Please note, during the 1990s and 2000s, it is estimated that Rolex produced around around 1 million watches per year.

In 1994, Rolex started yet another sequence with the letters: W, T and U, then A, P, and K in subsequent years, followed by Y, F, D, Z, M, V and then G in 2010. This sequence continued through November 1991, when a new numbering system was introduced utilizing the letters N, C and S, which took them through 1993. Thus spelling out the word 'ROLEX' with the 'O' being omitted, to help avert any possible confusion with the number '0'. The system started with the letter 'R', whcih was then subsequently followed by L-E-X. At this time, Rolex elected to start numbering with a letter prefix (e.g. In the early 1960s, Rolex once again reached the 999,999 mark, but this time added a 7 th digit and continued into the 'millions' until mid 1987, when the numbering reached 9,999,999. Please note, some examples (primarily from around 1959), did feature the Roman Numeral and a 4-digit year (i.e. July-September) of 1953-this code continued until around 1970. Therefore, the code 'III 53' would represent the 3 rd quarter (i.e. The numbers simply represented the two-digit year in which the watch was produced. The Roman numerals were I, II, III, IV, which represented which quarter of the year the watch was produced. While it was originally believed that this resequence started over at 100,000, or even 20,000, but evidence suggests that it actually restarted at 10,000 or possibly lower.Īround this same time, Rolex had initiated another dating system-They stamped the inside of the case back with a code consisting of a Roman numeral and two numbers. Around 1953, the numbers reached the 999,999 mark, at which time Rolex decided against adding a 7 th digit, thus continuing into the 'millions'-Instead, they started the sequence over. This numbering system was originally believed to have started at 20,000, however earlier numbers have surfaced shooting holes in this theory. In 1927, Rolex began issuing every Rolex Oyster case a unique serial number to distinguish them from one another.

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