Reference:114200: Difference between revisions

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Air-King -> 114200

The 114200 is the modern Air-King: launched at Baselworld 2007, dropped from the catalogue in 2014, a 34mm steel Oyster running Cal. 3130 with a Parachrom hairspring. It is also the first chronometer-rated Air-King in the line's history. Every earlier reference ran sub-COSC, with dials reading "PRECISION" or "SUPER PRECISION"; the 114200 arrives with "SUPERLATIVE CHRONOMETER OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED" on the dial and the Air-King finally joins the tier the rest of the Rolex catalogue had occupied for decades.

It also brings the concentric "wave" dial, circles radiating from the center out to the chapter ring, offered in silver, black, blue, green, salmon, white and champagne, and paired with applied stick markers, 3-6-9 Explorer Arabic numerals, Roman numerals or a full set of Arabics at every hour. The dial menu is the widest the Air-King line ever ran, and it is what most 114200 buyers are actually shopping for. This is also the last 34mm Air-King: the line goes quiet in 2014 and returns in 2016 as the 40mm 116900.

Core facts

detail	value
reference	114200 (engine-turned bezel sister: 114210; white-gold-bezel sibling: 114234)
family	Air-King
common name	"the modern Air-King," "the COSC Air-King," "the concentric Air-King"
production	2007–2014; replaced after a 2-year gap by 116900 (2016, 40mm redesign)
case	34mm × ~11.6mm × 41.7mm L2L stainless steel Oyster, smooth bezel, 19mm non-drilled lugs
crystal	sapphire
crown	Twinlock screw-down
movement	Cal 3130, automatic, 28,800 vph, ~48h reserve, hack feature, Parachrom hairspring; jewel count contested (Slaven/Monochrome and Robb Report: 31; Siems: 27)
chronometer	yes — first COSC-certified Air-King; dial reads "SUPERLATIVE CHRONOMETER OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED"
rehaut	engraved with repeating "ROLEX ROLEX ROLEX" + serial number, post-2005 Rolex convention; present on 114200 from launch
water resistance	100m
bracelet	78350 19mm Oyster with 557B solid end-links, 904L steel
caseback	screw-down threaded Oyster, smooth exterior
predecessor	14000M (2000–2006, Cal 3130 without engraved rehaut, non-COSC)
successor	116900 (2016, 40mm pilot redesign — outside pre-2020 collector window for many editorial frames)

Where it sits in the line

The 114200 closes the 34mm Air-King chapter that runs from the 4925 (1945) through the 6552 (1953) and the 5500 (1957) into the sapphire-crystal era of the 14000 (1989) and 14000M (2000). Across those seventy years the case envelope never moves off 34mm, the dial text alternates between "AIR-KING" and "OYSTER PERPETUAL," and the movement steps from manual wind to bidirectional rotor to high beat. The 114200 adds the one thing the line had never carried: chronometer certification.

The no-date Cal. 3130 architecture is shared with the 14060M Submariner, which picked up COSC dial text in later production, and with the 114270 Explorer. The earlier 14270 Explorer belongs to the Cal. 3000 generation, and the Yacht-Master date references use a different movement family. Cal. 3130 itself runs across the Rolex time-only catalogue from 1999 / 2000 to 2018, when the Cal. 3230 generation replaces it. The 114200 sits in the same architectural moment as those siblings: engraved rehaut, COSC certification, Parachrom hairspring.

The 114200 shares its case middle with two contemporaries. The 114210 carries a fluted engine-turned bezel, the 114234 a fluted white-gold bezel set into the steel case middle; both run alongside the 114200 across 2007–2014 on the same Cal. 3130 and the same dial palette. Whether they count as separate references or as 114200 sub-variants is a matter of taste, and the Air-King family hub treats all three as one generation. The 114200 is the steel-and-smooth-bezel pure Air-King of the set.

The line then goes quiet. Nothing replaces the 114200 in 2014, and the 116900 that revives the name in 2016 is a 40mm redesign rather than a 34mm successor.

