Reference:1862

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Prince → 1862

The 1862 is the Prince Classic — the straight-sided rectangular Prince that runs concurrent with the flared Brancards (971 and 1490) rather than as a successor. Where the Brancards splay outward from the case waist, the 1862 reads as a restrained Art-Deco rectangle with parallel sides, snap-on caseback, and a smaller wrist footprint at approximately 20 by 35 millimetres. The dial layout is the same Prince duo-dial — hours and minutes upper, oversized sub-seconds at six — and the movement is the same Aegler shaped-caliber family that defined the Prince line, including chronometer-grade Ultra Prima examples. Production runs from a documented Glasgow 1934 hallmark through a 1942 caseback inscription. The 1862 is harder to find than the 1490 because it received less period advertising, but it carries the same chronometer pedigree on a quieter case form.

Rolex Prince Classic 1862 9K gold Glasgow 1934 Cal. 527
9K gold Glasgow 1934, Cal. 527, "Modèle déposé" dial, Christie's online lot 31

Core facts

detail value
reference 1862
family Prince Classic (rectangular Art-Deco doctor's watch, non-Brancard)
production approximately 1928–1942 (documented 1934 Glasgow → 1942 caseback inscription)
case shape straight-sided rectangular ("Classic"), parallel flanks; not the flared Brancard form of the 971 / 1490
case dimensions approximately 20 mm × 35 mm body (short variant); approximately 20 mm × 39–40 mm body (longer-stepped variant); 25–26 mm × 42 mm with horns on largest examples
case construction three-piece, polished, snap-on caseback
crystal acrylic
crown onion / pull-out, non-screw (the Prince was not a water-resistant case)
lug style fixed wire lugs, integrated into the case
bezel smooth, polished; stepped on some variants; white-gold bezel documented on a 1936 Glasgow 9K example (Christie's London 2015)
movement family Aegler shaped: Cal. 300 / Cal. 350 / Cal. 7¾′′′ T.S. 300 / Cal. 360 HW (rectangular plates 1928–1935; tonneau plates 1936-onward)
caliber-number variants documented on 1862 cases 300, 414, 527, 579 T, 701, 841 T, 1004 (8-position chronometer), 1759 Ultra Prima Chronometer, plus Cal. 7½′′′ Extra Prima with Elinvar hairspring (Antiquorum 2022)
movement grades Prima, Extra Prima, Ultra Prima — all documented on 1862 examples
jewels 15 (Prima) / 17 / 18 (Extra Prima / Ultra Prima)
beat rate 18,000 vph
chronometer dial designation "Chronometer" or "Officially Certified Chronometer" — corresponds to Extra Prima or Ultra Prima grade
dial layout duo-dial with oversized sub-seconds register at six
price band GBP 1,875 (steel head only) → GBP 7,500 (Christie's London 2015 9K Cal. 1004 Glasgow 1936) → CHF 11,875 (Sotheby's GE1604 9K + steel three-tone, 1935) — clear discount to the 1490, which tops at CHF 62,500

Where it sits in the line

Rolex Prince 1490 Brancard and 1862 Classic side by side
Christie's 1395 lot 307: 1490 Brancard (42mm, flared, brown strap) and 1862 Classic (35mm, straight-sided, black strap) sold as a group lot

The 1862 is the quieter Prince. Rolex's 1928 Prince launch deployed a flared rectangular case (the Brancard, on references 971 and later 1490) and a parallel straight-sided rectangular case for the same chronometer movement family. The 1862 belongs to the second group. Christie's Geneva sale 1395 lot 307 captures the relationship directly: a c.1930 18K Brancard 1490 (case 58,115, 42 mm) and a c.1938 18K 1862 (case 16,663, 35 mm) sold as a group lot, both signed Rolex on case, dial, and movement, both carrying duo-dial silvered Arabic dials and rectangular Aegler movements, but with two distinctly different case shapes — the flared Brancard and the straight Classic.

The Brancard's flared profile commanded a roughly 10% retail premium and dominated period Rolex advertising (the 1930 Tatler ad, the 1934 Rolex catalogue, Jake Ehrlich's reproductions of the period material). The 1862's straight Classic case was the cheaper, less-photographed companion. That asymmetry has carried into the modern auction record: Phillips's public archive carries no 1862 lots across multiple Geneva and New York thematic sales (Geneva V, VII, X, XII, XIV, XVIII; NY Winning Icons; NY080223), while it carries dozens of 1490s and 971s. The 1862 trades at a meaningful discount because it is less catalogued, not because it is less interesting on the wrist.

