Rolex logo or specialty dials from the past (Updated) (ongoing project)

Rolex Specialty dials (special logos on Rolex dials or Special additional writings on the dial) were made from the 1950s to the 1990s.  Then Rolex stopped making them.  I have compiled a lot of different specialty dials over the past 15 years and plan to use this blogpost to rely on its Readers for further dials to be provided which I do not present over here.  Your support is paramount to keep this Project going to show all the different Rolex logo dials from the past 50 or more years.  I am looking Forward to your participation.  Meanwhile, enjoy the Pictures I already have.  If you can contribute, please do not hesitate to contact me on my email above.

Rolex issued a catalogue of their customized dials in the 1980s/90s.  Afaik, there were two separate catalogues, one for Rolex, and one for Tudor.  I have been searching for These catalogues, but to date I could not find them.  If anyone has them and likes to part with them, please contact me.

Last but not least, if you click here, you find a load of customized dial Pictures.

I do not know anything about this dial, the source is written in the picture:

Below is an Anheuser Busch logo dial,

(Busch Rolex specialty dial courtesy of Ben)

And here is another Busch Anheuser beer company Dial:

(Source: unknown, possibly Ebay)

This is the logo of Anheuser Busch:

(Anheuser Busch Logo courtesy of Carl)

Specialty dials include famous names of jewelers such as Serpico Y Laino,

(Courtesy of Ben)

Serpico y Laino is considered by some the Tiffany of Venezuela (Serpico Y Laino)

Tiffany in the USA:

(Source: unknown, Internet, possibly ebay?)

The Advertising showing the Tiffany Rolex watch is not only great proof for the existence of such watches.

Tiffany imprinted Rolex timepieces can be found on Submariner, Daytona, Datejust, and possibly other models as well.

I also have a comparison of a fake Tiffany print to an authentic Tiffany print.  Take a look below:

The print on the Daytona above is not authentic.  However, the two prints below are authentic.

(Source of above last Picture either myself or not known)

and Cartier:

(Source: Antiquorum)

And a closeup of the Cartier logo dial above:

(Same source as above, I modified the Picture)

Another Jeweler is Joyeria Riviera, a Cuban Rolex authorized dealer, has his Name printed on Rolexes from the 1950s:

(Picture courtesy of Alessandro Torti and Facebook)

There is another interesting report here.
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Many other companies such as oil companies, diving companies and more had Rolex specialty dials, and sometimes watches with these specialty dials turn out to be extremely valuable, such as Comex dials for example.

Most of the Pictures I am showing in this post are either from myself, or from my friends with permission, however, some Pictures I may have collected from the Internet over the years and do not know their respective owners.  Should you find your Picture here, please contact me, and I would be grateful if you grant me permission, and if you do not, I will obviously remove them.

This is what I have sofar, the list is not alphabetically ordered:

Coca Cola, this is one dial with Coca Cola imprint I know of, but I know of another one as well which was a dial put into the Gold Ref. 6085, a watch given to employees for 25 years employment at Coca Cola.

(Source: Internet)

It looks like over the decades, many different Rolexes were given to Coca Cola employees.  The above has to be a quite early one.

This is another Coca Cola Dial Rolex:

(Picture found on Ebay)  This watch is a reference 1003, with Coca Cola inscription on the dial.  Years ago I had another Gold Rolex with Coca Cola inscription, it was a reference 6085.  I wish I could another one…

Honda.  Need I say more?  Cool dial for a Honda Driver.

Tide.  Well, we all know the detergent.

Thunderbirds dial, a USAF squadron (Thunderbirds).

While this dial bears apparently some controversy among collectors, it has the proper provenance from the U.S. air force and is a Thunderbird dial. It has the history and provenance which can be proven and truly Comes from an air force Pilot…

(Above dials courtesy of Ben)

There is a great post on The Purist with a ton of Pictures.

Domino’s Pizza has given Rolex watches to their most successful franchisees in the past, and These watches had the Domino’s Pizza Logo on the dials until the later 1990s.  Then Rolex stopped the logo imprint, and nowadays, the logo is only on the bracelet.  In der Regel hat Domino’s Pizza Rolex Airking Modelle vergeben.

(Source from Internet)

Lafayette Oil Tourney:

(photo courtesy of Ben)

Cotton bowl: Afaik, Cotton Bowl was printed on Rolexes for a period of about 3-4 years, starting in the late 1960s, I think I have seen even 1967?  Anybody can confirm this?

(Source: unknown, Internet, maybe Ebay?)

