1954 Rolex Oyster Perpetual Salmon Diamond Dial Ref. 6580 'Possibly Unique'

Not just a Salmon dial

The Rolex Oyster Perpetual is the purest distillation of what Rolex stands for, timeless design, technical innovation, and everyday reliability. It combines two of the brand’s most important contributions to modern watchmaking: the Oyster case (the world’s first waterproof wristwatch case, introduced in 1926) and the Perpetual movement (Rolex’s self-winding mechanism, launched in 1931). Together, they created the foundation upon which all modern Rolex watches are built.

Over the past century the Oyster Perpetual came in countless configurations varying in material, size, bezel as well as dial and hand configurations. The philosophy of the Oyster Perpetual is defined by its clean dial, no-date layout, and versatile proportions with a focus on balance and symmetry.

The watch offered here is a member of the Oyster Perpetual family, the reference 6580 which dates to 1954. The 6580 measures 34mm and has a classic Oyster shape featuring a bezel with hour indexes and fine ridges in-between. This reference came in a universe of dial configuration ranging from a plain silver dial with baton indexes to a waffle dial with fancy markers but what we have here left our jaws drop.

A factory Salmon dial like we have never seen before. Before we start explaining the dial, we must say that the dial features quite a few unusual highlights that caught our attention, details that we have never seen before in this combination. The color is special, a mesmerizing and vivid Salmon hue that we could only find on a couple of early Empire and Bubblebacks from the 1940s. The texture of the dial is a magical shimmering matte finish that is achieved with a very fine grainy finish that is visible only under magnification.

The markers at 3, 6 and 9 are something we couldn’t find on any other Rolex dial, we don’t even think there is a name for them but we will try to describe them as accurately as possible. Each marker consists of 3 diamonds set in a linear way inside a rectangular white gold frame. The remaining hour markers are facetted and shaped like a drop with the tip pointing to the center of the dial. The minute track- very unusual for Rolex, is dotted and runs along the hour markers. Lastly the dial has Dauphine hands, the hands we would expect to see on such a dial in this era.

This little Oyster is great proof that even a Brand like Rolex will go out of its way to create something out of the ordinary, something that they never showed in any catalogues, a dial that might even be a unique piece that was made upon customer request or even as an experiment.

Whatever the reason was to make this watch, we are absolute flabbergasted that it is here and certain that the rarity outweighs any of the dials that has been made for this reference, in fact this remarkable dial seems to be among the rarest dials made for any Oyster Perpetual we have ever seen.

An absolute romantic interpretation of an Oyster Perpetual, one that will make you smile every time you try to read the time.