Production outline

Marcus Siems' Air-King family history (September 2025), Erik Slaven at Monochrome (January 2025), Robb Report's Air-King guide (Allen Farmelo and Gareth Munden, September 2024) and Watch-Wiki all give 2007 as the introduction year. The 114200 ships at Baselworld 2007 alongside the 114210 engine-turned-bezel sister and the 114234 white-gold-bezel sibling, and the three trade in parallel through to 2014.

The 2014 retirement is equally settled. Rolex drops the Air-King from the catalogue at Baselworld 2014, and Robin Nooy at Monochrome (March 2016) frames the 116900 launch as a return after the line was "dropped from the collection." Two years is the longest break in the Air-King's catalogue presence since the 1945 introduction.

A few secondary outlets stretch the run "until 2016," which conflates the discontinuation with the line's return on a different reference. The primary editorial — Monochrome, Siems, Robb Report — consistently gives 2014 as the production end. 2007–2014 is the active span.

The reference is recent enough that most surviving examples are documented through dealer-market sales rather than catalogued auction lots. Christie's is the exception: the "Jewels and Watches Online: La Dolce Vita" sale 21040, lot 136, a full-set Domino's Pizza 114200 from c.2013 with case number 96A51575. Phillips, Sotheby's, Bonhams and Antiquorum have not catalogued the reference.

Movement notes

The 114200 runs Cal. 3130, the same movement fitted to the contemporary 14060M Submariner and the 114270 Explorer and used across the Rolex time-only catalogue from 1999 / 2000 through 2018: 28,800 vph (4 Hz), roughly 48 hours of reserve, hacking seconds, bidirectional self-winding, and the blue paramagnetic Parachrom hairspring Rolex rolled out from c.2005, present on the 114200 from launch.

Jewel count is contested. Erik Slaven at Monochrome and Robb Report both read the 114200-era Cal. 3130 as a 31-jewel movement, up from the 27 jewels of the Cal. 3000 in the 14000 era; Marcus Siems' Air-King family history gives 27. The 31-jewel figure holds the majority position, and nothing in the production record points to a running change inside the reference. The disagreement reads as a source error rather than as two configurations.

COSC certification is the architectural break with everything before it. The 4925's Cal. 10½ Hunter, the 6552's Cal. 1030, the 5500's Cal. 1530 and 1520, the 14000's Cal. 3000 and the 14000M's Cal. 3130 all shipped uncertified, with "PRECISION" or "SUPER PRECISION" on the dial depending on era.

The 14000M-to-114200 handoff shows how little of that was mechanical. Cal. 3130 is the same movement in both references. What changed is that Rolex sent the 114200's movements to COSC before casing and did not send the 14000M's.

Case and construction

34mm across, approximately 11.6mm thick, 41.7mm lug to lug, a three-piece stainless steel Oyster of case middle, threaded caseback and threaded crown. Nominal dimensions match the 14000M, though the 114200 wears heavier than its predecessor. Lugs are 19mm with non-drilled spring-bar holes, following the 14000-era convention. The bezel on the 114200 is fixed, smooth steel; the engine-turned version lives on the 114210.

The crystal is sapphire and the crown a Twinlock screw-down. Water resistance stays at 100m, unchanged from the 14000 era.

Every 114200 is steel. No precious-metal example surfaces in the auction record, and the gold-trimmed Air-Kings of the 2007–2014 window carry their own reference numbers — the 114234 white-gold-bezel sibling, and the gem-set sub-variants that sit outside this reference entirely.

Engraved rehaut

The 114200 has the engraved rehaut from launch in 2007. The inner ring around the dial carries repeating "ROLEX ROLEX ROLEX" text plus the watch's serial number, matched to the serial engraved between the lugs. Rolex adopted the convention across the steel sport line from 2005; on the Air-King, late 14000M production may show it, but on the 114200 it is standard from the first examples.

The repetition is fine pantograph engraving, cut rather than printed, and it reproduces badly on counterfeits.

Dial map

No other Air-King ran a dial catalogue this wide. The concentric "wave" pattern arrives with the reference and combines with a color range the 14000 era never had — silver, black, blue, green, salmon, white, champagne — across applied stick markers, 3-6-9 Explorer Arabics, full Roman numerals and full Arabics, with the outer ring finished sunburst soleil, brushed or matte. Documented configurations run into double figures. White and champagne dials appear in the editorial record but reach the market far less often than the silver, black and blue concentrics.

