B
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483457781

Then to a single letter B
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483457891

Then Rolex produced dials that looked like this
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483457980


There are three basic designs of 1680 White Service Dial, which I’ll denote as Types A,B and C, so as not to confuse with the original dial Marks.

Type A
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483458109
The coronet is different to both the Lemrich and Beyeler dials but has some similarities to the Lemrich original. The L in Rolex is to the left of centre of the coronet. The sixes in 660 are closed. The most obvious difference to the original dials is on the text line below SUBMARINER, in particular the narrow spacing either side of the = sign and the top of the letter F starting under the letter A in SUBMARINER.

Type B
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483458211
This is the same as the Type A but has clearly open sixes compared to the closed or virtually closed sixes in the Type A.

Type C
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483458352
This service dial closely resembles the Mk2 Bayeler original dial, with the same coronet and general layout of wording on the dial, including the wider spacing around the = sign as seen on the original. The most obvious difference is that the original dial has closed sixes, whereas the service dial has open sixes in 660, as can be seen above.

Sometimes the variations of the dial printing process makes the distinctions between open and closed sixes less obvious, with some original dials having sixes that appear ever so slightly open and some open sixes appearing almost closed.

There are some more subtle differences between the original Mk2 and Type C service dial, to help differentiate.

Below are images with an Original dial on top and Service dial below it for comparison:
http://www.rolexforums.com/attachmen...1&d=1483458530
Key differences include the much narrower gap between the third and fourth lines of text on the Service dial and Swiss T being slightly closer to the minute markers with < touching the marker.

Tritium ‘Toothpaste” and Luminova

Whilst there are three basic design types of service dial, they were each made with either Tritium, Luminova or “Toothpaste” applied to the markers. Toothpaste refers to a creamy toothpaste like substance that has the appearance of tritium, that was applied to the plots to look the same but without any form of luminescence.
In addition Service dials can be marked SWISS or SWISS - T < 25, the latter even if they are not Tritium.

I've had a few technical difficulties, so if the photo's are duplicated below please ignore them until I can edit again :)