Rolex

The accepted knowledge is that the defect in the white coating making the dials turn cream was to be found in the early 16550's, from 1984 till 1987 (first with rail dial, then non rail versions), which had white gold indices surrounds.

From 1987 (R serial), two things are supposed to have happened:

- blackening of the indices surround and hands, to increase contrast and legibility

- correction of the coating, to avoid them turning cream - it's also about the same time they corrected the coating on the black dials to avoid the cracks / crazing found on the famed "spider" dials

But then, some cream colored dials are still to be found sporadically on 1987-1988 serial with black indices. To be honest, I have always been a bit dubious about those non-rail / black indices / cream patina 16550's, given the amount of tampering happening on this reference, due to the premium this patina commands.

But then, surely, one would have expected not to find such patina on the following reference 16570 introduced in 1989. And I have never seen an L serial 16570 with rail dial / black indices / cream patina that you show in the picture. Fascinatingly, I have seen a few (rare) of those in the E (1990) and X (1991) serial, which begs the question of what must have happened.

The only way I could rationalise this is the following:

- we do know that production was not fully verticalized at Rolex at the time, and they were relying on several dial makers (Stern, Beyeler, Singer) until 2000 when they purchased Beyeler

- it could well be that, on the same reference, they used different dial makers, explaining the variations found

- a batch of older "defective" dials was still lying somewhere at one of the dial maker who used to make the early 16550 rail dial versions

- they reconditioned these dials to fit them with black indices surrounds (probably have to change the dial feet, too, since the 16550 uses the 3085 caliber vs. 3185 in the 16570)

- they supplied them to Rolex, whose QC didn't notice

That's a lot of suppositions to be made, but that's the best theory I could come up with. What's really interesting in your post, Nicolas, is this rail black dial in a 16570. That's the first time I see one in this reference (I used to own a 16550 in this configuration), but it would go to confirm the above theory of "older" 16550 dials lying around at a dial maker, which was used on limited amounts of 16570.

Having said all that, as a collector, I would only pay top $ for a cream dial Explorer II if it was a 16550 with silver colored indices / hands, and if spending that kind of money, I'd go for the rail version over the non-rail.

More posts: 1655016570ExplorerExplorer II

  login to reply