Story: Die weisse GMT

[vblank]

Spitzebericht, George! Danke für die Mühe...

Gruss, Valentin

[Peter 5513]

Sehr schöner Beitrag. Thanx Georg.

Peter

[Der Stahlmann]

klasse Bericht

[Der Goldmann]

Da könnte ich ewig weiterlesen!

Gruß Olli

[Der Stahlmann]

hat denn schon jemand so eine seltene GMT in den Händen gehabt??

[Pretender82]

Schön geschrieben und sehr interessant!
Vielen Dannk!

[GeorgB]

stahlman

... man kennt einen, der jemand kennt, der schion eine gesehen hat ...

[ehemaliges mitglied]

Quasi der heilige Gral!

[fliplock_frans]

echt spannend, danke!

[LV Futzel]

mfg bernd

[THX_Ultra]

Grossartige Story George!
Das erinnert mich, dass ich damals bei Catch me if you can ganze Zeit auf Leonardo Di Caprios Handgelenk gestarrt, und eine GMT zu erblicken gehofft habe

[ehemaliges mitglied]

George,

Cool gemacht, danke fürs einstellen. Ich, als Neuling wusste gar nicht so genau wie die Uhr entstanden ist. Wieder was gelernt.

Danke!

Gruß,
István

[GMT - MASTER]

...ich weiß schon warum ich GMT trage

Schön erzählt :gut

[instantliving]

schliesse mich dem jubel hiermit an:

das war eine spannende story schön erzählt. schade, dass die bilder alle so verwaschen sind.

könntest du die scans, auch den letzten "gmt und pan am" uns nochmal in bestmöglicher qualität zukommen lassen?

ich würde mir diese gerne ausdrucken und rahmen lassen.

schönes (rest-)wochenende zusammen

[walti]

Hallo,

vielen Dank für diese schöne geschichte, endlich wieder mal ein beitrag mit inhaltlicher Substanz und kein Bussi-Bussi Geschwätz.

Um mal ganz ehrlich zu sein: Eine GMT mit weissem ZB würde sogar mir ausgesprochen gut gefallen.

Vielleicht kommt rolex ja irgendwann mal auf die Idee eine Serie mit weissem ZB aufzulegen, dann wäre ich auch dabei.

Gruss an alle Rolexianer und Uhrenfreunde

Walti

In Memoriam:Wastel,3.3.93-13.12.04

[ehemaliges mitglied]

...und für alle Sportie-Fans mit weißen-Zifferbaltt-Ambitionen gibt es ja die EX II

[Zarathustra]

Sehr interessanter Beitrag, vielen Dank
Hat mich gleich zu einer Spende angeregt

[Edmundo]

George, Danke für die Story. Schön zu lesen und mit Informationsgehalt (wenn es sich wohl auch auf Gerüchten aufbaut). Aber genau DAS macht die Sache so spannend.

Von mir bekommst Du dafür

[Smile]

... und da ich langsam zum grössten gmt verehrer mutiere ...



GMT Master

Due to the unprecedented success, that met the introduction the Rolex Sports models, it came as know surprise when the world's largest airline Pan-Am commissioned a watch to be designed which was specific to their needs, enabling their pilots to keep track of time in two locations.

In conjunction with Pan-Am.'s Captain Frederick Libby (a decorated World War II veteran and one of the airlines most respected navigators), Rene-Paul Jeanneret devised the concept of a watch with an additional hour hand, which revolved once every 24 hours and a rotatable bezel marked with those same 24 hours. The watch itself was a typical Rolex product, it was simply a regular 6202 "Turn-O-Graph" with a different bezel and the 1030 movement normally fitted to Turn-O-Graphs which had an additional 24 hour driving wheel and a calendar disk; this, and the fact that the movement was now chronometer certified, allowed Rolex to give the movement a new reference number, 1065.