One nickname needs correcting. "Tutti Frutti" belongs to the gem-set Yacht-Master configurations with multi-color sapphire bezels, not to the Air-King; it turns up in dealer copy attached to the 114200's multi-color dials, where it has never been right. These are the concentric or wave dials.

Silver concentric (wave)

The volume dial. Sunburst silver outer ring, concentric circles running in from the center to the chapter ring, applied stick or baton hour markers, "OYSTER PERPETUAL" and "AIR-KING" in two lines above six with "SUPERLATIVE CHRONOMETER OFFICIALLY CERTIFIED" above them. This is the 114200 most people mean when they say 114200.

Black concentric (wave)

The same concentric pattern on a matte black ground, documented across the production and carrying a moderate premium over silver.

Blue concentric with orange Arabic numerals

The 114200 dial collectors actually chase. Sunburst blue outer ring, circular concentric inner section, applied orange Arabic numerals at every hour and no luminous fill at all — the orange against blue does the legibility work on its own. It goes by "Air-King concentric blue" or simply "the blue 114200," and it trades at a substantial premium to the standard configurations.

Pink salmon concentric

Salmon ground with the concentric pattern, applied stick or Roman numeral indices. The 14000-era salmon palette carries over to the 114200 and picks up the concentric finish.

Green concentric

Sunburst green outer with a concentric inner section, usually applied stick markers. Monochrome's Air-King history names green among the catalogue colors, but it reaches the dealer market less often than blue or salmon.

3-6-9 Explorer dial

The Explorer layout the 5500 made famous and the 14000 carried over continues here: Arabic numerals at three, six and nine with batons or sticks elsewhere, on a black or silvered ground that may be concentric or flat. Erik Slaven at Monochrome calls it "a standard arrangement" on the 114200 — a catalogue option rather than a rarity.

Roman numeral dial

Roman numerals at every hour or at the cardinal positions, on silvered, black or salmon grounds. The Roman 114200 reads closer to a Datejust than to a traditional Air-King, and it belongs to the same appeal-widening catalogue as the rest of the palette.

Applied Arabic numeral dial

A full set of applied Arabic numerals at every hour rather than the 3-6-9 Explorer subset, on silvered or black grounds.

Silver 3-6-9 with pink lume markers

A separate branch, documented on full-set 2012 examples. The ground stays silver; the color sits in the pink luminous blocks of a 3-6-9 layout. It is not the salmon concentric dial under another name, and it is a dial execution worth recording rather than a nickname category of its own.

Bracelets

19mm Oyster across the production. The 114200 era moves case and bracelet to 904L stainless steel, the alloy Rolex adopted across the catalogue after 2003. The bracelet is the 78350 on 557B solid end-links, the refined version of the 14000-era 557, closed by the modern Oysterclasp with its 5mm Easylink comfort extension.

Nothing about the bracelet platform changed at the 14000M handoff. What changed is the steel grade and the Easylink clasp, both catalogue-wide moves in the same window.

A folded-link Jubilee was a period catalogue option and turns up on a minority of surviving examples, mostly the Roman-numeral and Arabic-numeral dials sold into the Datejust-adjacent market.

Special branches

Domino's Pizza 114200

The Domino's Pizza incentive program carried on from the 5500 and 14000 era to the 114200. Christie's "Jewels and Watches Online: La Dolce Vita" sale 21040, lot 136 documents one: c.2013, case 96A51575, Cal. 3130, full set with original box and papers. The dial is a silvered Explorer 3-6-9 with Arabic numerals at three, six and nine, the Domino's logo sits on a center bracelet link rather than on the dial itself, and the awardee's commemorative engraving is on the caseback.

Christie's condition report gives the dial as clean and original with only light case wear, and the lot kept its original guarantee and sales tag. The paperwork is what makes the example useful: it ties the watch to a 2013 delivery rather than to a bracelet or caseback added later, which on a presentation piece matters as much as where the logo sits.

The 114200 is the last documented Domino's Air-King reference — the program wound down in the early 2010s, before Rolex moved past the 114200 in 2014. Examples surface less often than the 5500 and 14000 Domino's pieces.

