First released in in 1954, the GMT-Master was designed for pilots to use in their line of work. With the rise of international travel in the 1940s and 1950s, Rolex initially created the model for Pan Am airlines to track dual time zones.

Reference 6542 featured an ingenious design: the immediately recognizable bakelite bezel with twenty-four hour numerals painted on the underside, made to glow in any weather condition. Bakelite was Rolex's material of choice, due to its low reflectivity and high readability. The additional luminous 24 hour tipped hand allowed the viewer to immediately track a second time zone.

Bakelite is an incredibly fragile material, so much that most existing ones are now cracked with years of wear. Thus, to find on that is intact, is a true anomaly in itself.

Given that GMT-Masters were intended to be a "tool watch", they were often chosen for everyday wear. As such most existing examples have been polished and heavily worn - fitting, as watches dressed in yellow gold or pink gold livery were considered the most valuable. To discover one, displaying its bevels and original luminous material, such as the present example, is any collector's dream come true.