The Zerographe is extraordinarily rare, and equally important, as it is the first Oyster chronograph model made by Rolex. Even until this day, the model has remained mysterious to scholars and collectors, as there is no official information at Rolex nor is there any period advertisement providing any hints as to its origins.

What is known is that reference 3346 was the first Oyster chronograph to be fitted with an in-house patented caliber, 10 ½‘’’ manually wound movement featuring a fly-back function. The fly-back function is particularly useful for timekeeping in sports, aviation or other tasks that require repeated timing intervals. Only a handful of these watches have surfaced at auction, making it one of the rarest gems in the world. The chronograph hand can be reset to zero and then immediately started again by pressing once on the push piece. This fly-back center seconds watch with the push button at 2 o’clock makes the second hand fly back to zero, start and continuously run.

The Zerographe incorporates another major turning point for Rolex as it is fitted with a revolving bezel, which formed the foundation for all Rolex sports watches to come. The rotating bezel is calibrated to 60 units with black enameled Arabic five-minute divisions and red baton quarters.

Only in the 1950s would this rotating bezel make it into series production, most notably with the well-known Turn-O-Graph model. The Zerographe was never commercialized for public sale, making this a piece of Rolex history, as many Rolex innovations derived from this exact model.

The black lacquered California dial, with upper Roman and lower Arabic hour markers, is extremely attractive and rare. Scholarship tells us that there are only two known examples that bear this type of dial. The watch is fitted on a Rolex riveted Oyster bracelet, elevating the already sporty look of the piece.

Its desirability is further enhanced by its outstanding condition, with all luminous hour markers intact and each having aged beautifully to varying shades of caramel. The stunning example presented here is, unquestionably, one of the rarest versions of the mythical, and already highly rare Zerographe. Its importance in the field of collectible Rolex timepieces cannot be overstated. It is a trophy to enhance the world’s most important collections of Rolex wristwatches.