Hey Rolex-Experts,

I am looking for my first Rolex and I love the 1501 / 15010 with the engine turned bezel. I found a nice example but I am not sure if it is true to itself. With Omegas there is a rule that lume is always on hands and dial or both have no lume. Does that also apply to Rolex? Here is the watch, what do you think?



Thanks
Martin

 

"T SWISS T" on the dial denotes tritium lume, which on a watch this old (1970s?) is by now completely dead. Something to maybe bear in mind. Lume on only the hour and minutes hand is correct imho. Otherwise, just going by the one photo it looks good. Any provenance, service history and/or papers? I'd want something like that when buying a Rolex this old! I do like the old Datejusts with engine-turned bezels. More photos would help a much more competent judgement by far more expert forum users here! Good luck!

 

Here are more pics. The question for me is: when it was sold in 1970, was there the combination of lume hands and no-lume dial? Or has anything been replaced?

 

From my point of view, hands may have probably been changed during a service, pretty common thing.

« t Swiss t » without lume is also common on vintage Rolex, you can see it on some date just and other models

 

That’s exactly what I think. Thanks!

 

I always get uncomfortable about these sorts of inconsistencies. I am okay with lum hands on a non-lum dial as that could have been a request during a service when the owner decided they wanted some indication of what time it was in the dark. But I don't have any example in memory of non-lum dials using the letter T on both sides of Swiss Made. It may well be quite common, but I can't remember seeing it. That said, I can't explain this dial. And that said, I can only recommend that the owner simple not worry about it and enjoy the watch.

 

I found this information:

https://benjaminmarcello.nl/vintage-watches/rolex-no-lume-dials/

 

Great info from Benjaminmarcello via Monchichi55...that explains everything and makes perfect sense. Thank you.

 

It is pretty much impossible to remove lume form a soleil dial and have it this clean, so I'd be confident that it is original. It will be very difficult to find some no-lume hands if you want to change them.

 

those look like luminova service hands