Reference:2765 - Revision history

Admin: Lint fix: remove duplicate raw source-ID Sources block, keep the auto-expanded version

2026-08-22T04:48:05Z

Lint fix: remove duplicate raw source-ID Sources block, keep the auto-expanded version

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	See also the [[Reference:bubbleback\|Bubbleback family index]], [[Reference:Movements\|movement reference]], [[Reference:Bracelets\|bracelet & clasp guide]], and [[Reference:Serial-numbers\|serial numbers by year]].		See also the [[Reference:bubbleback\|Bubbleback family index]], [[Reference:Movements\|movement reference]], [[Reference:Bracelets\|bracelet & clasp guide]], and [[Reference:Serial-numbers\|serial numbers by year]].

	~~== Sources ==~~

	* <code>src-antiquorum-2765-milan-1995-lot160</code> — Antiquorum, Important Collectors Wristwatches Pocket Watches & Clocks, Milan, Palazzo dei Giureconsulti, 22 May 1995, lot 160
	* <code>src-antiquorum-2765-hk-2001-lot15</code> — Antiquorum, Important Watches, Collector's Wristwatches, Clocks and Objects, Hong Kong, 8 June 2001, lot 257
	* <code>src-antiquorum-2765-ny-2009-lot223</code> — Antiquorum, Important Collectors' Wristwatches, Pocket Watches & Clocks, New York, 9 December 2009, lot 217
	* <code>src-patrizzi-rolex-collecting-wristwatches-1998</code> — Osvaldo Patrizzi, ''Rolex, Collecting Wristwatches'' (Guido Mondani Editore, Genova, 1998), p. 278
	* <code>src-boettcher-prima-grades</code> — David Boettcher, "Prima, Extra Prima and Ultra Prima", vintagewatchstraps.com
	* <code>src-hodinkee-bubbleback-collecting</code> — Hodinkee, "Buying, Selling, & Collecting: The Rolex Bubbleback And Why It Still Matters"
	* <code>src-robbreport-bubbleback-collector-guide</code> — Robb Report, "A Collector's Guide to Rolex Bubbleback Watches, From 1931 to the 1950s"
	* <code>src-everywatch-2765-tropical-1941</code> — EveryWatch lot 2305652, Rolex Precision 2765, tropical dial, 1941, United Kingdom
	* <code>src-everywatch-2765-oyster-royal-1940</code> — EveryWatch, Rolex Oyster Royal 2765, silver dial, 1940, United Kingdom
	* <code>src-rolexforums-wvm-bubbleback-list</code> — RolexForums, "List of Bubbleback models" (user w-v-m), the circulating reference list that files 2765 as a Bubbleback

	== Sources ==		== Sources ==

Admin: Lint fix: remaining ASCII ligne mark to proper primes

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	\| 160		\| 160
	\| Silver and rose, printed Arabic, leaf hands		\| Silver and rose, printed Arabic, leaf hands
	\| ~~10'''~~ Ultra Prima, 17j, 6 positions and temperatures		\| 10′′′ Ultra Prima, 17j, 6 positions and temperatures
	\| Sold; figures reported in lire with ambiguous scaling		\| Sold; figures reported in lire with ambiguous scaling
	\|-		\|-

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 [[File:Ref 2765 hero.webp|thumb|right|300px|alt=Rolex Oyster Chronometer 2765 retailed by Murdock's of Cape Town|Rolex Oyster Chronometer 2765 retailed by Murdock's of Cape Town — 32mm steel tonneau case, flat screw-down caseback, centre seconds. Antiquorum New York, December 2009.]]
@@ Line 247: / Line 248: @@
 lire at a scale that cannot be resolved cleanly, which is why no figure appears against it
 above.
 == Sources ==
@@ Line 273: / Line 284: @@
 * [https://everywatch.com/rolex/2765/watch-9109166 "EveryWatch - Rolex Oyster Royal 2765, silver dial, 1940, United Kingdom", EveryWatch]
 * "List of Bubbleback models (user w-v-m)", RolexForums
 [[Category:Oyster]]
 [[Category:References]]

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	above.		above.

