Had to share this gem...
Discussion
BrabusMog said:
I can't open the advert, what is the Rolex/Domino's connection?
Domino’s Pizza Air King with original papersThis is a model 14000 sapphire glass Air King with the Dominos Pizza logo on the silver dial which has its original papers. The papers give the name of the buyer as ‘Dominos Pizza’ and are dated in July 1997.
These were given to certain store managers in the US who exceeded their sales targets by a large amount.
The history of the Air King is not well known, so I shall give a brief summary. After WWII, Rolex revised the whole of their range after the introduction of the Datejust as their new top of the line model.
Several new models were introduced and many others were renamed, the Oyster Royal remained as the most expensive manual wind model, but now that the Perpetual was well established it no longer was a top of the line watch. Before WWII, Rolex had always been the favourite watch of long distance flyers and the fact that it had become the watch of choice for Battle of Britain fighter pilots made an impression on Hans Wilsdorf. He chose to honour these flyers with a new line of manual wind Oysters; they were new because (like the new Datejust) they were much larger than the previous manual wind watches, in order to fit in with the new look. In fact we would now consider them quite small; they were 32 to 33mm diameter.
The new range of watches bore the names “Air Tiger”, “Air Lion”; Air Giant” and “Air King”; they all used the legendary 10.5 hunter manual wind movement with 15 jewels and no shock protection on the balance staff. The Air Giant was the largest of the 4 watches and like the rest, was available in steel, steel & gold or low carat (9 or10k depending on the market) gold.
These watches remained in production from about 1958 to the early 1950s but never really proved popular and were dropped from the catalogues. Only the Air King remained and that gained an automatic movement. Since then the Air King has kept its place in the Rolex catalogue as the least expensive gent’s Oyster Perpetual.
The case is 95% and the dial and movement are both 95+%.
The watch measures 34mm Diam, 42mm lug to lug, it is 12mm high, it takes a 19mm band and the original heavy Oyster one, with 11 links is fitted.
king hate my employer if they gave me a nice watched, ruined with their logo...
There's always been a market for these.
It's a Rolex, of which only a limited amount were produced. That's enough for the blinkered collectors to get excited about.
Granted, it's not as interesting as the Sultan of Oman giving a Submariner to you and your platoon for knocking off some baddy or other.
If I sound like I'm defending it, I'm not, It's just buying one wouldn't be dead money. At some point small cases will be back in fashion, and this will continue to rise in value.
You could even try and blag the local Dominoes that you are entitled to free pizzas for life.
It's a Rolex, of which only a limited amount were produced. That's enough for the blinkered collectors to get excited about.
Granted, it's not as interesting as the Sultan of Oman giving a Submariner to you and your platoon for knocking off some baddy or other.
If I sound like I'm defending it, I'm not, It's just buying one wouldn't be dead money. At some point small cases will be back in fashion, and this will continue to rise in value.
You could even try and blag the local Dominoes that you are entitled to free pizzas for life.
Gassing Station | Watches | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff