REPPING THE SULTANS ROLEX
Think of a watch that you love but which has never been repped... now imagine you could get a one off rep made, how cool would that be?!
Well that’s exactly what Michael (aka Stuvetjee) and myself (Dave, aka DC) have been busy doing over the last seven months, and now we’re ready to share our journey with you all in what will probably be a fairly lengthy post. So strap in, get comfy, and enjoy!!!
INTRO
The history of collaborative watch projects on rep forums isn’t exactly a successful one, anyone who’s been around long enough to witness the RWG watches (various) will know it’s almost always a recipe for disaster (not to mention financial loss and “banned” status).
Thankfully this isn’t one of those “subscribe to follow our progress and see how we get on” kinda threads. As we really didn’t plan to do this and didn’t know what would be possible we kept it all under wraps until it was done, so if you just want to see the finished product then scroll away to the bottom of this post and it’s right there.. but you’ll be missing out!
Also this is technically a modding project, albeit we worked hand in hand with a factory from design stage right through production, we basically made parts for an existing rep to make a version that wasn’t already available and didn’t have aftermarket parts available. But we both wanted one so badly we just decided to make it happen!
THE WATCH
This is a story about a watch, of course. But I’m acutely aware that the watch in question is going to divide opinion (especially if you’re reading this on RWG were everyone hates anything remotely blingy). But like life itself, it isn’t the destination that matters, it’s the journey which took you there. So even if you aren’t into diamond encrusted Rolexes from the 1980’s you should still read on, you might just find it interesting!
Still, a little history lesson is always fun. So in the 1980’s the Omani Royal Family had a hankering for a sports Rolex. But of course when you’re a Sultan you can’t just sling on any old Rolex. So they commissioned Rolex to make a special version of the 6263 Daytona in solid gold with a pavé diamond dial and a baguette diamond bezel. Oh, and the sub registers in their royal colour, purple... coz, ya know, they’re the Omani Royal Family so why not?
However, Rolex wasn’t keen on one off watches, and to make it worth their while they insisted on producing two batches of four of these super special watches, and so the reference 6270 was born.
There are only eight of these in existence. His majesty owned one, of course, and his had the khanjar and swords engraved on the back (the Oman national emblem).
That particular watch has since been owned by none other than Tom Bolt (London based watch dealer to the rich and famous) as well as well known Rolex collector Alfredo Paramico to name a few. Of the remaining seven watches, which were likely gifted to dignitaries originally, it is only known where four of them are, and only two 6270s have changed hands over the last decade including the Sultans own piece, meaning that all the pictures of this reference you find online are likely to be of one of these two watches.
It’s a super rare Rolex, it’s a super expensive Rolex, it’s a super bananas Rolex... what’s not to like?!
IT STARTED WITH A PHOTO
Ok, it’s not for everyone, but something about it has always grabbed me. I love the vintage Daytona, and in gold it becomes less sporty and more classic, so add diamonds and sapphires into the mix as well as super rarity and you’ve got a real statement piece on your hands.
I was sure that I was the only person out there with love for this watch, especially when Hodinkee posted an article about it and got nothing but hate posts. Until I met Stuvetjee. We’d been chatting for a while and it became apparent to me that Michael and I shared a very similar taste in watches, from Rolex to Patek and Richard Mille. What’s more he, like me, doesn’t care much for the opinions of others.
Amidst quite a bit of Patek and Richard Mille chat I just happened to show Michael this picture of the 6270.
He was instantly as hooked as me. You can’t deny it is pretty! That was back in April, and ever since then we have been obsessing over how to bring this watch to fruition. We started with the idea of just switching out the bezel of a gold 6265 rep for a diamond one, just to get some of the look of the 6270. We initially questioned whether a diamond bezel from a DayDate would retro fit, but the DD is 36mm and the Daytona is 37mm. Then Michael piped up to say “I could ask our jewellery factory”...
Oh yeah, probably should have mentioned, Michael has a jewellery and watch design company with manufacture suppliers. Like Rolex they weren’t keen on one off production, but after some persuading they agreed on this occasion to help us out.