	==Sources==		== Sources ==

	* <code>src-antiquorum-2765-milan-1995-lot160</code> — Antiquorum, Important Collectors Wristwatches Pocket Watches & Clocks, Milan, Palazzo dei Giureconsulti, 22 May 1995, lot 160		* <code>src-antiquorum-2765-milan-1995-lot160</code> — Antiquorum, Important Collectors Wristwatches Pocket Watches & Clocks, Milan, Palazzo dei Giureconsulti, 22 May 1995, lot 160

Admin: Lint fix: replace ASCII triple-apostrophe ligne marks with proper prime characters (ligne-bold-bug)

2026-08-22T04:46:34Z

Lint fix: replace ASCII triple-apostrophe ligne marks with proper prime characters (ligne-bold-bug)

← Older revision		Revision as of 04:46, 22 August 2026
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	\| 257		\| 257
	\| Bronze, mixed radium Arabic and Roman, skeleton hands		\| Bronze, mixed radium Arabic and Roman, skeleton hands
	\| ~~10½'''~~, 17j, Superbalance, 7 positions		\| 10½′′′, 17j, Superbalance, 7 positions
	\| HKD 23,000 (est. HKD 20,000–23,000)		\| HKD 23,000 (est. HKD 20,000–23,000)
	\|-		\|-
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	\| 217		\| 217
	\| Copper, luminous Arabic, 1/5th-seconds track		\| Copper, luminous Arabic, 1/5th-seconds track
	\| ~~10½'''~~, 18j, straight-line lever		\| 10½′′′, 18j, straight-line lever
	\| USD 1,560 (est. USD 1,500–2,500)		\| USD 1,560 (est. USD 1,500–2,500)
	\|}		\|}

Admin: Import reference 2765 article

2026-08-22T04:40:49Z

Import reference 2765 article

New page

[[File:Ref 2765 hero.webp|thumb|right|300px|alt=Rolex Oyster Chronometer 2765 retailed by Murdock's of Cape Town|Rolex Oyster Chronometer 2765 retailed by Murdock's of Cape Town — 32mm steel tonneau case, flat screw-down caseback, centre seconds. Antiquorum New York, December 2009.]]

The 2765 is a manual-wind Oyster of the late 1930s and early 1940s, and it is the cleanest
demonstration in the whole early-Oyster catalogue of what actually makes a Bubbleback a
Bubbleback. The case is the same 32mm tonneau that the contemporary Oyster Perpetuals wear.
The lugs, the bezel, the screw-down crown are the same. The caseback is flat. Rolex domed
the back of a Bubbleback to clear a Perpetual rotor; the 2765 has no rotor to clear, so it
does not get the dome. Collector reference lists have filed the 2765 among the Bubblebacks
for years on the strength of that shared silhouette, and every documented example
contradicts them.

What makes the reference worth its own page is the second oddity: the 2765 wore more Rolex
model names than almost any other reference of its era. Oyster Chronometer, Oyster
Chronomètre, Oyster Royal, Oyster Scientific, Oyster Precision, Ultra Prima — all documented
on the same reference number, in a period when Rolex was still using dial text to advertise
which grade of movement a buyer was getting rather than which model he had bought.

==Core facts==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! detail
! value
|-
| reference
| 2765
|-
| family
| Oyster (manual-wind)
|-
| production
| 1930s–1940s; no firm start or end year documented
|-
| case diameter
| 32mm
|-
| lug-to-lug
| about 39mm
|-
| thickness
| about 11mm
|-
| case construction
| two-body, polished and brushed
|-
| caseback
| flat, screwed down
|-
| bezel
| smooth, polished
|-
| crystal
| acrylic
|-
| crown
| screw-down
|-
| winding
| manual
|-
| movement
| 10 to 10½ lignes, rhodium-plated, 17 or 18 jewels, straight-line lever
|-
| movement grades documented
| Ultra Prima (6 positions); 17-jewel adjusted to 7 positions; 18-jewel
|-
| seconds
| centre seconds on some variants
|-
| case materials
| stainless steel (all documented examples)
|-
| dial designations
| Oyster Chronometer / Chronomètre, Oyster Royal, Oyster Scientific, Oyster Precision, Ultra Prima
|-
| retailer variants
| Murdock's, Cape Town
|}

==Where it sits in the line==

Rolex did not stop making hand-wound watches when the Perpetual arrived in 1933. It ran two
lines side by side for the better part of two decades, and Hodinkee's collecting guide to the
Bubbleback makes the point directly: alongside the automatics of the period sat a parallel
population of "flatbacks" — manual-wind Oysters, and early chronographs, built on the same
case architecture. The 2765 belongs to that parallel line.

