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Lot Essay
Accompanied by Bureaux Suisse de Contrôle Officiel de la Marche des Chronomètres Watch Rate Certificate dated 21 November 1952.
The present watch is an extremely rare example of a reference 6202, fitted with a highly unusual white honeycomb dial and still retaining the original Bulletin de Marche. Marketed as a "tool" watch, the Turn-O-Graph is commonly accepted as one of the "god-fathers" of all Rolex sports-watches to follow, most notably the Submariner and consequently the Sea Dweller, but also the GMT-Master.
The Turn-O-Graph was presented at the 1953 Basel fair. Consequently, the present example must be considered one of the first watches as it successfully passed the testing at the observatory as early as November 1952. It is furthermore a very early example of the Turn-O-Graph model: its movement passed the Chronometer already in November 1952, nearly two years before the official introduction of the model into the market. It is also noteworthy that the present watch is fitted with a non-luminous "civil-dial" - a rare feature reserved to the very early examples of this model.
Reference 6202 was always fitted with a rotating bezel with five minute divisions, referred to as a "time-recording-rim" by Rolex. Designed to be used as a simplified chronograph version for timing events to up to an hour, it was promoted as being able to calculate the "Timing of a transatlantic telephone call, the rate of a machine, a patient's pulse, the speed of a train or the development of a film".
Despite the Turn-O-Graph's brilliant concept, the model was at the time not as successful as expected by Rolex, mainly due to the simultaneous in-house competition from the Submariner and the GMT-Master. Since only very examples were produced and even fewer have survived, the present watch represents a rare opportunity for the avid collector.
The present watch is an extremely rare example of a reference 6202, fitted with a highly unusual white honeycomb dial and still retaining the original Bulletin de Marche. Marketed as a "tool" watch, the Turn-O-Graph is commonly accepted as one of the "god-fathers" of all Rolex sports-watches to follow, most notably the Submariner and consequently the Sea Dweller, but also the GMT-Master.
The Turn-O-Graph was presented at the 1953 Basel fair. Consequently, the present example must be considered one of the first watches as it successfully passed the testing at the observatory as early as November 1952. It is furthermore a very early example of the Turn-O-Graph model: its movement passed the Chronometer already in November 1952, nearly two years before the official introduction of the model into the market. It is also noteworthy that the present watch is fitted with a non-luminous "civil-dial" - a rare feature reserved to the very early examples of this model.
Reference 6202 was always fitted with a rotating bezel with five minute divisions, referred to as a "time-recording-rim" by Rolex. Designed to be used as a simplified chronograph version for timing events to up to an hour, it was promoted as being able to calculate the "Timing of a transatlantic telephone call, the rate of a machine, a patient's pulse, the speed of a train or the development of a film".
Despite the Turn-O-Graph's brilliant concept, the model was at the time not as successful as expected by Rolex, mainly due to the simultaneous in-house competition from the Submariner and the GMT-Master. Since only very examples were produced and even fewer have survived, the present watch represents a rare opportunity for the avid collector.