The Rolex Milgauss 6541 prototype - the rarest production Rolex ever?
What I love about Rolex is that their history is shrouded in mystery. It’s not that they are secretive but just like so many other Swiss institutions, very private. That means that every so often something appears that is a complete surprise, new to the market and helps fill in a few more of the blanks in Rolex’s long history.
The Millguass 6541 prototype is most definitely one of those pieces.
Back in 2001 I would spend most Saturdays at my friend Nick Urul’s watch shop in Mayfair. I would hang around, review any new stock he had in, but mostly just drink his coffee and talk about Rolex. Back then, we both knew a few ‘Vest pocket dealers’ these were people who had a fair bit of Rolex knowledge and made their living buying watches privately from small ads and in places like market stalls and sold them on to dealers for a quick profit (yes you could actually do that back then!) . On this particular Saturday the phone rang and it was one of these contacts. He was on holiday and Cairo and was at market stall when the owner of the stall noticed his Rolex. The owner asked him if wanted to buy an old Rolex? - off course he did!. The owners English wasn’t great but our contact did understand that the watch belonged to his late father who was Swiss. A short walk down some twisting alleys behind the market and our contact was in the owners house and a few minutes after that the watch was in his hands.
Our contact had never seen a MIlguass watch but he felt sure the this was the real thing. He did notice that the word Milgauss was in odd place on the bottom half of the dial rather than at the top. Our contact rang the shop up and talked us through what he was holding in his hands. You need to remember that back in 2001 most people did not have a camera on their phones, so we were listening to a crackly line from Egypt and had to make our decision based on a description. We both knew that what he was describing did not exist, but we both trusted his ability to know a ‘real’ watch from a fake one. I remember his words to this day: “I don’t know what this is and its not right but its definitely not wrong”
A few more minutes of chat and we said buy it! He did so, for a few thousand pounds - plus his healthy commission - a lot of money back then for something we hadn’t even seen.
Purchase made and we both thought about the negatives - could it be a total fake or an honest watch with a fake dial. If it was a scam it was a good one but could it really be something unique?. A week later, in the hot little back room of the shop, our contact pulled apart some bubble wrap and handed over the watch. To say we were flabbergasted is an understatement. What we had was a real Milguass 6541. A rare find in itself, but this one was in almost perfect unworn condition. The bezel was completely unmarked, the watch case crisp and unworn, the original gold ‘Submariner’ hands (which are not the same as those on the production model) were bright with perfect luminous. And then there was the dial, shiny, unfaded with bright luminous and the ‘Milguass’ word picked out in red paint at the bottom of the watch in a place it never officially appeared. It was (and still is breathtaking) and the only possible explanation was that it was a prototype that had somehow escaped into the open market.
The watch was quickly presented to Rolex in London, who were almost as excited as we were and who send it on to Switzerland. After an agonising wait Rolex Geneva pronounced that the watch was indeed one of a just a few prototypes made that were issued to people to test ‘in the field’. That ‘testing in the field’ is the reason this watch ended up in Egypt. The MIlguass uses an anti-magnetic shield around the watch movement and an aluminium dial - this is all to protect the watch from high magnetic fields which can destroy a a watch movements accuracy. Its name is derived from the French and means ‘ 1000 Guass’ - Guass being a measurement of magnetic strength - and it was invented and intended to be used by those operating in areas of high magnetic fields. One such field of work where these conditions exist is found in Hydro-electric dams. So you have to wind the clock back to the early 1950s when Rolex gave one of its Milguass prototypes to a scientist with experience in generating electricity from dams. What happened next is unclear but by the early 1960s that scientist was In Egypt and almost certainly working on the Aswan Dam project. Whoever he was, he obviously liked Egypt and stayed, passing away in the 1990s and leaving his watch to his son. Lost for 45 or so years this stunning Milgauss found its way to England and to an auction at Christie’s in 2001 where it was sold for just over £28,000. Now that really was a lot of money back then but today you could easily add another £100,000 to that price.
I didn’t put any money into the purchases of the watch from our ‘Vest pocket’ friend and so I didn’t make any money from it - I can tell you though that just looking at it was reward enough. I have always wondered where that watch ended up - if you bought it I would love to hear from you. I do however suspect that its journey became a full circle and that it was purchased by Rolex. Today, it probably sits in their very private some might say secretive museum in Geneva. If it is there, I for one one am glad it made it back home.
Milgauss, 6541 model prototype. Made in Switzerland, left in Egypt and sold in Great Britain.
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