So back to the conversation and cue several edited mock ups of how our creation might look...
It was a start. We had to arrange for a sample of the rep bezel to be sent to the factory to ensure that the new piece would fit the rep perfectly, but should be no issue.
We got a bezel shipped to them and it was at this stage that I realised just how complex and finite this rep game is, when the technical drawings came back showing the tolerances and profiles for our bezel...
All those measurements just for a bezel, never mind case/pushers/caseback/crown etc etc, just a “simple” bezel with some stones set in it. We would later realise that the number of stones was wrong, and once they had adjusted all the measurements the stones we needed had to be cut specially as there weren’t any off the shelf stones of the correct radius and size. This was fast becoming a real bespoke job!
Thickness was an issue too, it needed to be thick enough to house the stones and be strong, but too thick and we would lose the delicate classic look of the gen!
We were super excited and to be fair the overall look would be pretty close to the real deal...
But those bluey purple sub registers and sapphire hour markers kept calling to us!
“HOW HARD WOULD A DIAMOND DIAL BE?”
It was fairly soon after starting work on the bezel that I asked Michael this simple yet deadly question, and we were quickly down the rabbit hole, again persuading the factory to help us out.
But from this point the questions and issues came thick and fast, and it was really the dial process which gave me the greatest appreciation for what actual rep factories do.
I’LL NEVER COMPLAIN AGAIN
When you delve into the murky world of trying to make something look like something it’s not you realise just how hard it really is. Continually having to find a workaround for the fact you don’t have the correct movement. We all bemoan the extra 2mm of thickness on our reps versus the gen as though it couldn’t possibly be that hard to make it the right bloody thickness, but let me tell you it really is! The tolerances are so finite, and when you slap a load of fake diamonds on a dial things start to get thick quick!!
Michael’s man knew his stuff though, and issues like the placement of stones around subdials were quickly sorted.
He had technical drawings of the ST19 which has a lower 6 o’clock subdial than a Valjoux 72, and we wanted our dial to be a straight swap for the rep dial that comes with the Cartel Daytona with no modding, so the stones had to be moved around to fit this layout without looking odd.
The clearance for the hands was going to be very tight, and it was almost impossible to tell if it would actually work at all until we had the dial made and fitted, but we took as many measurements as we could and basically crossed our fingers.
THE FONT OF ALL KNOWLEDGE
As a designer Michael is a details man, and this manifested itself in some serious attention paid to getting the text font right on the dial. This hadn’t even occured to me (I’m more an overall looks kinda guy). Given the rarity of the gen there are very few high resolution images of the dial available, so Michael and the factory got to work with what little reference images we had, tracing the text to create the correct font.
And here’s the finished plan complete with text and indexes.
FEELING BLUE(ISH)
Layout sorted and with fingers still crossed on the whole thickness issue, the next task was getting the colours right.
This is another subject of much frustration within the rep world. How hard could it be to colour match a dial? Well for starters unless you actually have a gen at your disposal (which I don’t believe many if any rep factories actually have despite what they may say) then matching is impossible, as we know variation between different cameras, camera settings, photo editing and printing/device used to view will mean you’re not actually seeing the true colour. There’s a huge variance in pictures of the 6270, so we decided to choose a Pantone colour based on our own preference. But the amount of choice is mind boggling!!
From reference material we know the gen was organically some shade of purple, but it’s also evident that some of the examples have aged over time and are more blue. I’m a big fan of purple but didn’t want it to be too in your face (yep we’re making a baguette bezel pavé dial gold Rolex and I’m worried about being in your face... go figure) and Michael also favoured a less flamboyant tone, so we went for a dark deep purpley blue, trying to give a good contrast with the gold and the stones.
And with this decision made we needed to pick the sapphire stones to match, again going for the darker deeper sapphire blue.
MEANWHILE IN BEZEL LAND
The first bezel was made with the incorrect number of baguettes because we simply hadn’t thought to double check, but we asked for the incorrect bezel to be shipped to Michael anyway for test fitting while a new one got made. At this stage (and up until about a week ago) I still hadn’t laid my hands on a donor watch as the gold vintage Daytonas are out of stock, so Michael’s watch was the guinea pig!
