Rolex Paperwork Through the Ages

DrStrong's comprehensive post meticulously documents the evolution of Rolex paperwork, offering invaluable insights for collectors and enthusiasts. By showcasing examples from different eras, he illustrates how accompanying documents, from green cards to chronometer reports, have changed over time. This article serves as a crucial reference, emphasizing the importance of understanding these variations for authenticating and appreciating vintage Rolex watches.

We often emphasize here how much several aspects of Rolex watches have been changing through the ages. There has also been an incredible evolution of the Rolex paperwork that come with a watch and I want to share with you here some examples of these changes.

First of all, it is important to note that the “box and papers” delivered with a watch used to vary a lot with the country and sometimes even the dealer that sold the watch. The pictures presented here should only be considered as examples and not taken as absolute rules of what you should expect for a “correct” set. To avoid any ambiguity, I will characterize the watches with their serial number rather than production year.

First here’s a Submariner with a 0.15 mil serial number: the little green card is typical of the 1950/60’s, it was designed to fit inside the box. On this one the serial number is typed, sometimes it was handwritten. The dealer stamp is important as there are many blank cards “on the market”…

(Photo: A. Shear)

Here’s another Submariner with a 0.4 mil serial number, on this one the green card is partially handwritten:

(Photo: A. Shear)

In these early days, the watches with chronometer certification were delivered with the large chronometer report sheet. Sometimes only the movement number is noted, sometimes the case reference and serial appear too, like on this 0.5 mil GMT Master:

For this 1.3 mil Submariner with COSC certification, again the watch serial number appears in addition to the movement number; but this time it is punched rather than handwritten:

(Photo: A. Shear)

To illustrate how much the design of the papers can vary from one watch to another, here’s a 1.4mil GMT Master that was delivered with a punched version of the green card; here the dealer’s name is handwritten and not stamped:

For this 2.5mil Submariner, the paperwork is a booklet where the serial number is punched.

(Photo: A. Shear)

But for this other watch of the same period (2.6 mil), the booklet is completely different and fully handwritten. These kind of small booklets were often delivered in the early 1970’s with red Submariners and Cosmographs:

And the same watch produced a little bit later - with a 3mil serial nimber - has been sold with the famous “punched papers” that have been used for many years from the 1970’s through the 1990’s:

(Photo: A. Shear)

Here’s a close up of these famous punched papers on a 6.3mil watch:

And a 9mil3 watch with similar papers, but handwritten:

(Photo: P. Stahl)

The “modern” version of these punched papers was introduced in the mid 2000’s, with a different and more colourful design:

Nowadays, Rolex provides litlle warranty cards instead of large papers; they are supposed to be more durable, although they have less charm than the vintage ones !

This message has been edited by DrStrong on 2012-02-08 04:27:29