Ceramic Bezel Daytona reps.

[rionrlty]

Hey Guys,

 

Long time member here and trusted vendor (Rionrlty's Rarities in the services forum.) Our shop has worked on many of your watches and though I know plenty about a lot of watches, both reps and gens, by no stretch do I consider myself a Rolex expert. Although we work on Gens in our shop and have worked on many Rolex, I can only remember one Pre 2000 Daytona coming in, the one with the Zenith El Primero movement. I seem to recall that it measured a full 40mm diameter at the bezel. So, here is what I'm hoping one of you can help me with.

 

10 or 15 years ago I had one of the first Rolex Daytona reps with the A7750 movement. I had it for quite a long while and it gave me no trouble that I can recall, although it was a tad thick on the wrist. I measure all of my replicas and as I recall it was about 15.5mm thick and the bezel measured almost a perfect 40mm, just like Rolex states on there website. I eventually sold it on. Here is my Quandary.

 

I've recently purchased a couple of the newer Daytona reps with the ceramic bezel. The first was an ARF factory issue and to my consternation the bezel diameter only measured out at a little less than 39mm. Eventually it bothered me so much that I sold it on. Recently I purchased a replacement from an independent dealer that I've grown to trust. The watch is beautiful with white dial and ceramic bezel. It is the A7750 version but still measures only 13.5mm thick, which I can live with. What I'm afraid that I won't be able to live with is the bezel diameter. It only measures to 38mm. I noticed that it seemed small when I unwrapped it. I've since measured it several times, with two different calipers just because I can't believe it's that small, but it is.

 

Am I missing something? Did Rolex reduce the size? Do they perhaps make a smaller 38mm version of the watch? Can anyone tell me what's going on here? 

[freddy333]

I am not intimately familiar with the current ceramic bezeled Daytonas, so I cannot answer your question with any authority. But the 4130-powered steel-bezeled Daytonas had a noticeably lower profile than any of the rep bezels I have seen. Also, some of the rep bezels had a small channel around the underside of the bezel's inner circumference which allowed them to fit over a complementary bump-out that surrounded the dial opening on the case. Otherwise, the gen & rep bezels had similar outside/inside diameters.

 

Gen 116520 bezel left/rep right

[rionrlty]

5 hours ago, freddy333 said:

I am not intimately familiar with the current ceramic bezeled Daytonas, so I cannot answer your question with any authority. But the 4130-powered steel-bezeled Daytonas had a noticeably lower profile than any of the rep bezels I have seen. Also, some of the rep bezels had a small channel around the underside of the bezel's inner circumference which allowed them to fit over a complementary bump-out that surrounded the dial opening on the case. Otherwise, the gen & rep bezels had similar outside/inside diameters.

 

Gen 116520 bezel left/rep right

Yes, I have seen this on the reps too. Some others have a much larger section from the inside bottom of the ceramic bezel. Not sure why. I've also noted the difference in profile you mention. This applies to the back cover too on some of the reps. Mainly it's how they try to compensate visually for the additional thickness both on the Rolex clone movement and on the A7750. This one has the A7750 and its impressive that they've managed to get the thickness down to 13.5mm. When I got in to the shop today, to my amazement a Gen Daytona had come in for service. It is an older one probably just after 2000 and is two tone yellow gold and SS. I didn't take a picture, but a precision caliper measured the gold bezel at 39.8mm, and it had been polished pretty heavily over the years. I've examined my latest watch again. It is still only 38mm at the bezel. It appears that the discrepancy is mostly, if not all, in the bezel. I would love your opinion on the subject. To me it appears to narrow in appearance. I'm including some photos I just took. The watch looks great otherwise. I'm wondering if I could find a replacement bezel replacement that would be larger.