Unfortunately the tolerances were a little tight on the inner edge of the bezel and it cracked the plexi when it was installed (bad times)
But the fit with the case was good and tight and the bezel itself and stones looked awesome, so we were happy overall, albeit in need of a replacement plexi and some minor tweaks, a worthwhile test fit and our first sense of how our creation might look in the flesh.
WATCHING THE FACTORY WORK THEIR MAGIC
With all decisions made and problems solved (save the hand clearance possibly) it was time to let the factory get on with making our dials and wait for updates. It was fun seeing the various stages come together and the dial slowly come to life.
Dial blanks:
Drilled ready for stones and plating (fun game, see if you can spot the one test fitted stone):
Stones set and dial plated and polished in readiness for subdials to be machine turned and printed:
And finally with subdials turned and a lovely Pantone applied:
And that, ladies and gentleman, was the last picture we saw before the dials landed. From the excitement of these final stages it was over a month before we saw the end result, an agonising wait.
UNTIL AT LAST
Oh hello, what’s this?
You may not be into Rolex, and you may not be a fan of a diamond dial, but you have to admit the contrast of deep blue on gold is really very nice and the factory really did a superb job considering reps is not their game!
AND THE HAND CLEARANCE?!?
The million dollar question of course was would it fit? Only one way to find out!
The hands are very close, and our watchsmith has subsequently taken the precaution of removing the movement plate that sits behind the dial to increase clearance and eliminate the risk of the hands fouling the dial and causing the watch to jam. But together with the watch and bezel I think the finished watch looks killer.
At time of writing our watches are still with our watchsmith for final assembly, but once we get them back I’m sure there will be more glamour shots to follow. Michael did manage to get this one while test fitting his dial...
In the meantime I hope you’ve found the read interesting, and gained some more appreciation of the lengths that rep factories go to in order to create the reps we all love!
FINAL THOUGHT
There’s eight gen Rolex 6270s out there... but there are only two 6270 reps... this fact pleases me greatly!!
DC & Stuvetjee
Stuvetjee
Think of a watch that you love but which has never been repped... now imagine you could get a one off rep made, how cool would that be?!
Well that’s exactly what Michael (aka Stuvetjee) and myself (Dave, aka DC) have been busy doing over the last seven months, and now we’re ready to share our journey with you all in what will probably be a fairly lengthy post. So strap in, get comfy, and enjoy!!!
INTRO
The history of collaborative watch projects on rep forums isn’t exactly a successful one, anyone who’s been around long enough to witness the RWG watches (various) will know it’s almost always a recipe for disaster (not to mention financial loss and “banned” status).
Thankfully this isn’t one of those “subscribe to follow our progress and see how we get on” kinda threads. As we really didn’t plan to do this and didn’t know what would be possible we kept it all under wraps until it was done, so if you just want to see the finished product then scroll away to the bottom of this post and it’s right there.. but you’ll be missing out!
Also this is technically a modding project, albeit we worked hand in hand with a factory from design stage right through production, we basically made parts for an existing rep to make a version that wasn’t already available and didn’t have aftermarket parts available. But we both wanted one so badly we just decided to make it happen!
THE WATCH
This is a story about a watch, of course. But I’m acutely aware that the watch in question is going to divide opinion (especially if you’re reading this on RWG were everyone hates anything remotely blingy). But like life itself, it isn’t the destination that matters, it’s the journey which took you there. So even if you aren’t into diamond encrusted Rolexes from the 1980’s you should still read on, you might just find it interesting!
Still, a little history lesson is always fun. So in the 1980’s the Omani Royal Family had a hankering for a sports Rolex. But of course when you’re a Sultan you can’t just sling on any old Rolex. So they commissioned Rolex to make a special version of the 6263 Daytona in solid gold with a pavé diamond dial and a baguette diamond bezel. Oh, and the sub registers in their royal colour, purple... coz, ya know, they’re the Omani Royal Family so why not?
However, Rolex wasn’t keen on one off watches, and to make it worth their while they insisted on producing two batches of four of these super special watches, and so the reference 6270 was born.
