Rolex 16550 Real cream dial versus After Market fake brown dial

Friday, January 24, 2014

Rolex 16550

The cream dial Rolex 16550'is highly collectable owing to the discoloration. However, owing to the demand, the are bound to have man made discoloration. Normally, the white 16550 dial owing to manufacturing default, will changed to a nice yellowish cream colour. However, I have seen one in brown lately. I was told that the authenticity of the brownish dial is questionable,many comments?

This is an interesting insights on rolex 16550 cream dial from the net:

http://www.bjsonline.com/watches/articles/0016.shtml

If one enquires from The Rolex Watch Company about the so called "Cream/Ivory" dial Explorer II Ref 16550, the company will tell you that it does not exist. So if it does not exist then what is all the fuss about?

Well, unintentionally, it does exist. I say unintentionally because in reality the dial colour was supposed to be white, but due to some fault in the paint used by the Rolex watch Company, the dial left the factory as cream or Ivory colour. Thus the Cream/Ivory colour Explorer II was born. They were made in the mid 1980's, probably from 1984 to 1986, with either a 8 or 9 million serial number and only a small quantity of watches were actually sold. The reason for this was quite simple: they were not popular at all. This Model Reference also came in a black dial version and later on in a white dial version (1986-1988).

In recent years, Rolex Collectors have been chasing the price of this model, driving it higher and ever higher. As with most things in life, as the price and demand of an article rises, fraudsters move in to take advantage of the less knowledgeable and easy preys. Many White dialled Explorer II Ref 16550 have been "converted" to the rarer Cream/Ivory colour model simply by focusing a ray of hot light or even sun light for long periods on to the dial.

This information is helpful to avoid buying fake cream dial..