Approximate Rolex Production Dates

How To Approximately Date Your Rolex

This chart is designed to help you approximately identify the year of production of a Rolex watch.

If you are in doubt, you can always find the serial number on the warranty certificate. On the watch itself it can be found on the lugs at the 6 oclock position on older models or engraved in the rehaut on newer models.

A new serial number system in 2010

In 2010, Rolex introduced a new serial number system for its watches.

This means that Rolex stopped following any sequential numbering system or order altogether, and now, Rolex engraves its watches with a randomized, and unique identifying letter and number. Before this, it was quite easy to estimate the age of a watch, as well as a year of production with the help of Rolex serial number databases.

Year	From	To
1927	20190	21691
1928	23969	24747
1929	28290
1930	29312
1931
1932	29312
1933	29933
1934	30823
1935	34336	35365
1936	36856	37569
1937	40920
1938	43793
1939	71224
1940	99775
1941	106047
1942	143509	202026
1943	230878
1944	269561
1945	302459
1946	367946	387216
1947	529163
1948	628840
1949
1950
1951	709249	710776
1952	726639	840396
1953	793930	973830
1954	976195	43325^*
1955	217821	1297XX
1956	139400	217821
1957	216821	358XXX
1958	353343	426510
1959	399XXX	502683
1960	511687	642993
1961	6469XX	702XXX
1962	763663	894XXX
1963	95XXXX	1021800
1964	997436	1195238
1965	1193XXX	1259699
1966	1289727	1557XXX
1967	1554XXX	186XXXX
1968	1720977	2477152
1969	2060XXX	22927XX
1970	242XXXX	2959XXX
1971	2728XXX	3037XXX
1972	305XXXX	3478400
1973	3523678	3741300
1974	3761535	4194183
1975	3886050	4267100
1976	4155863	4538000
1977	5008000	5367817
1978	5238376	5737030
1979	5952834	6122790
1980	6434000
1981	6594XXX	6910000
1982	7129351	7437845
1983	7862000	8085072
1984	8338000
1985	8624000	8734XXX
1986	9290000	9824763
1987	9863279

As you can see Rolex restarted counting in 1954 when they reached 1 Million.

Up to now the exchange cases started with 4,4 Mil. But since all those numbers are used up they start now with a 4,7 Mil.

In 1987 Rolex started to put a letter in front of the 6-digit serial number:

Letter	Started in…
R	1987
L	1988
E	1990
X	1991
N	1991(NOV)
C	1992
S	1993
W	1995
T	1996
U	1997(AUG)
A	1998(NOV)
P	2000(JAN)
K	2001(SEP)
Y	2002(SEP)
F	2003(SEP)
D	2005(APR)
Z	2006(MAY)
M	2007(AUG)
V	2008(AUG)
G	2010(JUN)

At the beginning of 2010 Rolex changed the system to individualize their watches.

From then the Serial Number will be composed of a random generated 8-digit mix of letters and numbers which means that from now on only Rolex can tell you when the watch was produced.