Placing it precisely inside that line is harder than it should be, because the auction record
disagrees with itself about when the watch was made. Antiquorum dated its Hong Kong and New
York examples to the 1930s and its Milan example to the 1940s. Dealer listings put the run at
roughly 1936 to 1942. One serial circulates without catalogue backing, 133596, dated to 1941,
which is a single data point and not enough to bracket a production run on its own. The
honest position is that the 2765 is a late-1930s-into-the-war reference whose exact span
nobody has published.

What is clear is the relationship to its automatic neighbours. The numerically adjacent 2764
is a Bubbleback proper: Cal. 620N, domed caseback, sub-seconds, "Super Precision" on the dial.
The 2765 sits one digit away with the same case diameter and an entirely different
architecture behind it. Rolex was allocating reference numbers by case and market position,
not by movement type, which is exactly why a list built from reference numbers alone gets the
family wrong.

==Production outline==

Documentation is thin and clustered. Three Antiquorum lots span fourteen years of sales —
Milan in May 1995, Hong Kong in June 2001, New York in December 2009 — and nothing has
surfaced at Phillips, Sotheby's, Christie's, Bonhams or Heritage. Below those sits a scatter
of dealer listings that establish variants but carry no catalogue authority.

Neither the start nor the end of the run is documented. No case-number range can be
constructed: none of the three Antiquorum lots published a case number. For a reference that
appears to have been made in reasonable quantity across at least half a decade, the public
record is unusually poor, and the reason is probably that the 2765 spent the entire
Bubbleback-collecting boom of the 1980s and 1990s being catalogued as something else.

==Movement notes==

Every documented 2765 is hand-wound, with a movement of 10 to 10½ lignes, rhodium-plated,
with a straight-line lever escapement. Three configurations appear across the three
Antiquorum lots.

The Milan 1995 example carried a 10-ligne Ultra Prima, 17 jewels, anchor escapement,
monometallic balance with Breguet hairspring, regulated across six positions and
temperatures. The Hong Kong 2001 example carried a 10½-ligne with 17 jewels, Rolex
Superbalance and a self-compensating Breguet balance-spring, adjusted to seven positions.
The New York 2009 example carried a 10½-ligne with 18 jewels and a straight-line lever.

"Ultra Prima" is not a caliber. It is the top tier of the grade hierarchy Rolex inherited
from Aegler — Prima, Extra Prima, Ultra Prima — which separated otherwise similar movements
by how many positions and temperatures they had been timed in. David Boettcher documents the
scheme at vintagewatchstraps.com and notes that Hans Wilsdorf registered "Ultra Prima" as a
mark in 1930. Dial text and movement grade advertised the same thing — how much adjustment
work had gone into the watch.

No Antiquorum catalogue names a caliber number for the 2765. Dealer listings routinely
identify the movement as Cal. 700, an 18-jewel adjusted to six positions, and that
attribution is consistent with the Milan lot's grade and position count. It is also
unverified. Until a movement photograph with a visible caliber marking or a Rolex parts
document surfaces, the ligne size and the grade are what the record supports. Cal. 700 stays
unverified.

==Dial map==

The 2765 produced a wide dial range for a reference with so few catalogued examples, and the
three Antiquorum lots happen to show three quite different watches.

[[File:Ref 2765 dial-variant-silver-rose.webp|thumb|right|300px|alt=Rolex 2765 silvered and rose two-tone dial|Silvered and rose two-tone dial with printed Arabic numerals and burnished steel leaf hands, on the 10-ligne Ultra Prima example sold at Antiquorum Milan in May 1995.]]

[[File:Ref 2765 dial-variant-bronze.webp|thumb|right|300px|alt=Rolex 2765 bronze dial with mixed Arabic and Roman numerals|Bronze-coloured dial with mixed radium Arabic and Roman numerals, bâton indexes and radium skeleton hands. Antiquorum Hong Kong, June 2001.]]

The Milan 1995 dial is silver and rose-coloured, with printed Arabic numerals and indices and
burnished steel leaf hands — the most restrained of the three, and the most obviously a dress
watch. The Hong Kong 2001 dial is bronze-coloured with mixed radium-coated Arabic and Roman
numerals, triangular and bâton indexes, and radium-coated "skeleton" hands; Antiquorum graded
the dial 4-7-01 and the watch overall A (Good). The New York 2009 dial is copper-coloured
with luminous Arabic numerals and an outer one-fifth-seconds track carrying five-minute
Arabic markers, paired with luminous blued steel baton hands.