There are only eight of these in existence. His majesty owned one, of course, and his had the khanjar and swords engraved on the back (the Oman national emblem).
That particular watch has since been owned by none other than Tom Bolt (London based watch dealer to the rich and famous) as well as well known Rolex collector Alfredo Paramico to name a few. Of the remaining seven watches, which were likely gifted to dignitaries originally, it is only known where four of them are, and only two 6270s have changed hands over the last decade including the Sultans own piece, meaning that all the pictures of this reference you find online are likely to be of one of these two watches.
It’s a super rare Rolex, it’s a super expensive Rolex, it’s a super bananas Rolex... what’s not to like?!
IT STARTED WITH A PHOTO
Ok, it’s not for everyone, but something about it has always grabbed me. I love the vintage Daytona, and in gold it becomes less sporty and more classic, so add diamonds and sapphires into the mix as well as super rarity and you’ve got a real statement piece on your hands.
I was sure that I was the only person out there with love for this watch, especially when Hodinkee posted an article about it and got nothing but hate posts. Until I met Stuvetjee. We’d been chatting for a while and it became apparent to me that Michael and I shared a very similar taste in watches, from Rolex to Patek and Richard Mille. What’s more he, like me, doesn’t care much for the opinions of others.
Amidst quite a bit of Patek and Richard Mille chat I just happened to show Michael this picture of the 6270.
He was instantly as hooked as me. You can’t deny it is pretty! That was back in April, and ever since then we have been obsessing over how to bring this watch to fruition. We started with the idea of just switching out the bezel of a gold 6265 rep for a diamond one, just to get some of the look of the 6270. We initially questioned whether a diamond bezel from a DayDate would retro fit, but the DD is 36mm and the Daytona is 37mm. Then Michael piped up to say “I could ask our jewellery factory”...
Oh yeah, probably should have mentioned, Michael has a jewellery and watch design company with manufacture suppliers. Like Rolex they weren’t keen on one off production, but after some persuading they agreed on this occasion to help us out.
So back to the conversation and cue several edited mock ups of how our creation might look...
It was a start. We had to arrange for a sample of the rep bezel to be sent to the factory to ensure that the new piece would fit the rep perfectly, but should be no issue.
We got a bezel shipped to them and it was at this stage that I realised just how complex and finite this rep game is, when the technical drawings came back showing the tolerances and profiles for our bezel...
All those measurements just for a bezel, never mind case/pushers/caseback/crown etc etc, just a “simple” bezel with some stones set in it. We would later realise that the number of stones was wrong, and once they had adjusted all the measurements the stones we needed had to be cut specially as there weren’t any off the shelf stones of the correct radius and size. This was fast becoming a real bespoke job!
Thickness was an issue too, it needed to be thick enough to house the stones and be strong, but too thick and we would lose the delicate classic look of the gen!
We were super excited and to be fair the overall look would be pretty close to the real deal...
But those bluey purple sub registers and sapphire hour markers kept calling to us!
“HOW HARD WOULD A DIAMOND DIAL BE?”
It was fairly soon after starting work on the bezel that I asked Michael this simple yet deadly question, and we were quickly down the rabbit hole, again persuading the factory to help us out.
But from this point the questions and issues came thick and fast, and it was really the dial process which gave me the greatest appreciation for what actual rep factories do.
I’LL NEVER COMPLAIN AGAIN
When you delve into the murky world of trying to make something look like something it’s not you realise just how hard it really is. Continually having to find a workaround for the fact you don’t have the correct movement. We all bemoan the extra 2mm of thickness on our reps versus the gen as though it couldn’t possibly be that hard to make it the right bloody thickness, but let me tell you it really is! The tolerances are so finite, and when you slap a load of fake diamonds on a dial things start to get thick quick!!
Michael’s man knew his stuff though, and issues like the placement of stones around subdials were quickly sorted.
He had technical drawings of the ST19 which has a lower 6 o’clock subdial than a Valjoux 72, and we wanted our dial to be a straight swap for the rep dial that comes with the Cartel Daytona with no modding, so the stones had to be moved around to fit this layout without looking odd.
