Safe Queen : Rolex Datejust Model No. 1601 - part 1

It has been a busy morning and afternoon bringing Alex for his co-curricular activities around Damansara and Puchong. Finally, he is now doing his homework and I have a little bit of time to be on the computer.

Going through previous postings, I saw 2 comments left for a posting i.e. 1972 Vintage Rolex Datejust Model No. 1601 made sometime in April 2014. I had then been bitten by the vintage watch bug and was looking for a vintage Submariner or Datejust to add into my collection, and chanced upon this excellent example from a fellow collector and paid a small princely sum of RM10,688 for it.

Apparently, this Steve Robinson was a big fan of this vintage model no. 1601 and was pretty interested in my watch. And from the site that he referred to, I Googled a bit and found that good examples were really being sold at quite a premium overseas. Vintage seemed to be much more of a rage there compared to locally.

After the currency conversion, that's a cool RM21,500 for a 1973 vintage Rolex Datejust 1601 over there. And to think that I just paid 50% of that value to get my minty 1972 vintage Rolex Datejust 1601 in this part of the world.

I haven't seen that old girl for a while actually, so I went to retrieve her from the safe. She's a thorough safe queen alright, still in the condition as the day I bought her to join my collection- perhaps slightly better in fact, as I had sent her to my Dad's fellow watch smith friend whose shop used to a former Rolex AD. He had inspected the watch for me, serviced it and confirmed to me that it was a genuine watch with all its original parts intact. And he gave me the thumbs-up that it was a good example, and remarked that she's a keeper alright. And after that, I had placed her into the safe.

Till today.

Her time was still accurate despite being placed on a winder for 3 months now, and I duly took out my polishing cloth to give her a quick rub. Then, I whipped out my phone to snap a couple of current shots as per the following :

I still think that the old gal's a beauty, and very well-preserved for a 42 year old watch. I guess that's why we pay top dollars for Rolex's quality.

But after purchasing the Tudor Black Bay Burgundy Red (launched during Baselworld 2012), I must admit that I have been thinking about getting the Monte Carlo Chrono Blue (Baselworld 2013) and Black Bay Midnight Blue (Baselworld 2014). In fact, I wrote about related watches some time back @ Tudor Chrono Blue and Vintage Snowflake.

If I could free up some funds from this old gal, I could then get one of the pieces above sooner rather than latter. In fact, the very same piece in the Monte Carlo Blue pictured above is up on the market; and from what the owner told me, should be in minty condition and hardly-worn as he was mainly overseas while the watch was in his friend's safe-keeping in Malaysia. To say that I am tempted to take this off his hand would be an understatement.

Decision decision decision...

To be continued @ http://andywristwatches.blogspot.com/2014/08/safe-queen-rolex-datejust-model-no-1601_10.html.