Great to find the advertisement which deliver proof of these watches with such dials.

Rolex Wynn Dixie logo: An american Supermarket chain.

(Source: unknown)

Rolex medicine logo:

(Courtesy of Ben)

Rolex Intairdrill logo, I have written about the Story behind this dial extensively in my blog, take a look here:

Rolex tomcat Felix logo:  This is what Wikipedia has to say about this US Military airforce unit.  A sticker with the same logo can be found on Ebay at the Moment, it is not my auction, just found it by accident.

(Source: Ebay years ago)

Dow Corning is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Midland, Michigan, USA. Dow Corning specializes in silicone and silicon-based technology, offering more than 7,000 products and services.(Source: Google)´

The dial is still a Tritium dial.  Must have been made in the 1990s:

(Source: Internet)

GRAMCO  must have been the real estate fund and Investment Company founded in 1970.  Back in the days, they were the largest real estate Investment fund in the world.  I am not sure where they stand nowadays.  The dial has seen better days, but is a great relic from the time:

(Source: Ebay)

Different arab Country crest dials, Military dials primarily from Country in the far east:

This dial is one from Libya?
I found it on two auctions, one from Sothebys and one from Antiquorum.  Both auction houses described it as being from two different countries, one said UAE, the other Libya.  According to below comment by Carlo, whose father bought one like it in Libya, I think it is safe to confirm that it is a Libyan crest.

Take a look, what are your thoughts?

(Source: Antiquorum and Sothebys)

This is an Ultra rare GMT with UAE Maktoom dial, the Name of the ruling Family in Dubai.  Back then, Maktoom was Minister of defense I believe.  I am not sure how many of These exist, but this is the only one which my friend Ben was able to Show me a Picture of, thanks, Ben.

Below is a Saudi Arab crest dial. This logo represents the Saudi Navy. Watches like this were usually given to members of Royalty or People who were Close to Royalty or who were highranking officers in the military.

(Source: Internet)

Below is a Bahrain dial, watches like this were usually given to members of the roval Family or People who are friends or have worked for them.  Interesting enough, this dial does not have Tritium which you can tell from the Swiss Made at 6 o’clock.  I wonder if Rolex still made this dial?

(Source: Internet)

Oman dial below, made for the Omani royal Family.

Initially, we thought that the below is a royal Saudi-Arabia coat of arms Rolex dial commissioned by the Saudi royal Family, and it was assumed that it was King Saud.

And here is another Saudi Airlines dial:

The above dial is in the 1970s Rolex ref. 1603 while the dial above this one is in a 1980s timepiece.  Source of this watch is courtesy of Martin.

Here comes another dial below: While we initially thought it comes from Saudi Aramco, the oil Company, another collector, Ted, gave me the hint that this dial may represents “Saudi Arabia Federal University”.  Well, this has to be correct now as Mahmoud wrote to me what is written on the dial:

King Abdulaziz University written in the bottom, it is based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Another dial, from a company called Albilad, based most likely in Saudi Arabia. However, I cannot find a company that was founded at the time this dial must have been made. So there is an open question about the company? What I can find, but it states that the company was founded in 2004, is this. Let me know if you know anything more about it.

Today, January 1st of 2018, is a good day as Mahmoud, a Saudi Rolex collector, lifted the secret of this dial:

The logo represents the Albilad hotel based in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.  Big thank you to Mahmoud.

Here you see pictures of the Albilad Hotel in Jeddah:

(Photos courtesy of Mahmoud, I do not know the original owner.)

– Kuwait: This is a gift from the Emir of Kuwait to Brigadier Wickenden in 1973 for services in assisting the Kuwaiti Army with letter of provenance from his son. A wide boy Datejust with Kuwaiti Army military crest!

(Source: Jason Graham of http://sweepinghand.co.uk/)

I have more dials on my harddrive, but this is a start.  I will keep completing it as I go along, and any help from my Readers on this Topic is greatly appreciated.  Keep it coming.  More soon.

All of the above dials with inscription and logos were customized dials from Rolex.  However, there are dials which were not made with Rolex permission nor by Rolex.

One of them is the socalled Scull & Bones Rolex.  Unfortunately, I do not have a Picture of it, but it definately was not made by Rolex.  A discussion about it can be found in the German RLX Forum.

I remember a Hulk Submariner with inscriptions and logo issued to the 40th anniversary of the foundation of the UAE which definately was not made by Rolex either.  I previously wrote about it in my blog.

