The look at unique Milgauss 1019

The Milgauss 1019 Rolex is a very unique watch.
Used by professionals working in highly magnetic atmospheres such as in nuclear industries which yielded a strong magnetic fields. A need came about to have a watch movement be able to handle these extreme conditions. Rolex was up to the challenge and created a iron cage to house and shield the caliber from any magnetic harm. A simple synopses of this model revels to us that only two dials were ever issued for this reference. A silver and black dial was the only chosen options a buyer had on this model.

The early models had the 1/5 hash markers on the dial, while later dials were changed over to a 1/2 hash markers. This dial is the rail dial version..Very rare to find a 1019 rail dial.

1/2 hash markers



1/2 hash markers


A picture of a rail and non rail 1019 dail.


rail dials


The 1019 featured two types of minute and hour hands. The early 1019 hands featured a gloss polished hour and minute hand built out of an antimagnetic material. The later hands had an aluminum matte textured hour and minute hand. Oddly enough the 1019 straight second hand with a red arrow tip and apparently been used on the early and later 1019 model run.

Three odd items which intrigued me were, the fact that the reference 1019 used a small 5.3 mm rather then the bigger 6.mm crown. As well as the large tropic # 32 crystal. One of the largest plastic Rolex diameter crystal in the Rolex family. I believe this case design housed the movement top iron plate and resulted in a bigger crystal to cover the extra case size. The last odd fact about the 1019 transpired in the "M" letter being stamped on the caliber plate, only found on the 1019 caliber.


The 1019 rotor bridge had a specific 1580 stamp instead of the ubiquitous 1570 numbers.












One other notion regarding the 1019 dial variations, a rail 1019 dial does exist and is correct. See the comparison of a rail 1665 and 16550 to the 1019 rail dial in the picture below. Same font alignment and layout. No disputing this fact that the 1019 rail dial exists.