Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Rolex Submariner 16618 with Onyx Dial









The 90’ were an inventive time for watches. Watch giant Rolex taken his experience from the renowned colourful Day Date series trying to experimenting some interesting attraction on their sport lines typically the Submariner!
Rolex Began to use hard stones to make their dial on Submariner model 16618.
Take his 1991 x series 16618 Onyx Dial as a case study.
Rolex watch markers delved into the painstaking process of trimming and lapping a two kilo Rock into a 0.20 mm thick piece of Onyx to be mounted onto the copper base plate.
These dials are entirely hand made as they are brittle and not machinery friendly.
And the onyx dial production yield is as low as 20%.
Meaning out of 10 pieces of dial only 2 could pass the Rolex quality standard.
So as the cost is very high!
We don’t know how many pieces were made but this is the second piece that I have seen for the past 25 years in Hong Kong.
And I know that they will not make again on SUBMARINER!
Look at the special ultra flat surface and an added gold window frame for the date display, this is to tell this is onyx dial.
This is my new collection item.
HK Snob
Hong Kong watch fever


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