Rolex Gmtmaster II 16710 “Stick Dial” And Little History

Rolex Gmtmaster II 16710 Coke Bezel “Stick Dial” as the title says this a classic from Rolex designed for pilots back in the 50’s and still go strong today probably much more loved than ever!!

The Gmtmaster has a long standing history which I will briefly make a few pointers on. Gmtmaster always aspired to pilots, cause of the functionality of the watch, 2 time zones for flying to countries and keeping track of local time. The Gmtmaster in-brief history all started with model 6542 which was a modified Rolex Turn-o-Graph (Ref 6202) with mods to the movement and bakelite Glowing bezel which rotated and that model is very rare and collectible today and was first seen in the James Bond Film GoldFinger on the character Pussy galore.

The Gmtmaster has had plenty of changes over the years since the 1950’s the firsts ones had gilt dials and used radium on the hour plots that glowed in the dark which still glow today 60 years on, as Radium is radioactive material but was used in small amounts of course.  Then in the 60’s Rolex moved on to matt dials with Tritium on the hour plots instead of radium which they used all the way up to 1999 and then moved on to Luminova which is used to present day.

The Gmtmaster charm is still there thou prices souring especially the really old vintage pieces after the 6542 came the 1675 which production run from 1959 to 1980 which was Matt dial with Tritium hour plots. The hacking feature started around 1971 hacking feature is the second stops on pulling the crown out as previous models the seconds hand run continuously when changing the time, after the 1675 came the 16750 model came with Matt dial also tritium plots with hacking feature which Rolex rolled out also the quickset date change. The older models never had this feature so date changing was a pain to correct the date.  But this model was transitional model where the rare early ones where matt dial then later ones glossy dial with tritium hour markers with white gold surrounds.

The next model was 16760 Gmtmaster II and was the first Gmtmaster II sapphire crystal, quickset date change, but with a fatter case and know as “fat lady” due to the fat case,  The next model was 16700 Gmtmaster which launched same time as the 16710 Gmtmaster II around 1988 but was cheaper version supposedly!

The 16710 Gmtmaster II which run for around 20 years and was the modern classic in every way Coke Bezel, Pepsi Bezel, Black Bezel etc… This particular one has a error on the dial which makes it special, the II on the dial after Gmtmaster has the top lines of the I missing and is seen on some dials between 2002 and 2007 upto when Rolex introduced 116710 Gmtmaster II Ceramic. Some of the later stick dials have the new 116710 movement which are thought to be rare to have hold of.