Fresh From the Showcase here at SwissWatchExpo. We're going to be talking about the Rolex
Turnograph today. This watch has a lot of history going all the way back to 1937 well,
yeah, I didn't realize it was that old. Yeah, so the very first original turning bezel was
in 1937 it was called the Zerographe. The Zerographe was an experimental watch that
they produced only 12 of. Interestingly enough, it was a manual wind and it was a chronograph,
bet that was pretty valuable. It's not only valuable, it's rumored that there's only seven
out of the original 12 that actually exist in the world. Nobody knows what happens to
the others. So scan for one at a yard sale. Yes, sure. You would easily miss it because
it looks nothing like what you would imagine. It's a very thick case that looked eventually
like the Submariner, because it was a chronograph. It had a push button on the very top right
hand corner. So if you look at the watch itself, they in Breitling had moved the pusher for
the chronograph from the center of the crown up to the top of the case. Now, this kind
of as a Breitling captain of many years threw me for a loop because Breitling introduced
the idea of moving the pusher from the center of the crown at the top of the case, and yet
for some reason, this Zerographe had it on this Turnograph bezel that we know now. It's
a very strange watch, but it's a very thick looking bezel and almost looks like a toy,
and in fact, the bezel is so thick, it looks a lot thicker than the GMT bezel that we see
today on the watches. And with that strange chronograph push button at the top, it just
doesn't look anything like a Rolex. So you would easily miss this watch. Later
on. In 1953 Rolex decided that they were in fact going to introduce a turning bezel for
a sports watch. Obviously it preceded the submariner and it proceeded the GMT, which
didn't appear until 1955 it's also considered the very first pilot's watch by Rolex and
why did this watch become so popular in the first place? It was officially the United
States air force demonstration team, a aerobatic demonstration teams official watch called
the Thunderbirds, and there were a handful of these watches produced for pilots. The
bezel was for navigational purposes also for timing. Certain events that they were, they
needed to Mark times when they were meeting up at certain way points. They didn't have
anything at that time to see on their wrist or to recognize quickly. There were a lot
of other reasons that this bezel was useful, not just for that.
That's why they call it Rolexes first tool watch. Interesting. Then did it ever say Thunderbird
on the diet? It did. Only for the Thunderbirds. Okay. Something that Rolex was later criticized
for because that never appeared. This was U S market only and that never appeared on
that watch itself for the civilian market. Now, one of the other things that Rolex did,
which garnered them a lot of criticism, they actually took the name Turnograph off the
dial throughout the years as well. And in fact, in 1977 they completely discontinued
the Turnograph name on the dial of the watch, leaving it to just the a date just with a
turnable bezel for all intensive purposes. Still, they referred to it as the Turnograph
and all of their production and all of their advertisement throughout the years. But some
of them, They didn't call it a Thunderbird. That's
really one of those nicknames. It's a nickname. That's right. And so that's
why there's so many different variations of this. Whenever you see it advertised, it was,
it's oftentimes, especially in the pre-owned market. Well, how come this one's a Thunderbird,
but this one is a Turnograph. Well, the reason is because this model is the original style
of the model. This was the kind of mid century with the flat bezel as opposed to a fluted
bezel style on the later models. And there's also some other arguments about this watch
throughout the years. It was rumored that this particular style not only went through
about 150 different changes, but also that it was discontinued several times. There were
years where people didn't see them and then they would pop back up again. It was also
rumored that they were discontinued in the, this particular model was discontinued in
1999 that's not true either. We actually have models here with serial numbers that correspond
all the way up to 2004 2005 so I often get calls. Well I don't understand. I thought
that, how come I saw these watches being sold in the case or I found one that's has a serial
number that comes from 2004 2005 well because Rolex officially says they stopped producing
this in 2000 We know that they are very loose with years
of production. I actually roll eggs, um, that you can see a bracelet code that is five years
removed from the case. And so that's why those charts of date production aren't real exact.
They never come from Rolex. They're from industry knowledge and so there's really no such thing
from Rolex. Say a 2001 model watch. We get a lot of questions
here at the store. We get a lot of phone calls here at the store about why this Rolex and
this year model and how does the bracelet code do and is this a service this or a service
that this is exactly, this watch is probably a primary reason why we cannot say with a
40 what anything is as far as a year or a day code is concerned. We can guess based
on the industry knowledge as you said, but we don't want to make any absolute assumptions
or assertions, but Rolex considers the birthday to the wives the day it was first bought at
an authorized dealer, so if we happen to have the warranty certificate, we can say that
it began its life on that day. Then it was conceivably, I guess we could have a watch
from 1977 still sitting in the case in the middle of Indiana somewhere.
And if they sell it tomorrow, it's a 1977 so we want to make certain that we kind of
drill down what a Thunderbird watch looked like for the air force demonstration team
too. So the air force demonstration team used a Jubilee bracelet and believe it or not,
it was a solid gold piece Dauphine hands with luminous markers and it had the flat gold
18 carat gold bezel. That's what made the original Thunderbird watch because I get that
question a lot. Which one was the actual one? Was it the steel and gold? Was that the all
steel? No, it was a fully solid gold case full of solid gold bracelet. It was wild looking,
if you ever see one there, they were white dials and they had the Thunderbird logo just
at the bottom. And as a matter of fact, it looks like a sub secondhand window at the
bottom because of the Thunderbird embalm, the way that it's made and shaped.
Yeah. So this is kind of a short synopsis of the Thunderbird Turnograph. Again, this
model here was discontinued in 2011 allegedly, we do not have any pieces in our inventory
that go past 2011 for this, the white dial is the original style dial and the solid gold.
Do you believe bracelet wood does no longer produced and you would never find it. It was
only produced for the Thunderbirds team, so therefore they went to the Jubilee bracelet
with the gold and they also have an ever Rose to, they introduced that later in the mid
two thousands as well. So you can really get some great looking watches in the Turnograph
Thunderbird style, and you can find them all here. It's supposed to watch expo. It's supposed
to watch expo.com and if you want to argue with us about dates, times, and other information
you may have, we're all ears. Tell us what you know, leave the comments on the YouTube
section as well. So SwissWatchExpo.com - Fresh from the Showcase.
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