The Prince does not return to the Rolex catalog until the 2005 Cellini Prince revival, which sits on a different platform and is not part of the vintage Prince story this page covers. The Princess and Queen smaller spin-offs are separate ladies-line references (3361 / 3362), not 1862 variants.

Naming — Classic, not Brancard

Auction houses and editorial sources are not entirely consistent on the 1862's case-style name. Christie's catalog text labels the 1862 a "Doctor's Wristwatch" (the dial-layout descriptor used across the Prince family). Sotheby's labels it simply "Prince." Antiquorum 357-319 calls one example "Brancard" — but the case dimensions on that lot (42.8 × 25.6 mm) push into Brancard territory rather than the 20 × 35 mm Classic form, suggesting either a measurement that includes case horns or an auction-house mislabel. Friedberg's 2001 TimeZone framing draws the line cleanly: Brancard for the flared cases (971 / 1490), Classic for the straight-sided cases including the 1862. Modern collector usage on watch forums settles on "Prince Classic" or simply "Prince 1862" with the Brancard nickname reserved for the 971 / 1490.

Dealer convention sometimes prefers "Prince Doctor" — leaning on the duo-dial pulse-counting heritage that gave the broader Prince line its "doctor's watch" nickname. The dealer term is not wrong but is not Rolex catalog vocabulary; auction-catalog usage is the more authoritative anchor.

Sub-references

Rolex Prince 1862A 18K yellow gold
Sotheby's NY 2018 lot 53: catalogued as "1862A" 18K yellow gold, case 280,124, c.1930

The 1862 has thinner sub-reference taxonomy than the 971. Two markers surface in the auction record:

1862A. Sotheby's NY Watches Online 2018 lot 53 catalogs an 18K yellow gold example as ref 1862A, c.1930, case 280,124. The "A" suffix appears once in the surfaced auction record and is not corroborated by other houses' cataloging conventions for 1862 cases. The most consistent reading, given the parallel "971A = bicolor / Tiger Stripe" convention on the 971, is that 1862A may denote a specific case-construction variant rather than a separate reference; the Sotheby's lot description does not visually distinguish the case from a base 1862 sufficiently to confirm. Treat as a variant marker awaiting further documentation rather than a fresh reference.

Two case-length variants. The auction corpus separates 1862 cases into a shorter approximately 20 × 35 mm form and a longer approximately 20 × 39–40 mm "stepped" form. Both are 1862 by reference number. Whether the longer form is a later production variant or a parallel option in the same window is not yet settled; the surfaced sample is too thin to map case length cleanly to production year.

Case materials

The 1862 has documented examples in:

  • Stainless steel — a steel head-only example (no bracelet) cleared the auction record at GBP 1,875, the floor of the surfaced 1862 price band.
  • 9K yellow gold — Glasgow-hallmarked examples are the most common configuration, with documented 1934 (Antiquorum 249-98, case 1,608), 1935, 1936 (Christie's London Cal. 1004 example, GBP 7,500), and 1937 (watch-auctions.co.uk Cal. 1759 example) Glasgow imports.
  • 9K bi-color (yellow + white gold).
  • 9K + steel two-tone — Sotheby's Geneva GE1604 1935 example with three-tone dial, hammer CHF 11,875 (price ceiling of the surfaced corpus).
  • 9K pink + white gold — the rarer tri-metal combination on the smaller Classic case.
  • 18K yellow gold — the Christie's 1395-307 group lot 1862 (case 16,663, c.1938) and the Robert Maron c.1938 example with Cal. 300 Ultra Prima 18-jewel.
  • 18K bi-color — Bonhams December 2008 lot 105, Glasgow 1936.
  • Platinum + 9K gold composite — Bonhams February 2026 documents the first platinum-and-gold composite 1862, a noteworthy late entry to the materials list.

The 14K and pure platinum configurations that appear on the 971 do not surface on the 1862 in the auction record; the 1862 was a smaller, less-prestigious case and was not commonly executed in the highest-prestige materials. The composite platinum + 9K Bonhams 2026 example may be the only platinum-bearing 1862 documented to date.