Source: unknown

To continue the Saudi crest dials, here are two Datejusts, one was owned by myself once and is the in the hands of a good friend and the other one is courtesy of one of my readers in Brazil, Romero.

It is great to see two watches with this logo and both in the same configuration.  Further proof that they are absolutely original.

So this is the latest specialty dial that was sent to me.  It is a masonic emblem.  This is what I found about this emblem (be warned, it is in German but google can translate it), I am sure, masons know more and I would appreciate it if any masons own this watch and contact me.  Would love to find out more about the background and if anyone received this watch from Rolex directly or through an authorized dealer?

The emblem has a square and a compass.  The “G” stands for god.  This is the typical masonic symbol and you can find lots of them as emblems for cars or on rings for sale on Ebay.  Here you see more detail about this emblem:

This picture comes from the above mentioned German website.

Another one today, December 11, 2017:

(picture taken from Old World Jewelers in Chicago, thank you)

There are more dials to come.

This looks like a more modern Winn Dixie dial.  Looks legit to me.  Interesting to see this and how the logo evolved since the 1970s.  This watch seems a 1980s watch.  Could be even 1990s.  Sometime in the 1990s Rolex is known to have stopped making specialty dials.

Below is a strange dial dial, it was auctioned off by Hess Fine Auctions.  Not sure which company the P or I stands for, so this would be interesting to find out?

This is a fake dial below:

(Fake or redial)

It is so cheaply and poorly done, Rolex would never have done such poor work on the dial.  While the rest of the watch may be authentic, this dial definately is fake.

So here comes a cool dial, Ducks Unlimited:

I am not 110% sure about this dial, but I assume it is fine, the quality looks very good and precise.  Ducks Unlimited is an American not for profit organization which is dedicated to the conservation of the wetlands and wildlife. The picture was taken from a watch that was offered for sale on Chrono24 some years ago.  I do not know the exact source unfortunately.

I must say that specialty dials are becoming more and more adventurous and that it is getting harder and harder to tell if they are legit or not.  This dial above is one I have no idea what the story behind it is, so I am hoping that someone who reads this will be able to tell me more?  Could it be a reference to the Automatic teller machines or to Adobe Type Manager?  I don’t know.  It could be a company that noone has ever heard of or anything else?  Let’s see.  Source unknown.

Michael from the US wrote me today about this dial and cleared it up.

The logo is fromTexas A&M University. The school color is maroon (hence the dial color).  Great thanks to Michael.

Dial for the Saudi Fund of Development.  Looks all legit. Source unknown.

Totally legit specialty dial, sold by a friend.  Anybody knows what the logo is representing?

(The eagle is quite popular, so I wanted to add this one.  I do not remember where I found this, sorry if I cannot mention the originator, let me know if it is you)

Below is a Rolex GMT 1675 with a logo dial of Arkansas Best Corporation (Nasdaq – ARCB)

And another interesting dial:

 Ref. 6694 Oysterdate with Qatar emblem dial. The serial is 8,94X,XXX (1985/86 range), issued by the government of Quatar, coming from a first owner who used to work for the Quatar government and is a Mexican citizen.

The logo represents the House of Al Thani (Qatar’s ruling family) coat of arms.  The text underneath means in translation “Khalifa ruling family of Qatar”.

Two more dials before the year 2017 comes to an end.

Halliburton, Houston based multinational american corporation delivering oilfield services, on a 1980s Rolex dial.  First time I see this, courtesy of Jose.

And another company from Texas, this time Dallas: Linz, a former Rolex authorized dealer in Dallas who has been long out of business but lived through a time when Texas was the largest Rolex market in the world, a time when Rolex was comparatively small compared to nowadays.

Courtesy of Dirk.

Abound Linz, you can find some stories on the internet which I like to share with you:

First from the VRF.

Second from a Phillips auction. 

Auction result at Phillips.

And the story of Mr. Poston.

Fourth a link to a forum discussion.

Here is one from my friend Balthasar.  A Datejust made for the coach of the “Houston Cougars”, the famous football team.

I saved so many different specialty and logo dials on my laptop and it is really difficult to figure them all out.  I may need help from other collectors.  So I will email my updated blogpost to some of them to see if they can clarify some open questions…

I will keep uploading more dials as I go along.

I wanted to say something to my readers, especially of this blogpost as this contribution gets by far the most emails and feedback.  I greatly appreciate your comments, pictures, knowledge sharing and support.  This keeps growing and that is great.  Keep it coming.  Thank you.

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