Rolex Milgauss GV

I think the Milgauss was the second or third pre-owned Rolex that I bought when I started building my watch collection a few years ago. It was the crystal that attracted me to this watch. The green sapphire makes the dial appear almost brown when you look at it from an angle.

Bob’s Watches has a great history of the Milgauss. I suggest you check it out. As the story goes, while most Rolex watches are designed for those involved in sports (like racing, diving), some are also designed for professionals. The Milgauss is one of them – designed for people who might be around prolonged magnetic interference during the day. Think doctors (MRIs), engineers, scientists.

And it’s a pretty new line for Rolex, compared to the others. The first Milgauss watches came out of Switzerland in 1956 and saw some updates in the 1960s and 1970s. But in 1988, Rolex discontinued the line, until about two decades later in 2007, it re-released the Milgauss as 11640. Mine is the 11640V, which includes the green sapphire crystal.

While there are some people who don’t appreciate the orange “lightening bolt” seconds hand (and the orange applied markers at 3, 6 and 9), I like them. A lot. Interestingly, the orange markers and the white markers at the other hours have blue and green lume, respectively, so the watch looks pretty neat at night as well. It’s not the brightest glow – as the green sapphire does cut the brightness a bit.

One interesting tidbit about the 11640V. This Rolex is one of the very few to not include one of the newer counterfeit measures you see on modern Rolex. Most Rolex have a laser-inscribed crown right on the sapphire at the 6:00 mark. Because of the treatment to give this crystal the green tint, that feature is NOT included on this model. But all of the other measures (laser inscribed rehaut, serial number rehaut, etc.) are all there.

In conclusion, I like this Rolex because, well, it doesn’t immediately look like a Rolex.

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