The movement

The 1862 runs on the same Aegler shaped-movement family as the 971 and 1490. The 1927 Wilsdorf-Aegler patent that placed the winding barrel and balance at opposite ends of the rectangular movement applies. The Aegler-Rolex relationship was a supplier arrangement (Aegler operated independently in Bienne until Rolex purchased the firm from the Borer family in April 2004, per Tim Mosso's Quill & Pad reporting).

What sets the 1862's movement record apart is the spread of caliber numbers stamped on its bridges. The surfaced corpus documents at least eight distinct numbered calibers in 1862 cases: 300, 414, 527 (Christie's online c.1934), 579 T (Collectors Square), 701, 841 T (Bonhams 2022), 1004 (Christie's London 2015, "officially tested in 8 positions"), and 1759 (watch-auctions.co.uk 1937, Ultra Prima Chronometer 18-jewel 6-position). A ninth attribution — Cal. 7½′′′ Extra Prima with Elinvar hairspring (Antiquorum 2022) — describes the same architecture by ligne size and grade rather than caliber number.

The auction-house labeling is not uniform. The same architectural specification (18-jewel, 6-position, Ultra Prima Chronometer) appears under different caliber numbers across different houses — Cal. 300 Ultra Prima at Robert Maron, Cal. 1759 Ultra Prima Chronometer at watch-auctions.co.uk. Whether these are genuinely distinct sub-calibers or auction-cataloging drift on the same underlying movement is unsettled in the surfaced literature. The most defensible reading is that the Cal. 300 family runs from 1928–1937 with rectangular plates and that the higher caliber numbers (700-series, 1000-series, 1759) are commercial designations applied to the 1936-onward tonneau-plate generation under different finishing grades. The NAWCC discussion (Doug Sinclair, gmorse, Cary Hurt, March 2013) is the load-bearing source for the rectangular-plate-versus-tonneau-plate cutoff, regardless of the caliber number.

Movement grading runs Prima → Extra Prima → Ultra Prima. The "Chronometer" or "Officially Certified Chronometer" designation on the dial corresponds to Extra Prima or Ultra Prima grade. A Prima movement does not earn the dial mark. The Christie's London 2015 example with Cal. 1004 carries an "officially tested in 8 positions" rating — eight-position adjustment is unusual (Swiss and Kew chronometer protocols of the period typically tested in 5 or 6 positions), and the 8-position attribution may indicate a specific Aegler-internal regulation tier rather than a Bureaux-Officiels-Suisse-de-Contrôle certification.

The duo-dial and the doctor's watch

Rolex Prince 1862 dial detail Cal. 527
1934 Glasgow Cal. 527 dial — silvered duo-dial with painted Arabic numerals, large sub-seconds at six

The 1862 dial is the same duo-dial layout as the 971 and 1490: hours and minutes in the upper register, oversized sub-seconds at six. The architecture earned the Prince family its "doctor's watch" nickname — the large sub-seconds register let physicians count a patient's pulse cleanly off the dial.

Documented dial configurations on surfaced 1862 examples:

  • Silvered duo-dial with painted Arabic numerals, sub-seconds at six — the most common configuration.
  • Silvered duo-dial with applied baton or Breguet hour markers, sub-seconds at six.
  • Two-tone sector duo-dial — Sotheby's GE1604 1935 example carries a three-tone dial on the 9K + steel two-tone case.
  • Gilt dial with black painted Arabic numerals — Sotheby's NY 2018 1862A example.
  • White two-tone dial with "Modèle déposé" enamel inscription — Christie's online 1862 Cal. 527 c.1934 example. The "Modèle déposé" enamel mark is a Rolex technique used only through the 1940s, useful as a period-authenticity tell.
  • Engraved dedications — privately-engraved "das H. Valentine" inscription (Christie's online), "T.E.J." monogram (Antiquorum 2011). No retailer-double-signed 1862 examples have surfaced in the auction record (Bucherer, Beyer, Eaton, and similar retailer doubles cluster on the 971 and 1490, not the 1862).

Hand styles documented include blued steel sword hands (Christie's London 2015 9K), blued steel leaf hands (most common), and blued Breguet-style hands on dress variants. Sub-seconds hands are blued steel; refinished sub-seconds hands are the most commonly observed service intervention on the broader Prince family.

