DRSD Pearls and Silver Datewheels

[bluespower]

In the process of modding my DRSD from Mrs. King and I need a some illumination from the old hands about a couple things:

1) Do the bezel inserts on the gen DRSDs have a metal ring around the pearl, or is the pearl just glued straight into the insert. The pics of gens I have collected off the web seem to look like there is NOT a ring around the pearl. I just got a couple of those sweet lume dots off ebay (listed only briefly) and they look like they would replicate the look of the gen quite nicely.

2) The rep I got has a silver datewheel. The gen pics I have seen all have white datewheels, but I recently saw a gen 1665 movement for sale on ebay that had a silver datewheel. Can anyone clarify?

Thanks for any help.

Paul

[Watchmeister]

Here are my guesses as I am not a Rolex expert:

1.) I believe the original watches did have a very thin ring around the pearl - nothing like comtemporary pearls (smaller too). But for whatever reason people prefer to eliminate the ring rather than have a too thick one.

2.) The original watch came with silver date wheel. However, often whenever one went in for service and a datewheel was swapped it would be replaced with a white one.

Now let a real expert weigh in.

[bluespower]

Thanks Nanuq.

The crusty old vintage SDs have a hemispherical acrylic "pearl" glued into the insert. The newer SDs are the ones with the gold ring around the pearl... imagine the dials and pearls being similar: gold index circles on the hour markers equals gold circle at the pearl. If the dial has simple lume circles (vintage) then the pearl has no ring.

Cheers!

[docblackrock]

Some pics to illustrate...

Vintage acrylic blob 'pearl'...pic taken from the lume dots you bought, VERY close match to genuine

Vintage in situ

Modern pearl in chrome-ringed setting under 'glass'...

Silver datewheel on c.1570 - as the guys said, service swapouts meant a lot of silver datewheels went to datewheel heaven and were replaced with white wheels, and latterly with round '3' fonts. When these watches went in for service, owners were given a list of recommended parts swaps and often these were done in absence of owner's objections. That's why original parts or even better NOS are highly sought after and watches with original specs moreso. What with Rolex having now ceased servicing any 15XX movts (a disgrace IMO) these parts are becoming very valuable.