Beyond the auction record, dealer listings add a two-tone silvered configuration with black
baton markers and alternating Arabic numerals, a sector dial, and at least one tropical
example from 1941 in the United Kingdom. Blued steel dagger hands with centre seconds recur
on the Scientific and Royal variants.

The dial designations are the reference's real signature. The same case appears marked Oyster
Chronometer, Oyster Chronomètre, Oyster Royal, Oyster Scientific, Oyster Precision, and Ultra
Prima. Rolex was naming the watch after the grade of movement inside it, which is why a
single reference number can carry six different lines of dial text. The "Oyster Scientific"
marking is the same vocabulary as the salmon "Scientifical" dial Antiquorum documented on the
near-contemporary ref 1873 in 2024, so the term travelled across at least two manual Oyster
references.

==Case, bezel, crystal, and crown==

Two-body stainless steel, polished and brushed, tonneau-shaped, 32mm across, roughly 39mm
lug-to-lug and about 11mm thick. Screwed-down caseback and screw-down crown, which is what
earns the Oyster name. Smooth polished bezel. Acrylic crystal, as the era requires.

The caseback is the whole story. It is flat. Every listing that troubles to describe it says
so, several of them in the listing title, and the Antiquorum descriptions carry no mention of
a domed or bulged back on any of the three examples. A 2765 offered as a Bubbleback either
has the wrong caseback fitted or is being described by someone working from a reference list
rather than from the watch.

Stainless steel is the only case material documented. No gold, gold-shell or two-tone example
appears in the record, though on a sample of three catalogued lots that absence carries
little weight.

==Bracelets, end links, and clasps==

Nothing is documented. None of the three Antiquorum lots was sold on a Rolex bracelet, and no
period bracelet fitment for the reference appears in the surfaced record. The Hong Kong 2001
example came with a fitted box, which is the closest thing to original accompanying hardware
anywhere in the reference's file.

==Retailer variants==

[[File:Ref 2765 retailer-signature.webp|thumb|right|300px|alt=Murdock's Cape Town retailer signature on a Rolex 2765 dial|The Murdock's, Cape Town retailer signature sits below centre, under the Rolex Oyster Chronometre dial text.]]

One is documented: the New York 2009 example was retailed by Murdock's of Cape Town and
carries the retailer's signature. Retailer-signed Rolex of this period is its own collecting
category, and a South African signature is uncommon, but a single example establishes that
Murdock's carried the reference and nothing more.

==Auction record==

{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Venue
! Date
! Lot
! Dial
! Movement
! Result
|-
| Antiquorum, Milan
| 1995-05-22
| 160
| Silver and rose, printed Arabic, leaf hands
| 10''' Ultra Prima, 17j, 6 positions and temperatures
| Sold; figures reported in lire with ambiguous scaling
|-
| Antiquorum, Hong Kong
| 2001-06-08
| 257
| Bronze, mixed radium Arabic and Roman, skeleton hands
| 10½''', 17j, Superbalance, 7 positions
| HKD 23,000 (est. HKD 20,000–23,000)
|-
| Antiquorum, New York
| 2009-12-09
| 217
| Copper, luminous Arabic, 1/5th-seconds track
| 10½''', 18j, straight-line lever
| USD 1,560 (est. USD 1,500–2,500)
|}

The Hong Kong 2001 lot is the reference's anchor, and the money is the least of it. It came with
a fitted box, a full Antiquorum condition grade of A (Good) with case 4-6, movement 4-6* and
dial 4-7-01, and a literature citation: Antiquorum noted that a similar watch is published in
Osvaldo Patrizzi's ''Rolex, Collecting Wristwatches'' (Guido Mondani Editore, Genova, 1998) at
page 278. That citation is the only published-book grounding this reference has, and its
wording is careful: the catalogue says "a similar watch", not this reference by number.

The New York 2009 result at USD 1,560 against a USD 1,500–2,500 estimate says something about
where the manual Oysters sat in the market at that point: at the bottom of the estimate, in a
year when steel sports Rolex was already climbing hard. The Milan 1995 result was reported in
lire at a scale that cannot be resolved cleanly, which is why no figure appears against it
above.

