Sourcing late 1960s 1016 hands

[coelacanthus]

Hi ladies and gents,

I have a 1967 production, Mk 1 matte dial 1016 in great condition. The case is great, dial is perfect, and even has the original Swiss made rivet bracelet.

The only part that's not perfect is the hands. I believe the hands are 1970s replacement, Submariner length minute hand not touching the minute track. The colors match pretty nicely, and I personally think it's acceptable as a whole considering its age.

That said, the watch is getting close to needing an OH, and that could be a good time to install period correct, original length hands during the service. The dial is truly perfect and I don't want to let anyone go near it unless absolutely necessary.

So the question:

I'm having a bit of dilemma. I'm in SF and I can have the hands installed during service by my trusted watchmaker and avoid shipping. But that means I need to source the hands without matching the lume color/glow to the dial in person.

If I were to ship it, I'd imagine I could ask a vintage Rolex expert watchmaker (need some references) who could source and match the colors closely? I'm definitely nervous about shipping the watch and be without it for a longer period.

I think I'll be ok if the tone is not a 100% match to the dial as long as the hands are period/length correct and have matching photoluminescence material to the original dial. (thus react to UV and reflect sun in a similar way to the dial lume)

What would you do? Source the hands from the best specialists (again, recommendations welcome) and have a local qualifying watchmaker do the service and installation? Or would you send the watch to someone who can both source hands and service the watch on one go?

Ideas, thoughts, sourcing recommendations welcome.

Thanks for your time.

[waspy1]

Either option is reasonable - your biggest issue will be finding a decent set of correct hands. You will really struggle to find a set which glow like a late 60s set. I’d approach one of the well known vintage watch servicing specialists to see if they have a suitable set. I can’t remember seeing a set for sale. There are so many 1016s out there with wrong hands, I expect if it was an easy thing to find then they would all be correct.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[coelacanthus]

waspy1,

Thanks for your comment, and I agree that's the trickiest part.

Can anyone share specialists who are not only known for servicing vintage Rolex correctly (not polishing, handling dial/hands extra carefully, etc) but also known for having fresh inventory of vintage components? I've been researching and getting names for the servicing part and other vendors for parts, but haven't tracked down good places doing both. Not sure if someone like LAWW would make sense as I'm not trying to recondition case or dial in any way.

If that turns out to be too difficult, then I guess keeping an eye on all parts for sale ads and find hands (try my best to evaluate age/color w/o seeing them in person), then taking it to my watchmaker is probably the most realistic (tho still difficult) way to go.

[CalSRQ1]

Good luck in your search- I have same issue with my ‘67 1016. though I’m also needing a tropic 22 crystal to replace my service crystal too.

[coelacanthus]

Thanks. Yah, at least mine got the tropic dome crystal up there.

[CalSRQ1]

You might contact Rik - he sourced a dome crystal for my 5513 maybe he could come up with some magic on the 1016 hands

[coelacanthus]

Originally Posted by CalSRQ1

You might contact Rik - he sourced a dome crystal for my 5513 maybe he could come up with some magic on the 1016 hands

Thanks for the tip. I'll reach out.

[mdw3]

LA Watchworks in Pasadena has many shades of original NOS tritium hand sets for these models in stock. These can be installed as part of a full service. You should call them and send the watch for the complete job.

Michael

[enginerd]

Originally Posted by mdw3

You should call them and send the watch for the complete job.

Michael

Or drop it off in person. SF to LA is what, 6 hour drive?