A stainless steel and eighteen carat gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust reference 16013. This is an exceptional, and quite rare dial; a navy blue base with large stamped gold Roman numerals, chapter ring and printing for the text. This is a very rare combination. These dials are often seen in white with black printing, gold with black, or even the navy with white printing. It is very beautiful in the flesh, and in natural light. It is very hard to capture this dial on camera.
The dial is stamped "T Swiss T" at the six o'clock position, meaning that it contains tritium luminous material. This material replaced the highly dangerous, and radioactive Radium in 1963. Just like radium, tritium was also radioactive; however, it came with a much lower level of radiation and a much shorter half-life. While tritium was exponentially safer than radium, it only had a half-life of twelve years. This meant that after just a few decades, only a tiny fraction of the initial luminescence would remain. Additionally, as tritium ages, the color changes, which creates often beautiful, and highly sought after patinas on the luminous markers on these older Rolex watches. Tritium was far from perfect, which lead Rolex to search for a better alternative, which happened in 1998 with the introduction of Luminova. The Tritium in this case is all original to the dial, is in near perfect condition with only one plot, the eight o'clock, showing signs of loss. The color is a very beautiful warm latté color, and the same for the hands. All of which respond the same under ultra violet light.
The watch is powered by a Rolex, Swiss made, twenty seven jewel automatic calibre 3035 movement that powered all of the acrylic crystal Datejust quick set date models. These models can be told apart from one another as they do not have the earlier, characteristic, 'pie pan' style dial. They have the newly designed completely flat dials.
The watch is fitted to its original Rolex Jubilee stainless steel and eighteen carat gold Jubilee bracelet with removable links in place, which, if needed, can be taken out to make the bracelet smaller. There is a little stretch to it, but nothing to detract overall, and given its now forty years of wear, is still strong.
The watch was made circa 1981 with serial number 707XXXX. The watch is in original condition, showing signs of polishing to case. However, the case is very strong, with thick lugs. The watch comes with Rolex service papers from 2019, along with a Foundwell one year warranty against mechanical failure. The Datejust is perhaps one of the most produced models by Rolex, but examples like this are exceptionally hard to come by, and in this condition, even more so.