The external look of the watch was very similar to the contemporary Turn-O-Graph and Submariner; it was still quite a slim watch and without the crown protecting "shoulders", looked considerably smaller than the current model. The GMT Master was also important in that it was one of the first Rolex model to feature the new "Cyclops" lens from the introduction of the watch. These first GMT models (ref. 6542) are immediately recognised by the bright plastic bezel insert. This plastic (bakelite) bezel insert was the first item to be changed in 1956, giving way to a metal insert with the numbers now screen-printed. These new bezels were less likely to crack than the earlier plastic ones but were much more likely to fade in bright sunlight.

Due to Pan-Am.'s ever increasing fleet of Boeing 707s the vast majority of the early watches produced went to the company, each plane had a Pilot, a First Officer and a Navigator all of whom were issued with GMT Masters and Pan-Am had several hundred crews all issued with a company GMT Master. These watches bore no company logo; no "Property of" markings and no special dials, apart from one strange bunch of 100+ watches made in 1958 especially to solve a problem inside the airline's Chrysler Building head office (they did not move to the new Pan-Am building until the early 1960s). The problem was simply that as the watches arrived in the head office before being sent off to the field offices for issue to the flight crew, senior management, who felt that they, rather than the flight crews, were the ones who deserved a new company Rolex, would requisition them. This happened on a regular basis until one day Juan Trippe, the mercurial head of Pan-Am glimpsed one of the watches on the wrist of an executive and wanted to know why it was not on the wrist of a pilot. The situation was explained to him; the pilots had everything, the gold braid, the titles, and the brand new Boeing jets and now they even got great watches. The executives felt shunned; they saw themselves as the basis of the company's success but felt they were being treated as second-class citizens. Tripe did not like the situation and ordered that all the GMT Masters in the building should be returned to the operation department for subsequent issue to flight crews. However to mollify the executives Trippe had Rolex manufacture a batch of 100+ GMT Masters solely for the "desk pilots"; these differed from the flight crew (and all other) GMT Masters in that they had white dials. They are believed to be the only GMTs made with this colour dial, the order proved a godsend to Rolex as they made these watches in 1959 with the last of the old model 6542 cases; for the new model was waiting in the wings.

The new model (1675) proved to be such a success model, unlike the Submariner, it continued almost unchanged for around 25 years. It now featured crown protecting "shoulders", silver printing on the dial, rather than the gilt colour used on the 6542, and the dial itself was now inscribed "Superlative Chronometer Officially Certified", rather than just "Officially Certified Chronometer" as on the 6542. The watch was powered by the new 1565 calibre which featured the free sprung "Micro Stella" balance; this new base calibre (1530) was capable of much greater accuracy than the earlier movements and was subsequently fitted into all Rolex models.

Although the watch had been made to a Pan-Am requirement many other pilots came to depend on the watch; particularly military pilots who kept the rotating bezel at “12”, thereby enabling the watch to give them both civilian and military (or 24 hour) time. Amongst the pilots who came to rely on the GMT Masters most, where those chosen by NASA to fly the North American X 15.

One of those pilots, Pete Knight, wrote to Rolex after completing a successful flight.

“I finally flew on October 3, 1967 to a speed of 4,534 mph (7,269 kph) or Mach 6.72 and all systems functioned properly with the exception of some local heating damage on the lower ventral. I have been wearing my Rolex GMT-Master for a period of months now and have calibrated it to within a few seconds a day”

The throwaway phrases “Mach 6.72” and “some local heating damage on the lower ventral” disguised the real facts. Knight had flown the X-15 to a world record speed that still stands over 30 years later and had brought the plane home after temperatures later determined to have been above 1650°C (3000°F) burned a ramjet engine off its pylon and seared a hole measuring 18 by 8 centimetres into the ventral fin's leading edge. An air scoop effect channelled hot air into the lower fuselage and damaged the propellant jettison system meaning that Knight eventually had to land the plane 680 kilograms heavier than planned because he could not jettison the residual fuel. If the heat had damaged the craft's hydraulics, Knight might have had to abandon the plane. Fortunately, that did not happen. Knight landed at Edwards Air Force Base with the plane resembling burnt firewood. It seems amazing that the plane made it and even more so that despite acceleration of more than 3.5G the Rolex GMT Master on his wrist also performed perfectly. The other X-15 pilots also wrote to Rolex about their watches but the story of Pete Knight’s final flight is perhaps the most interesting.