114210 engine-turned-bezel sibling

Twin to the 114200 across 2007–2014, differing only in its fluted engine-turned bezel. Collectors split on whether it is an Air-King sub-variant or a Datejust-adjacent reference of its own; the Air-King family hub keeps it inside the 114200 generation.

114234 white-gold-bezel sibling

A steel case with a fluted white-gold bezel set into the case middle, otherwise a 114200: same case middle, same Cal. 3130, same dial palette. It sits at the precious-metal-trim end of the generation and trades at a substantial premium to the steel-only reference.

Signed and commemorative dials

Tiffany & Co.-signed, Cartier-signed and government-crest 114200s (Saudi, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait) do not appear in the auction record through 2025. Modern references digitise more slowly than vintage ones, so the gap is not proof that none were made. But nothing documented currently supports them.

Historical market and auction record

Sale	Lot	Year	Reference details	Result
Christie's Jewels and Watches Online "La Dolce Vita"	136	c.2018	114200 Domino's Pizza c.2013, case 96A51575, Cal 3130, full set	estimate and hammer not published

Regional UK and US auctioneers and the dealer market carry the 114200; the headline Geneva and New York catalogues do not. The Christie's La Dolce Vita Domino's lot is the strongest auction-house anchor the reference has.

Pricing across the dealer market sits in the USD 4,500–7,000 band for standard silver and black concentric examples in clean condition. Blue concentric with orange Arabic, salmon, and green configurations carry premiums into the USD 8,000–12,000 range. Domino's, the 114210 fluted-bezel sibling, and the 114234 white-gold-bezel sibling all trade at distinct premium tiers tied to their specific configurations.

The 114200-to-116900 redesign

The Air-King leaves the Rolex catalogue at Baselworld 2014 and comes back at Baselworld 2016 as the 116900, at 40mm and as a redesign rather than a successor. Robin Nooy's Monochrome hands-on review (March 2016) frames the launch as a return after the line was "dropped from the collection," and editorial has treated the 116900 as a reset ever since.

The design language shares little with the 114200. The case grows 6mm. The dial takes stylized Arabic numerals at three, six and nine, a green seconds hand and a heavier "AIR-KING" wordmark, and the movement sits inside a soft-iron Faraday cage of the kind Rolex uses on the Milgauss. The 1940s aviation-numeral dial reads back to the 4925 era's pilot-watch commemoration; it does not read forward from the 5500 / 14000 / 14000M / 114200 entry-tier sport Oyster lineage.

So the 114200 closes the continuous 34mm chapter, and it is sometimes treated as the family's modern-era closing piece. The 116900 and its 2022 126900 successor belong to their own design language, and editorial coverage of the Air-King generally splits at the 2014/2016 boundary.

Authentication

Verification on a 114200 is easier than on any vintage Air-King. The rehaut is the cleanest single anchor: its serial must match the engraving between the lugs exactly. A mismatch flags case replacement, and modern counterfeit production routinely gets the two engravings out of step.

The case stamp inside the caseback should read 114200. Early examples can be checked against late letter-prefix serial ranges, but Rolex moved to randomized alphanumeric serials around 2010; on later 114200s the serial alone will not assign a production year, and the warranty card or sale record becomes the stronger date anchor.

The movement should be Cal. 3130. A Cal. 3000 in a 114200 is a swap out of the 14000 generation and wrong for the reference; a Cal. 3132 or any 32XX is equally wrong here, though those are genuine Rolex movements from elsewhere in the catalogue rather than invented calibers. The blue Parachrom hairspring should be visible inside the balance assembly on every example.

The concentric pattern is engraved, not printed. Counterfeit dials tend to screen-print it, and the result reads flatter and coarser than the pantograph-cut original. A loupe on the concentric finish is the fastest dial check the reference offers.

The bracelet should be a 78350 on 557B end-links in 904L steel. A matte 14000-era 557 end-link is a service refit, as is any post-2014 Oyster bracelet reference. The clasp should be the modern Oysterclasp with the 5mm Easylink extension; anything older has been replaced.

Restoration barely enters the picture. The reference is recent enough that most survivors still wear their original dials, so a spotless 114200 is plausible rather than suspect.

Related references

Sources