6 hours ago, freddy333 said:

I am not intimately familiar with the current ceramic bezeled Daytonas, so I cannot answer your question with any authority. But the 4130-powered steel-bezeled Daytonas had a noticeably lower profile than any of the rep bezels I have seen. Also, some of the rep bezels had a small channel around the underside of the bezel's inner circumference which allowed them to fit over a complementary bump-out that surrounded the dial opening on the case. Otherwise, the gen & rep bezels had similar outside/inside diameters.

 

Gen 116520 bezel left/rep right

Yes, I have seen this on the reps too. Some others have a much larger section from the inside bottom of the ceramic bezel. Not sure why. I've also noted the difference in profile you mention. This applies to the back cover too on some of the reps. Mainly it's how they try to compensate visually for the additional thickness both on the Rolex clone movement and on the A7750. This one has the A7750 and its impressive that they've managed to get the thickness down to 13.5mm. When I got in to the shop today, to my amazement a Gen Daytona had come in for service. It is an older one probably just after 2000 and is two tone yellow gold and SS. I didn't take a picture, but a precision caliper measured the gold bezel at 39.8mm, and it had been polished pretty heavily over the years. I've examined my latest watch again. It is still only 38mm at the bezel. It appears that the discrepancy is mostly, if not all, in the bezel. I would love your opinion on the subject. To me it appears to narrow in appearance. I'm including some photos I just took. The watch looks great otherwise. I'm wondering if I could find a replacement bezel replacement that would be larger. I had a picture of the bezel profile, but it won't upload to the forum for some reason

[freddy333]

14 hours ago, rionrlty said:

This applies to the back cover too on some of the reps.
It appears that the discrepancy is mostly, if not all, in the bezel. I would love your opinion on the subject. To me it appears to narrow in appearance. I'm including some photos I just took. The watch looks great otherwise. I'm wondering if I could find a replacement bezel replacement that would be larger. I had a picture of the bezel profile, but it won't upload to the forum for some reason

 

As you mentioned, the casebacks are generally deeper to accommodate the 7750's taller profile. However, there have been multiple versions of the 7750-powered Daytona rep & at least 1 of these had a lower profile caseback, close enough that you cannot tell the difference when viewing the watch on a wrist from an arm's length away. It has been too many years to remember the exact details, but Ziggy, Bytor & myself  each posted threads detailing many of the variations, including casebacks, bezels, dials, movements, etc. You might want to search those out as I think they remain the de facto guides for these reps. Obviously, in the intervening years, some or most of the sources & links may no longer exist, but I suspect the reps are probably still out there if you have the time & inclination to search them out.

As for the dimensional differences between gen/rep ceramic-bezeled Daytonas, again, I have little experience with these, but some other collectors who have been more active over the past several years might be able to answer your question more specifically. My Daytona interests remain in the past --

[automatico]

I dug through my accumulation of riff raff and found three A7750 Daytonas, two seconds at six and one with seconds at nine.

 

Here are the case thicknesses and bezel outer diameter measurements.  All the bezels are solid steel.

Sec @ 9  14.4mm thick with 39.5mm bezel.

Sec @ 6  13.7mm thick with 39.0mm bezel.

Sec @ 6  14.4mm thick with 39.5mm bezel.

All are 'nos' from about 10 years ago and they started running when I shook them a little.  Wonders never cease.

 

A 39.0mm bezel might look Ok as .5mm is hard to spot on something that big in diameter.

 

Also measured a sec @ 6 model with a Miyota clone of some sort and it is 13.7 thick with 39.0mm bezel same as one of the A750 sec @ 6 models...probably the same case.  

 

All below is afaik...

The 116520 and 16520 are both 12.2mm thick.

 

116520:

Diameter:  40mm  

Crystal:  30.5mm

Bracelet:  20mm

 

16520 and 116520:

Bezel outside diameter:  38.5mm

Bezel inside diameter:  30.5mm

 

Steel 116520 bezel thickness:  2.4mm.

Do not know about 16520, might be the same.

 

Some good pictures:

THE FIRST SERIES ROLEX DAYTONA 1652X : AN IN DEPTH ANALYSIS OF “200 UPH” BEZELS – VWCltd