What Is Rolex Sapphire Crystal

When shopping for older rolex crystals you may find both the acrylic resin and sapphire varieties but if youre shopping for a new rolex watch crystal youll likely just encounter the more durable synthetic acrylic resin.

What is rolex sapphire crystal.

These crystals can only be scratched by diamonds or other minerals graded as a 10 on the hardness scale. The fact is that the crystal is one of the parts that is the most subject to an outside force stress and potentially dangerous situations. Rolex sapphire crystal and other glass. Now let s talk a little bit about rolex crystals and what the evolution has looked like.

Please keep in mind that rolex is a fantastic company but they have lots of overhead and expenses. The 2008 second unveil is a much better upgrade from the 1967 version rolex named it the rolex sea dweller deepsea. When the sea dweller was launched in 1967 it was one of rolex s first attempt at water resistant sapphire crystal technology. 16800 and eventually began equipping all their watches with it.

His cost before shipping is 1487. Furthermore they state that the process of manufacturing the green crystal takes several weeks. Today all contemporary rolex watches use sapphire crystal. A synthetic sapphire crystal is resistant to scratches easy to read and requires little maintenance.

Many of our customers with older rolex watches ask if we can replace their acrylic crystals with synthetic sapphire crystals like the ones that rolex uses on their new watches. They also want to replace his perfectly good band for another 500. Finally in the early 1980s rolex used sapphire crystals on the submariner ref. Synthetic sapphire crystals are extremely hard with diamond only being harder on the moths scale and incredibly clear.

If rolex has to replace a sapphire crystal they require a complete watch service because of the high probability of crystal shrapnel landing inside the movement potentially causing major damage. Now all rolex watches feature the sapphire crystal. By 1991 the rolex perpetual was the last watch to possess a acrylic crystal. Some may be skeptical about this but when making synthetic sapphire the material has to grow and this process takes several weeks and cannot be sped up.

Although every watch in rolex s current catalog is now fitted with a sapphire crystal rolex does not manufacture sapphire crystals for use on older watches. Rolex does not like the fact that he altered the watch and will only do the repair if he gets a new genuine dial for 510.