The clearance for the hands was going to be very tight, and it was almost impossible to tell if it would actually work at all until we had the dial made and fitted, but we took as many measurements as we could and basically crossed our fingers.
THE FONT OF ALL KNOWLEDGE
As a designer Michael is a details man, and this manifested itself in some serious attention paid to getting the text font right on the dial. This hadn’t even occured to me (I’m more an overall looks kinda guy). Given the rarity of the gen there are very few high resolution images of the dial available, so Michael and the factory got to work with what little reference images we had, tracing the text to create the correct font.
And here’s the finished plan complete with text and indexes.
FEELING BLUE(ISH)
Layout sorted and with fingers still crossed on the whole thickness issue, the next task was getting the colours right.
This is another subject of much frustration within the rep world. How hard could it be to colour match a dial? Well for starters unless you actually have a gen at your disposal (which I don’t believe many if any rep factories actually have despite what they may say) then matching is impossible, as we know variation between different cameras, camera settings, photo editing and printing/device used to view will mean you’re not actually seeing the true colour. There’s a huge variance in pictures of the 6270, so we decided to choose a Pantone colour based on our own preference. But the amount of choice is mind boggling!!
From reference material we know the gen was organically some shade of purple, but it’s also evident that some of the examples have aged over time and are more blue. I’m a big fan of purple but didn’t want it to be too in your face (yep we’re making a baguette bezel pavé dial gold Rolex and I’m worried about being in your face... go figure) and Michael also favoured a less flamboyant tone, so we went for a dark deep purpley blue, trying to give a good contrast with the gold and the stones.
And with this decision made we needed to pick the sapphire stones to match, again going for the darker deeper sapphire blue.
MEANWHILE IN BEZEL LAND
The first bezel was made with the incorrect number of baguettes because we simply hadn’t thought to double check, but we asked for the incorrect bezel to be shipped to Michael anyway for test fitting while a new one got made. At this stage (and up until about a week ago) I still hadn’t laid my hands on a donor watch as the gold vintage Daytonas are out of stock, so Michael’s watch was the guinea pig!
Unfortunately the tolerances were a little tight on the inner edge of the bezel and it cracked the plexi when it was installed (bad times)
But the fit with the case was good and tight and the bezel itself and stones looked awesome, so we were happy overall, albeit in need of a replacement plexi and some minor tweaks, a worthwhile test fit and our first sense of how our creation might look in the flesh.
WATCHING THE FACTORY WORK THEIR MAGIC
With all decisions made and problems solved (save the hand clearance possibly) it was time to let the factory get on with making our dials and wait for updates. It was fun seeing the various stages come together and the dial slowly come to life.
Dial blanks:
Drilled ready for stones and plating (fun game, see if you can spot the one test fitted stone):
Stones set and dial plated and polished in readiness for subdials to be machine turned and printed:
And finally with subdials turned and a lovely Pantone applied:
And that, ladies and gentleman, was the last picture we saw before the dials landed. From the excitement of these final stages it was over a month before we saw the end result, an agonising wait.
UNTIL AT LAST
Oh hello, what’s this?
You may not be into Rolex, and you may not be a fan of a diamond dial, but you have to admit the contrast of deep blue on gold is really very nice and the factory really did a superb job considering reps is not their game!
AND THE HAND CLEARANCE?!?
The million dollar question of course was would it fit? Only one way to find out!
The hands are very close, and our watchsmith has subsequently taken the precaution of removing the movement plate that sits behind the dial to increase clearance and eliminate the risk of the hands fouling the dial and causing the watch to jam. But together with the watch and bezel I think the finished watch looks killer.
At time of writing our watches are still with our watchsmith for final assembly, but once we get them back I’m sure there will be more glamour shots to follow. Michael did manage to get this one while test fitting his dial...
In the meantime I hope you’ve found the read interesting, and gained some more appreciation of the lengths that rep factories go to in order to create the reps we all love!
FINAL THOUGHT
There’s eight gen Rolex 6270s out there... but there are only two 6270 reps... this fact pleases me greatly!!
DC & Stuvetjee
Stuvetjee
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