Blue watch, gold crown: Rolex 16613
For some strange reason I have always thought
that Rolex 16613 winding crown is made out of solid 18K gold.
You too? Really? Small world...
Well have a closer look then. The guinea pig
is Rolex crown removed from 16613 Sub (W serial).
... and here is the close-up:
Very strange indeed. The crown is actually not a solid piece at all!
It is actually a 'gold cap' over some other metal...
... which does not really look like gold at all :-(
The top layer weighs just over 0.2 gram.
So what is the base metal? Maybe just a lower carat gold?
Let's test it !
Small amount of metal dust from gold cap and crown body is
taken as sample. Plus an amount of brass as control
material - from a brass clock key :-)
To test the metal for it's gold content apply a drop of 'carat' test acid and watch for the chemical reaction.
If the metal dust is 'eaten away' then it does not contain gold.
In our case the top 'cap' layer is 18K gold.
Unfortunately for goold lovers the rest of the crown is not made
out of gold at all.
Conclusion: since the total weight of base metal and 18K gold cap
is 0.672 gram, the amount of pure 18k gold in Rolex Sub crown
is approximately 33.6 %.
But is this good or bad news?
If the crown was made entirely of solid gold, then the locking
tread would be way too soft - which could possibly compromise
water resistance of your Submariner.
Update: here is the comment received from a Rolex serviceman:
In order to confirm above statement, I have examined the latest model crown .
Crown removed from of Y5 serial 16613.
The new crown (monobloc) certainly looks different than the old one. However, in this case monobloc is fancy name for something that is .... hmmm.. how to put it...HOLLOW. Although the crown is made of solid 18K gold, it is really very lightweight.
I would hate to rip this one apart, but it is obvious that the gold mass is still under 1 gram. Hardly a MONOBLOCK to me.
Feel free to email your comments.
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