I recently liquidized a fair portion of my vintage Seiko watch collection to acquire my first steel vintage Rolex - 1967 Rolex reference 1603 Sigma Linen dial. I chose it specifically for the "rare" combination of 1603-specific stainless steel machined bezel (most DateJusts have the white gold fluted bezel; reference 1601), pie-pan textile-like "linen" dial (most DateJusts do not have textured dials), and white gold "Sigma" indices and hands (most DateJusts have steel indices and hands). I like the utilitarian look and resilience of an all-steel DateJust (especially on an Oyster bracelet with the discretion (and corrosion resistance) of white gold hands and indices:
During my pre-acquisition search phase, I saw a Chrono24 ad calling a linen dial a "rare piece" and speculated what the definition of "rare piece" is. After some thought, I defined "rare" as:
A watch I can expect to see "once-or-less-in-a-lifetime" by chance
...and had a basis to determine whether the combination 1603+Sigma+Linen is rare - or not.
I started with the date range of 160X four-digit Datejusts (1960 to 1979) and the serial numbers starting and ending this range (0,5M to 5.7M) for all references which gave 5M pieces produced, assumed (optimistically) 40% of all Rolexes made in this period were DateJusts (2M 16XX) produced of which half (1M) remain. I then checked Chrono24 to see the distribution of the various 160X references and dial types: 30% were 1603s, 4% 1603 Sigma, 3% 1603 Linen and 0.4% were 1603 Sigma + Linen dials.
So - are the 4.000 remaining 1603 Sigma+Linen dials "rare" (by my definition)?
Well, assuming 8B people globally and 4000 1603 Sigma+Linen dials, my calculation suggests there will be 2 million people for every 1603 Sigma+Linen (or 3 in Denmark -pop.6M - where I live). I asked Google how many people faces (or in this context - watch faces :-) I will see in a lifetime (ie. be within eye-identification-of-the-watch-on-their-wrist distance) and the estimate was 1,5M people. And with that, we have the number of 1603s I can expect to see in a lifetime as:
(1603: 56; 1603 Sigma: 8; 1603 Linen: 6 and 1603 Sigma+Linen: 0.75)
From this, I deduce that there might be 3 or so 1603 Sigma+Linen dials in Denmark (population about 6 million) but I'll be lucky to see one in a chance encounter in my lifetime...
Of course, I'll now probably see a 1603 Sigma+Linen dial in the queue in Aldi tomorrow, and another next Thursday... I'll keep you posted!
