Just when I thought my albino '42 was the living end

[Nanuq]

The dial face does not bother me (it may have been faded by (natural) heat, sun exposure & time), but the lume (or lack thereof) makes me wonder. Do you see any actual lume on the dial? I do not & that (& the mis-matched handset) is what makes me suspicious.

I'm thinking there's a very thin layer of painted-on radium for the lume.

[southcoast68]

Ah, so you haven't seen his latest albino Daytona...

Ahh, no I had not seen that one yet, thanks for pointing me to it. Beautiful job!!

[TeeJay]

The dial face does not bother me (it may have been faded by (natural) heat, sun exposure & time), but the lume (or lack thereof) makes me wonder. Do you see any actual lume on the dial? I do not & that (& the mis-matched handset) is what makes me suspicious.

I don't see any lume on the dial, but, the areas for lume application are clearly marked, and the other dial markings are crisp and clear. I'm going to go out on a limb and stick with my hunch that the dial might be a prototype which never went into production, as I feel the patina is 'too good' to be artificially induced by anything but 100% natural passage of time...

[JoeyB]

 The script and markers are dark, black or close to it. I doubt the dial is faded from any dark color.  I don't think there is any lume on it.   

Reading various versions of Rolex history, particularly in the `50s, they were experimenting and making prototypes quite a bit. Rolex won't help clarify any of it, they probably don't know themselves.   

Edited November 19, 2010 by JoeyB

[Nanuq]

I think the guy had it printed up at Kinko's.

[JoeyB]

LOL! I print my own!

[flex]

That's Eric's watch. He knows his stuff. However, i believe that that dial is not orginal to the watch. It is some sort of factory sample that was never sold with the watch...........