What John Mayer has to say about the controversial 3CROC daytona

[UB7]

I came across this interesting post by John Mayer regarding the controversial "mayer dial" vintage daytona, the 3 color dial termed "3CROC"..Here is his first post on VRF..For some reason its not letting me link to his post so I have to paste what he said, and his responses to others..Just so we know what watch he's referring to, heres a pic .In 1 of his last posts, he personally offers anyone who wants to sell their 3croc 75k!! In a recent transaction @ christie's a buyer paid something like 160k for one and days later backed out on the deal...One thing is for certain, he doesn't understand how things work in the rep world..I'm curious to hear what people here think about this issue? I agree with what he said, it doesn't matter if its real or fake because rolex says its real and thats all that really matters..Who really knows tho

(lol i just noticed that this guy printed MAYER on the dial hahaha..i got the pic from www.nippledial.com )

Hi Guys... John Mayer here. Long time reader, first time poster. There are a few people on this board who can vouch for me...

This ROC PN debate is something that I've been involved in for a few months now, and I want to share my thoughts with you. Forgive me for not putting it in the post that's already started but I don't want this conversation to die out.

Let me first say that though we don't know FOR CERTAIN that these watches aren't counterfeit, I think I speak for everyone when I say I sure hope they're not. That would remove some really coveted pieces from the table.

I want to discuss two things. The first is that these dials are probably not counterfeit, and second, it doesn't matter if they're not.

I wish I could tell you why I think these dials are real, but only a dealer who held one of these watches

in the '70s can say for sure. The rest of us CANNOT either. Now for the breakdown:

**WHY THEY'RE PROBABLY NOT COUNTERFEIT**

Ask yourself this - why do all 3-color PN dials ALWAYS sit on watches that ROCs are PERIOD CORRECT on? If someone were counterfeiting these in the late '80s/early '90s,

when there wasn't nearly as much scrutiny by collectors, why weren't ROCs popping up on 6241s 6239s? Did everyone who caught a counterfeit dial share the same

enthusiasm for the minutae of collecting watches? And if you were going to counterfeit a dial, making it look convincing enough to fool people for 20 years, wouldn't

you clone a dial that you knew EXISTED? And wouldn't you keep making them? Why aren't non-PN 6263s magically turning into ROC panda dials? Why aren't these counterfeiters

firing the machine back up? Did they get the dials perfect, make 300 and then shut the operation down?

And in the case of the red Daytona, which Rolex CONFIRMS were made, have you seen any more watches floating out in the world than were reportedly made (? Can you

say you can account for the wherabouts of 4 different red dials? of 3? You'd have seen more than 8 if these dials were being knocked off. You have to assume the mindset of

how greed works to understand that it's just not present here.

A word about the distinguishing characteristics of PN dials; identifying the traits that make the dial 100% authentic is not always a way of deeming the watch inauthentic if they're not

present. This is a big problem lately, in my opinion.

Also, NOBODY on this board or beyond can say with certainty what Rolex DID and DIDN'T do. You have to understand manufacturing to get a sense of just how mundane some of these

changes were. If a dial manufacturer sent Rolex 4 different variants to choose from, and Rolex ordered 1000 units of one, they still had 3 other variants in their possession.

It's completely within reason that they would have used these dials on the watches that were sent out. I know it doesn't completely apply here, but it's an example of how much more

we as collectors attach value to everything Rolex did than Rolex themselves.

**WHY IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THEY'RE NOT AUTHENTIC**

Because Rolex says they are. And so do all the world's most respected collectors. ROC dials are in every major book, have been sold in auction countless times, and have been known

to have service papers with them. (This includes the red Daytona.) I have a service paper from Rolex that states that my red Daytona is authentic. What will it take to deem it inauthentic?

The same thing it would take for a white or black 3-color. A letter from Rolex stating that they're not. If we're all going to think of service papers as added value because it proves

authenticity, then we have to be consistent with that. Otherwise the marketplace should not add a premium for them, and buyers shouldn't believe them.

The same goes for Antiquorum. If you're going to believe that Antiquorum can sell 2 dozen of the same counterfeit watch, then that renders the auction house invalid and you

can no longer charge more for a watch that "went at auction for" a high dollar amount. I'd say to you "yah, but they also sold 3-color ROC dials, so you can't go by that at all." Same

goes for "the book", whether by Patrizzi or Mondani. No more being able to say that something's featured in a book. Because now the service the book was providing - provenance

and value- is null and void.

___

Do the 3-Color and gold ROC dials really exist? Yes. I own several. I've seen them with my own eyes and I count 3 colors. Are they authenticated by Rolex? They have been. That makes

them up to the high standards we all respect and admire about the company when it comes time to sell a piece with a service paper. Okay. Let's review: they exist and Rolex has

serviced (authenticated) and released them from the Rolex building - meeting Rolex's immeasuarably high quality control standards, as the company has extolled for so many years.

Is the dial, on a molecular level, one that was manufactured in 1967? Will we ever know?

Does it really matter?

First, regarding Antiquorum, I have to say that they've always been completely faithful to authenticity in my dealings with them. In fact, I know the Explorer dial Sub because I was the high bidder in the Spring auction. Evan was incredibly forthright in cancelling the sale due to the watch being so difficult to authenticate. (He initiated the cancellation.) Just a bit of my experience with the auction house.

I know that 6239s and 6241s are pump pushers. (so are 6238, 6262 and 6264s. Just showing off.) The point was that one of the many counterfeit buyers with less expertise could have made the switch. Your post is interesting because it assumes that there was one dealer/collector who outfitted dozens (if not hundreds) of these dials himself, which seems even less plausible to me. But again, who knows. Pragmatically, though, if anyone would like to sell their "fake" 3-color or gold ROC PN, I will pay you 55k/75k respectively. That's a screaming deal for a counterfeit dial!!! (I happen to know that some of the very dealers who question these dials are also happily selling them at a premium. Go figure...)