Authentication

Rolex Prince 1862 caseback "Modèle déposé" enamel + engraved Valentine
Caseback shows "MODÈLE DÉPOSÉ" enamel mark (Rolex technique through the 1940s), engraved "Das H. Valentine" presentation, factory-stamped reference 1862 and serial 16237

Authentication of an 1862 follows the same workflow as the 971 and 1490, with two reference-specific differences.

  1. Caliber-to-plate-shape match. A 1862 should carry an Aegler shaped movement. Rectangular plates indicate a Cal. 300 / 350 / T.S. 300 family movement (1928–1935 production); tonneau plates indicate Cal. 360 HW or one of the 700–1000-series commercial designations (1936-onward). A non-Aegler base movement under an 1862 dial is a transplant. Caliber-number drift across auction houses (Cal. 300 versus Cal. 1759 for similar architectural specs) is real and not by itself evidence of a transplant — the plate shape is the more reliable check.
  1. Glasgow / Edinburgh hallmarks. The 1862 is more heavily Glasgow-imported than the 971 — the 9K-gold proportion of the surfaced corpus is higher, and Glasgow stamping was the standard British-market workflow for 9K cases. The four marks present on a Glasgow-imported case (purity, Glasgow town mark, year-letter code, sponsor's mark including Rolex's RWC Ltd punch) date the case import precisely; cross-check the year-letter against the published Glasgow assay tables. The 1862 surfaced corpus carries Glasgow 1934, 1935, 1936, and 1937 hallmarks.
  1. Caseback engraving style. Period-correct 1862 casebacks are factory-stamped. Hand-engraved markings indicate post-factory work, with the exception of owner-presentation engraving (the "das H. Valentine" Christie's example, the "T.E.J." Antiquorum example) which sits alongside the factory stamping rather than replacing it. No retailer-program presentation 1862s have surfaced (Eaton 1/4 Century Club presentations cluster on the 971 and 1490, not the 1862), so a "1/4 Century Club"-signed 1862 should be cross-checked carefully.
  1. Crown material match. A gold case should carry a gold Rolex crown. A steel crown on a gold 1862 is a service replacement.
  1. Modèle déposé enamel. The "Modèle déposé" enamel mark on a 1862 dial (Christie's online Cal. 527 example) is a period-correct technique that Rolex used only through the 1940s. A 1862 dial without the mark is not necessarily a refinish — most 1862 dials never carried the mark — but a 1862 dial with the mark is a useful additional period-authenticity signal when the mark is original-period rather than added later.

Auction record

year venue configuration hammer
2008 Bonhams London 18ct gold, Glasgow 1936 (not extracted)
~2013 Christie's Geneva (sale 1395 group lot 307) 18K, case 16,663, c.1938 (paired with 1490) (group lot, hammer not posted publicly)
2015 Christie's London 9K, Glasgow 1936, Cal. 1004 8-position GBP 7,500
2016 Sotheby's Geneva GE1604 9K + steel three-tone dial, 1935 CHF 11,875 (price ceiling)
2018 Sotheby's NY n09911 1862A 18K yellow gold, c.1930 est. USD 3,000–5,000
2018 Sotheby's NY n09879 18K yellow gold unsold (est. USD 8,000–12,000)
~2022 Antiquorum Cal. 7½′′′ Extra Prima with Elinvar hairspring (lot details not fully extracted)
2022 Bonhams Cal. 841 T (lot details not fully extracted)
2026 Bonhams February platinum + 9K gold composite (only documented platinum-bearing 1862) (lot details not fully extracted)
various Antiquorum / smaller houses 9K Glasgow-imported examples spanning 1934–1937 typically GBP 3,000–5,000

The 1862 hammer band sits in the GBP 3,000–7,500 range for typical 9K Glasgow-imported examples and reaches CHF 11,875 for the 1935 9K + steel two-tone with three-tone dial — an order of magnitude below the 1490's CHF 62,500 Beyer-double-signed Phillips ceiling. The discount reflects the 1862's lower period prestige (no Brancard premium, less period advertising) rather than any difference in movement grade or chronometer testing rigour. A chronometer-grade Ultra Prima 1862 carries the same Aegler movement architecture as a chronometer-grade Ultra Prima 1490 — the case shape and the period marketing diverge, the watchmaking does not.

Sources

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