It is worth noting that while Knight wore a Rolex GMT Master on his world record flight he was following in the grand tradition of Edwards Air Force Base, for it was there in 1947 that Chuck Yeager first broke the “Sound Barrier” in a Bell X-1 and did so wearing a Rolex Oyster; the same one he had worn all through World War II.

The company perceived the GMT almost solely as a pilots watch. The 1960’s brochure for the watch even included the following instructions for pilots on how to use the watch as an emergency compass. "In the Northern Hemisphere the Rolex GMT-Master may also be used as a compass. Simply point the hour hand towards the sun and automatically the red 24-hour hand will point to the North! Try it...! In the Southern Hemisphere it will point to the South." Whilst it had been the introduction of the Boeing 707 that had caused Pan Am to commission the GMT Master, it was the people who flew on them as passengers who became the main customers for the watch. With the introduction of jet travel, many people were now travelling between countries and of course between time zones. For these new international travellers the GMT Master was the answer to their prayers; however it was the use by these people, which was the impetus for the next changes in the GMT Master. The fact was that anyone rich enough to travel by aeroplane in the 1960s was rich enough to afford a gold (not a steel) watch; and so in answer to this demand Rolex began to make the GMT Master in both 18k gold and in two tone. Interestingly the gold version came first and used the (by now) retired model number 6442 and was "shoulderless" whilst the new two tone version retained the same model number as before (1675) but both were distinguished by their new brown coloured dials and bezels; these watches first hit the market in late 1963. A little known fact is that these brown dial GMT Masters were the very first Rolex watches to have the luminous indices inside gold circles; a feature now seen on all Rolex sport watches. Probably as little known is the fact that the metal circles on the dials of steel watches are actually white gold, not steel.

As I said before; the concept of the GMT Master was so perfect that there was almost no need for different versions and models; the word “almost” is used because there was one variation of the GMT Master, but one that no-one sees as a GMT Master; that variation is the Explorer II. The only difference between the GMT Master and the Explorer II is that the Explorer II has a fixed bezel, whilst the GMT Master has a revolving one; the Explorer II is the only other Rolex model to use the calibre 1575 movement. Because the Explorer II offered only civilian and military time, rather than two time zones, it proved much less useful to customers and so never sold as widely as the GMT Master. Ironically, it is this relative unpopularity that has made the Explorer II one of the rarest and collectable of all 1970’s Rolex models. The design philosophy behind Rolex was always one of gradual improvement of an existing product, rather than changing the complete watch, as many other makers would do. We see this process perfectly when we examine the small, incremental changes to the GMT Master in the 70’s and 80’s. Firstly from around 1976 the “hack” seconds feature was added and seven or eight years later the “quick-set” date feature arrived. Both of these features are interesting in that they were designed to make the watch easier to use and also that both of them increase the perceived accuracy of the watch; because if it is easy to synchronise the watch to a known time signal, then it is just as easy to compare it to any subsequent time signal. Similarly if the hands do not have to be moved to change the date on months without 31 days then the accuracy of the watch can be maintained without re-setting the time.

At the end of the 1980s the 1675 was replaced by two new models; the direct replacement was the model 16700 GMT Master which was the first steel GMT Master to be available with white gold circular settings for its luminous hour markers. The new introduction was the 16710 GMT Master II, this watch used the new calibre 3085 movement that allowed the hour hand to be moved forward or backwards in precise one hour jumps, this feat could be performed without losing the precise accuracy, which was usually the reason the watch was bought in the first place. The new GMT Master II was available in all metal combinations, whilst the 16700 GMT Master was only available in steel. Despite the introduction of many watches by various other manufacturers; all of which claim to be the aviator’s watch, the reality is that the GMT Master remains the ultimate timepiece for pilots and all those whose lifestyle requires knowledge of multiple time zones, no matter whether it is for international telephone calls or intercontinental travel.

Adapted by the London Watch Company from original text
©Write Time Partners V, 1999

[Pete-LV]

Klasse bericht ! Danke !


Smile !

Das noch in Deutsch und ich drucke es aus ! In meine Akte !