ED209[Purist]
7307
Wearing my first Rolex again, the Air King
Feb 18, 2013,17:13 PM
I was inspired by the recent post by iim7v7im7 with his initial
impressions of his newly acquired Rolex Yacht Master 116622 with a blue
dial ( Please
click here for the Yacht Master post)
It's a beautiful looking watch and the
blue dial reminded me of my very first Rolex: the Rolex Oyster Perpetual
Air King. This is actually my one and only Rolex in my small
watch collection. It was back in 1998 when I first started
getting into watches and my AD had a large variety of Rolex's on
display. I still remember how I was captivated by the stunning
blue dial. It had a iridescent dark bluish color that changed
between shades of dark blue and bright metallic blue depending on the
viewing angle. The blue dial had a soleil sunburst pattern
which really made the dial stand out.
The dial is
very simple and that's one of the other features that I really liked
about the Air King. It has a simple display of hours minutes
and center sweep sends. The hour and minute hands have a thin
stripe of luminous material. The hour markers on the dial are
white gold with both polished and brushed faceted angles. Near
the edge of the dial are small luminous dots that glows fairly bright
and makes it easy to tell time at night. These luminous dots
are tritium but they haven't really yellowed and have stayed a whitish
color.
At 12 o'clock there is the famous Rolex crown
marker. There's not much writing on the dial itself, just the
ROLEX logo with Oyster Perpetual, Air-King on the upper half of the
dial; and the words 'precision' on the bottom half.
At the time I purchased
the Air King, I was also considering the Rolex Explorer which had a date
display. But I didn't like the cyclops magnifier on the
crystal because it seemed to distort the date when I viewed it other
than straight on.
The sapphire glass is fairly
thick and has a slight bezel around the outer edge. It sticks
up a few millimeters above the bezel. Even with all the things
I've done with the watch during daily wear, the crystal is still in
great shape without any major chips or cracks. It's held up
very well.
The movement
inside the Air King is the Rolex Caliber 3130 which is also used in
other Rolex watches. Power reserve is good for nearly 55 hours
and water resistance is 100m. I've taken it to several trips
to Hawaii and it survived my kayaking adventures with no
problems.
I have to admit that having owned this watch for over
15 years, I've never had it serviced. It's been used
extensively as a daily wear tool watch. And impressively
enough my Air King has been absolutely bulletproof. It just
keeps running fine and keeping perfect time even though the past few
years it's been rarely worn on my wrist and now spends time on a Swiss Cubic
winder in the safe.
The diameter of
the Air King is 34mm which is considered small these days. I
tend to prefer 39-42mm watches now but even wearing the 34mm it still
fits and looks good on my small wrist. The Air King is
somewhat thin at approx 11mm in thickness and it fits easily under my
long sleeve shirts.
One of the
things that I didn't quite like about my Air King is the
bracelet. Even though the links themselves are solid stainless
steel it still wiggles around a bit. The oyster bracelet has a
brushed finish and comes with a folding deployant clasp. It
has been functioning well and I've never had it open
unexpectedly.
I'm going to
wear my Air King for the next few days and then I'm going to send it in
to Rolex Service Center for a good long deserved spa
treatment.
Regards,
ED-209