Rolex GMT Master

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Rolex GMT Master For the Rolex GMT Master fans by the Rolex GMT Master fans
This is NOT a shop, simply a fan page. The Rolex GMT-Master ref.6542 was in production till 1959.

Overview

The Rolex GMT was designed as an aviator watch: The newly introduced fourth hand allowed the display of an additional time, with the corresponding numbermarkings on the outer bezel. Pilots used the second time to display the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which led to the name Rolex GMT Master. Altough Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) got replaced 1972 in the Aviation Industry by Coordinated Univer

sal Time (UTC), the term GMT is still known and kept as part of the name of the GMT Master, altough Pilots nowadays use it to set UTC. History

The Rolex GMT Master was developed in cooperation with Pan Am. As in the 1940s and 50s flying distances got longer and the pilots travelled through multiple time zones, Pan Am asked Rolex in the 1950s to develop a watch which could tell different times simultaneously. The first GMT (Ref. 6542) was a regular Turn-O-Graph (Ref. 6202) with a different bezel and a modified movement. In 1954, the first GMT-Master that Rolex introduced was reference 6542. It featured a bakelite bezel (which was replaced after two years by an aluminium bezel because it cracked very easily) and had no crown guards. The James Bond fan also might recognize this watch as it was on the wrist of P***y Galore in the Goldfinger movie. Rolex used several movements for this reference, like calibers 1036 (1954-1959), 1065 (1957-1959) and 1066 (1957-1959). Movement upgrades

The first 1675 watches came with Rolex caliber 1565. Until 1965, when Rolex started to equip them with caliber 1575. This movement had a higher ticking number (19,600vph instead of 18,000vph). Later on, caliber 1575 was modified to have a hacking feature (seconds will stop when the crown is pulled out). This was done in 1971. Reference 16750

Then, Rolex introduced the GMT-Master ref.16750 in ca 1980, a model with a new movement and featuring glossy dials. Rolex started using the caliber 3075 movement, which featured a quick-set date. The movement also had an increasing ticking number of 28,800vph. This model was in production till 1988. Just a short period in time, which makes it a sought-after model of the GMT-Master series. However, probably not as much as the Rolex GMT-Master II 16760 aka ‘The Fat Lady’ (or ‘Sophia Loren’). This was the first GMT-Master II and had an advancement over the regular GMT-Master, which is the functionality to read time of three different timezones. Besides that, the ‘Fat Lady’ had a thicker case, thicker crown guards, sapphire crystal and only available in the ‘Coke’ configuration, which is a red/black bezel. The Rolex GMT-Master 16760 used caliber 3085. Reference 16700 and 16710

The Rolex GMT-Master ref.16750 was replaced by the GMT-Master 16700 in 1989. Rolex also introduced the reference 16710 (we recently did an in-depth article on this reference here), the successor of the Fat Lady. At first, the tritium dials were still used but in approximately 1997 this changed towards Super-LumiNova.

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Overview The Rolex GMT was designed as an aviator watch: The newly introduced fourth hand allowed the display of an additional time, with the corresponding numbermarkings on the outer bezel. Pilots used the second time to display the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which led to the name Rolex GMT Master. Altough Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) got replaced 1972 in the Aviation Industry by Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), the term GMT is still known and kept as part of the name of the GMT Master, altough Pilots nowadays use it to set UTC. History The Rolex GMT Master was developed in cooperation with Pan Am. As in the 1940s and 50s flying distances got longer and the pilots travelled through multiple time zones, Pan Am asked Rolex in the 1950s to develop a watch which could tell different times simultaneously. The first GMT (Ref. 6542) was a regular Turn-O-Graph (Ref. 6202) with a different bezel and a modified movement.