Rolex Oyster Perpetual Date

Why We Love it The Oyster Perpetuals of the 1960s and 1970s remain some of Rolex's best-loved timepieces. Elegant, with clean lines, the watches are nevertheless sturdy, coming in stainless steel or 18k yellow or pink gold. The Perpetual, Rolex cal. 1570, movement has a straight-line lever escapement and a Breguet balance spring. Meant to be worn every day, the Oyster Perpetual Date combines elegant looks with rugged dependability.  In a time when more and more brands are moving toward or, in most cases, returning to smaller case sizes, the Oyster Perpetual Date shines like a sensible beacon; at 35mm and a smooth bezel, the OPD wears incredibly well.  With its tidy proportions, the OPD challenges its larger Rolex brethren, offering an incredible bang for the buck. What with a workhorse automatic movement and date function and the classic wristfeel of a folded-link Jubilee, this Oyster is everything you need in a daily wearer, and nothing you don't. The Story Rolex first patented the Oyster case in 1925, but the quest for a waterproof and dust-proof case began shortly before the First World War. The cases of the Great War and the early 1920s came in two or three pieces with an inner case that shielded the movement (then a manual-wind movement) from the wet, dusty conditions of the battlefield. The Oyster case of 1925 represented the culmination of ten years of development. It gained notoriety in 1927, when Mercedes Gleitze became the first British woman to swim across the English Channel, wearing - you guessed it - a Rolex. A series of advertisements followed, featuring smiling flappers holding their Rolexes in fishtanks. As with the Oyster case, the Perpetual movement saw many iterations before finally being perfected in the 1930s. Rolex's first automatic movement quietly debuted in 1931, without the fanfare that followed the introduction of the Oyster case. The movement was met with some consternation from purists who decried the "extreme novelty" of a self-winding watch. Nevertheless, Rolex could see that they had struck gold with the Perpetual movement. They continued to develop and improve it over the years, establishing a line of watches that would stand as an alternative to Rolex's sportier models.   The Oyster Perpetuals of the 1960s and 1970s remain some of Rolex's best-loved timepieces. Elegant, with clean lines, the watches are nevertheless sturdy, coming in stainless steel or 18k yellow or pink gold. The Perpetual, Rolex cal. 1570, movement has a straight-line lever escapement and a Breguet balance spring. Meant to be worn every day, the Oyster Perpetual Date combines elegant looks with rugged dependability.