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Dan S
·After the Rolex catalog settled down in the late 1950s, Rolex didn't really produce large numbers of no-date watches in 36mm cases aside from the Explorer. In fact, the vast majority of 36mm Rolex oysters from the 1960s through the 1980s are DateJusts and Explorers, and if you want a no-date non-sport Rolex, you generally have to go down to 34mm, where you will find tons of hand-winding and auto-winding references with or without date.
One notable exception is the ref 1018, which is a great automatic (perpetual) no-date reference in a 36mm case. They are less valuable than the 1016 Explorer, but still highly sought after. The ref 1018 is fairly obscure to the general public, but pretty well known to collectors.
In some ways, you could consider the ref 6424 to be a hand-winding version of the 1018, a no-date 36mm oyster. They pop up now and then, but overall they're fairly uncommon. And to be fair, hand-winding oysters are not everyone's cup of tea. For example, many people don't like the idea of unscrewing and re-screwing the crown everyday to wind the watch. However, it's a very thin and light watch, and sits low on the wrist, making 36mm feel larger than you might expect.
Another nice thing about the 6424 is the 20mm lug spacing, and the fact that they generally came with a 7206 Swiss rivet bracelet (early examples will not be marked). Since these bracelets were also used for the sport models, they are in great demand and quite expensive. In fact, they probably have equal or greater value than the watch head itself. One interesting curiosity is that the 6424 has non-drilled lugs, so the bracelet endlinks for the 6424 have a cut-out to access the spring-bars.
Below are are couple of examples I found over the last year. One is a T SWISS T with a circularly brushed dial from the mid-60s and the other is a more conventional silver sunburst SWISS-only dial from the early 60s. Both have lumed alpha hands, although slightly different styles. Both also came with 7206 bracelets and notched #75 endlinks, and TBH, the bracelets are what originally drew me to the watches. But I have to say, they are great to wear.
One notable exception is the ref 1018, which is a great automatic (perpetual) no-date reference in a 36mm case. They are less valuable than the 1016 Explorer, but still highly sought after. The ref 1018 is fairly obscure to the general public, but pretty well known to collectors.
In some ways, you could consider the ref 6424 to be a hand-winding version of the 1018, a no-date 36mm oyster. They pop up now and then, but overall they're fairly uncommon. And to be fair, hand-winding oysters are not everyone's cup of tea. For example, many people don't like the idea of unscrewing and re-screwing the crown everyday to wind the watch. However, it's a very thin and light watch, and sits low on the wrist, making 36mm feel larger than you might expect.
Another nice thing about the 6424 is the 20mm lug spacing, and the fact that they generally came with a 7206 Swiss rivet bracelet (early examples will not be marked). Since these bracelets were also used for the sport models, they are in great demand and quite expensive. In fact, they probably have equal or greater value than the watch head itself. One interesting curiosity is that the 6424 has non-drilled lugs, so the bracelet endlinks for the 6424 have a cut-out to access the spring-bars.
Below are are couple of examples I found over the last year. One is a T SWISS T with a circularly brushed dial from the mid-60s and the other is a more conventional silver sunburst SWISS-only dial from the early 60s. Both have lumed alpha hands, although slightly different styles. Both also came with 7206 bracelets and notched #75 endlinks, and TBH, the bracelets are what originally drew me to the watches. But I have to say, they are great to wear.
Edited:
But different watches (holes-no holes) ? Can you please explain picture #2 ?
absolutely new to me this variant