I will agree that the red Daytona debate is a different one. My service papers indicate that the dial is red. I happen to know people who can substantiate red Daytona myth, but I don't want to print information that doesn't belong to me directly. I can tell you for sure that Rolex has confirmed that red dials left the building. As for whether mine is one of them, I can't say with cosmic certainty. I do think a red Daytona is more of a dicey situation, being that the watches were not born on the dials. They each appeared on a different reference number Daytona, which is interesting in and of itself. The red Daytona is coveted because it is mysterious. I own one and I won't sell it because the story isn't finished being told on it. I will say without sounding like I'm gloating, that you have to see a red Daytona up close to really see the "complexion" of the dial. It has the EXACT same "skin" as a white/black PN. The coronet is the same. The printing is the same. Everything. You don't get the "fishy" feeling you get when you see something questionable.

And I can tell you something you probably didn't know before: a red Daytona does NOT have a step-down minute track. That's of great importance, because it either goes hand-in-hand with debunking the idea they're counterfeit or reinforcing it. Guess which way I lean?

Here's something that brings the VRF at large into this discussion; one thing that this ongoing debate will do is raise the value of non PN dials. Collectors will gravitate to them because they're free of controversy. Non-PN dials will climb significantly in the next year and close the gap between the two configurations. In my book, if you own a black dial 6263, you're sitting on one of the safest investments in the Rolex world.

Now I have to go out and hit on guys' girlfriends, or whatever it is you think I'm doing. I'm certainly not sitting at home with a loupe shooting out Maxi dials. I would never do something like that. Ever.

Some additional thoughts to try and keep the discussion in perspective:

Dealers aren't trying to make money by saying these dials aren't right; that's not the bottom line here. I believe it all stems from a passion and a need to keep history feeling like a current event. We all have to admit that it's incredibly exciting to feel like there's still some room to affect change within that which is inherently unchangeable. How unexciting it would be to see these watches as mere relics... That's why we keep the debate open on maxi dials, meters first, Mark XVII DRSDs, etc. It keeps us engaged as enthusiasts. I think that's something to be embraced. Otherwise we're all just matter-a-factly holding onto cold pieces of steel that dead guys wore.

(In the case of Kamal, whom I have not met, it's interesting that he's now very well known for disputing these dials. It's 2007, some 40 years after the manufacture of these watches, and there is a new name in the (recent) Rolex annals.)

Let's narrow this down. Will Rolex ever release a statement saying that these dials are not of Rolex manufacture? I think we all know the answer to that. Nnnope.

-SO-

That leaves what amounts to unsubstantiated claims, which if uncontested, could amount to very much the same thing as a letter from Rolex.

-SO-

If that's the case, and these dials are looked upon informally as not of Rolex manufacture, what then? What's the selling price for these now-famed MAYER DIAL configurations? (just kidding, I think.) Are they worth nothing? Can anyone who owns one sell them in good faith? Does it stop a PN ROC 6263 in 18kt from being one of the NICEST looking Rolexes around? I love them. If Rolex didn't make them, someone else made them better. Have you ever seen a PN-ROC gold dial that had snow white numbers in the subdials? It's stunning.

-SO THEN-

Anyone with the expertise to put the SINGER stamp under an electron microscope should have to expertise to appraise the value of these watches. If it's not worth what I think it is, what is it worth? If you're going to be bold enough to apply an acumen that should be looked upon as changing the market, then don't stop there; tell us in your estimation what the new value is.

And again, anyone who wants to sell me one of these watches can get these fake pieces off their hands and make a killing on it. 55k for steel, 75k for gold. I will even accept a letter from you as a dealer releasing you from any liability in having sold me a counterfeit dial. I will be buying these as counterfeits.

I'll be waiting to hear from you.

[freddy333]

Mayer & others have been touting this story for about a year now. There may be some degree of truth to it, at least where the black Newman dials are concerned (I believe Rolex produced 3-color white dials, but only 2-color black Newmans until the release of the Oyster case dials). The 3-color dials have been described in Rolex dealer guides going back as far as the early 1960s (I had a relative who was in the watch business back then). But as with anything relating to vintage Rolex, it is impossible to say with any degree of certainty whether this story is true or not because there are nearly always exceptions to every Rolex rule & Rolex is rarely willing to open their archives to the public.

[UB7]

Very interesting freddy! In a later post JM said that he would try and pull a few strings and find out if they(Rolex) will say whether or not those dials came out of their factory, or singers. I mean it would benefit everyone in the watch world, and the auctions houses in particular..They are losing huge amounts of money because these watches are so hard to authenticate..I agree with you, we'll probably never know for certain because Rolex is so private..Kind of mysterious in many ways, and just like the red daytona it adds to the coolness of the watch!!

[freddy333]

Most of the reliable sources tend to agree that if there is any truth to Mayer's story, it is limited to the black Newman non-Oyster dials, which I believe were only ever (officially) released in black & white anyway. I think both Antiquorum and Dowling have confirmed this. And anyway from what I have seen during my 20+ years of collecting watches, if anyone ever produced a rep/repainted dial that was good enough to fool these authorities, someone here would have found it before they did.......and I would have them in my watches. But time will tell.

In the meantime, you might find the 1st part of this mildly amusing.

[ghost]

Maybe the question here really should be: " how do i find that texan factory, and what can i do to make them produce some for me?"