One of the distinguishing features of the collectable first model Rolex GMT-Master ref. 6542, is the plastic bezel insert. Both the brass alloy bezel itself and the insert were easily cracked and so many of the surviving watches seem to have had the bezel and/or the insert replaced. In fact, during the production period of the watch, Rolex themselves fitted a metal bezel to the watch.
It was always previously assumed that the reason Rolex ceased using plastic bezel inserts on the GMT-Master ref. 6542 was due to their inherent fragility.
Instruction booklet included with the Rolex GMT-Master ref. 6542
However recently discovered documents finally tell the real story and also go a long way to explaining why the early ones had plastic inserts in the first place, before they were replaced by the metal inserts that were used for a many of the later models.
A few years ago, I was fortunate enough to buy a GMT-Master ref. 6542 with every conceivable document – receipt, timing certificate and the original instruction booklet, which I show below. However the most interesting things with the watch were two letters, including one from Rolex Canada, addressed to the owner of the watch.
An internal Royal Canadian Air Force memo asking for the Rolex GMT-Master ref. 6542 to be returned for testing/modification (1960)
As you can see the first one (an internal Royal Canadian Air Force memo) asked the owner to return the watch “urgently” as there were some doubts about radiological contamination to the watch. The second one was from Rolex Canada and dated less than two weeks after the first one; it said that the Canadian Atomic Energy Control Board had tested the watch and that there were no signs of radiation.
I did not know what to make of it, but as the owner was in the Canadian Air Force, I assumed that it may have had something to do with Atomic Bomb testing (remembering that this was in the early 1950s). I subsequently sold the watch and passed the document file to the new owner.
Letter confirming the Rolex GMT-Master ref. 6542 in question was tested and confirms no radiation
Then a few years later, I was lucky enough to buy another 6542 with all the boxes and papers once again. The original buyer of the watch was also a pilot, this time one who flew for Air France and he had bought the watch in Tokyo, where the low value of the Japanese Yen, at that time, made it a more logical buy than in France.
Like the previous watch, it had the timing certificate but not have the instruction book, however it did have the original Japanese store receipt, and when this was opened, the following small document fell out.
A certificate provided with a purchase of a Rolex GMT-Master ref. 6542
The following is copied from the EPA website. “Strontium-90 is a by-product of the fission of uranium and plutonium in nuclear reactors, and in nuclear weapons. Strontium-90 is found in waste from nuclear reactors. It can also contaminate reactor parts and fluids. Large amounts of Sr-90 were produced during atmospheric nuclear weapons tests conducted in the 1950s and 1960s and dispersed worldwide”.
It has always been assumed that the radium used on the bezel hour numbers was somehow contaminated with atmospheric Strontium-90 from nuclear weapons tests. Actually, this isn’t the case. In fact, for a short period Strontium-90 was used as a replacement for radium by Swiss dial, and bezel makers. It was provided to these dial makers between 1957 and the start of 1958 by a wholly owned entity of the UK Government – The Atomic Energy Authority.
An example of a Rolex GMT-Master ref. 6542 with plastic bezel, image credit: Sothebys
How can I be so certain of these dates? In a House of Lords debate reported by Hansard (the official verbatim report of debates and proceedings in the UK Parliament) on the 29th March, 1962, Lord Hailsham stated:
“My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government cannot accept responsibility for statements in the American Press. Radioactive materials are supplied by the Atomic Energy Authority only to firms or institutions on the Authority’s list of approved users, whose bona fides has been investigated. Anyone ordering radioisotopes is required first to have accepted conditions, which, among other things, reserve to the Authority the right to require the prospective purchaser to inform them of the uses to be made of the material. In the case of Switzerland, orders for Strontium 90 are now referred by the Authority to the Swiss Federal Office of Industry for approval. Since the beginning of 1958, Strontium 90 has been supplied to Switzerland for medical and research purposes only. Prior to 1958 a quantity of Strontium 90 supplied by the Authority to a firm in Switzerland was understood to have been used for luminising watches, and supplies to this firm were discontinued. At one time, it is fair to add, Strontium 90 may reasonably have been thought by a section of the watch industry to be safer than radium, because it does not give off gamma radiation or radon. It was also thought to be superior as a luminising agent.”
In short, the UK Atomic Energy Authority had sold supplies of Strontium-90 to a Swiss dial company for dial luminising, but these sales ceased at the start of 1958. The UK could not have sold any to Switzerland before early 1957, as Sr-90 is a by-product of either thermonuclear reactions or nuclear fission.
Britain’s first thermonuclear weapons test was at Malden Island in the South Pacific on the 15th May, 1957, so if we assume that the scientists at the AEA were able to extract Sr-90 in a couple of months or so, there would probably only have been a few months during which the material was available and for sale. The first fusion reactor was Calder Hall, which opened in October 1956, so if we make the same assumption as above, then there would have been just over a year when Sr-90 could have been sold to the Swiss.
Official Rolex statement regarding Rolex GMT Master 6542 / Rolex GMT Master ref. 6542 with plastic bezel, image credit: Bonhams
The dial firms wanted to use Sr-90 because it was, at the time, considered to be a safer alternative to Radium, as it emitted far fewer of the dangerous Gamma rays. But scientists soon realised that Sr-90 was attracted to calcium and so remained in the bones and bone marrow of people who were exposed to it. It was at the end of 1959 that the US Atomic Energy Commission issued a notice to 15 Swiss watch firms that they must recall any of their watches which used Sr-90. This was eight months after Rolex had ceased production of the GMT-Master ref. 6542 and its potentially dangerous bezel.
The 6542 was introduced at the 1954 Basel Spring Fair and its replacement the 1675 came along five years later at the 1959 Fair. So, if we conclude that the 6542 was in production for 60 months and Strontium-90 was used for around 12 of those months, it stands to reason that up to 20% of the production could have been fitted with the contaminated bezel inserts.
Obviously, not all of the early bezels suffered this contamination as both of the watches I have seen had passed the tests, meaning that they were probably produced during the first four years of production.