==Sources==

* <code>src-antiquorum-2765-milan-1995-lot160</code> — Antiquorum, Important Collectors Wristwatches Pocket Watches & Clocks, Milan, Palazzo dei Giureconsulti, 22 May 1995, lot 160
* <code>src-antiquorum-2765-hk-2001-lot15</code> — Antiquorum, Important Watches, Collector's Wristwatches, Clocks and Objects, Hong Kong, 8 June 2001, lot 257
* <code>src-antiquorum-2765-ny-2009-lot223</code> — Antiquorum, Important Collectors' Wristwatches, Pocket Watches & Clocks, New York, 9 December 2009, lot 217
* <code>src-patrizzi-rolex-collecting-wristwatches-1998</code> — Osvaldo Patrizzi, ''Rolex, Collecting Wristwatches'' (Guido Mondani Editore, Genova, 1998), p. 278
* <code>src-boettcher-prima-grades</code> — David Boettcher, "Prima, Extra Prima and Ultra Prima", vintagewatchstraps.com
* <code>src-hodinkee-bubbleback-collecting</code> — Hodinkee, "Buying, Selling, & Collecting: The Rolex Bubbleback And Why It Still Matters"
* <code>src-robbreport-bubbleback-collector-guide</code> — Robb Report, "A Collector's Guide to Rolex Bubbleback Watches, From 1931 to the 1950s"
* <code>src-everywatch-2765-tropical-1941</code> — EveryWatch lot 2305652, Rolex Precision 2765, tropical dial, 1941, United Kingdom
* <code>src-everywatch-2765-oyster-royal-1940</code> — EveryWatch, Rolex Oyster Royal 2765, silver dial, 1940, United Kingdom
* <code>src-rolexforums-wvm-bubbleback-list</code> — RolexForums, "List of Bubbleback models" (user w-v-m), the circulating reference list that files 2765 as a Bubbleback

== Sources ==

* [https://catalog.antiquorum.swiss/en/lots/rolex-lot-117-160 "Rolex, Oyster Chronometer, Ref. 2765, 1940s", Antiquorum, 1995-05-22]
* [https://catalog.antiquorum.swiss/en/lots/rolex-lot-15-257 "Rolex Oyster Chronometre, Ref. 2765", Antiquorum, 2001-06-08]
* [https://catalog.antiquorum.swiss/en/lots/rolex-lot-223-217 "Rolex Oyster Chronometer, Ref. 2765, retailed by Murdock's, Cape Town", Antiquorum, 2009-12-09]
* ''Rolex, Collecting Wristwatches'' — Osvaldo Patrizzi, Guido Mondani Editore, Genova, 1998
* [https://www.vintagewatchstraps.com/blogprima.php David Boettcher, "Prima, Extra Prima and Ultra Prima", vintagewatchstraps.com]
* [https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/the-rolex-bubbleback-and-why-it-still-matters "Buying, Selling, & Collecting: The Rolex Bubbleback And Why It Still Matters", Hodinkee]
* [https://robbreport.com/style/watch-collector/lists/rolex-bubbleback-watches-collector-guide-1931-1950s-1235893131/ "A Collector's Guide to Rolex Bubbleback Watches, From 1931 to the 1950s", Robb Report]
* [https://everywatch.com/rolex/precision/watch-2305652 "EveryWatch lot 2305652 - Rolex Precision 2765, steel, tropical dial, 1941, United Kingdom", EveryWatch]
* [https://everywatch.com/rolex/2765/watch-9109166 "EveryWatch - Rolex Oyster Royal 2765, silver dial, 1940, United Kingdom", EveryWatch]
* "List of Bubbleback models (user w-v-m)", RolexForums
== Related references ==

* [[Reference:2764|Bubbleback 2764]] — the automatic neighbour, Cal. 620N
* [[Reference:2574|Oyster Royal 2574]] — pre-war manual Oyster, boy's size
* [[Reference:1873|Oyster Royal 1873]] — manual flat-back Oyster, shares the "Scientifical" dial vocabulary
* [[Reference:2240|Bubbleback 2240]] — self-winding contemporary
* [[Reference:1858|Bubbleback 1858]] — the first Oyster Perpetual, 1933

See also the [[Reference:bubbleback|Bubbleback family index]], [[Reference:Movements|movement reference]], [[Reference:Bracelets|bracelet & clasp guide]], and [[Reference:Serial-numbers|serial numbers by year]].

[[Category:Oyster]]
[[Category:References]]