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Over the early years of the RWC now Rolex they have used many names on the dial of watches.Air Lion,AirTiger,Air-Giant,SpaceDweller,Skyrocket,Falcon Orchid,Observatory,Tridor,Athlete,Commando,Turtle Timer,Canadian,Empire, Oyster Lipton, Rolex Scientific,Rolex Everest,Tudor Advisor,Oyster Junior Sport, Oyster Raleigh, Oyster Commander, Oyster Recorda, Oyster Edison, Oyster Grenfell, Oyster Shipmate and Oyster Standard,and there are a quite a few more that I cannot remember now.
Rolex Airking now some seem to dismiss this watch but IMHO its one of Rolex most important models history wise.
Now some say the first Airkings were particularly designed for World War 11 pilots as such but IMHO they were not, but world war 11 did have a part to play with the Airking. And today a few models now becoming collectible especially the Airking dates,and especially the red date roulette dates.Now before WW11 Rolex was always popular with the armed forces in the UK,now old Hans being a good business man saw there was a market for a slightly bigger watch.Now watches at these times were quite small 30m and under were the average size.Now Rolex started producing 33m models under the names of Air Lion,Air Tiger,Air Giant and the Air king.They all used a 15 jewel manual wind movement,then came in S.steel even a TT plus all gold but mainly then 9ct only .And they were in production from the mid 1940s to early 1950s when they were all dropped except for the Airking.Now over the next few years the Air king gained a auto movement and now the same size as OP,and some of the most sort after Airkings now are models like the 1960s 5504 with the honeycombed dial.Now the first Airking date arrived on the scene late 1960s Ref 5700 were only sold in the then Commonwealth countries like Canada and the UK.Now they made a 5700N Explorer Date but that was only sold in the USA.Later 1970s 5701 Airking dates had the cal.1525/35 movements,and they made a TT version of the 5701 quite rare today, but again for the Canadian only market but the Airking date faded out of production in the 1980s. IMO a shame the Airking has quite a lot of history, and IMHO now a very underrated watch.
Rolex Airking now some seem to dismiss this watch but IMHO its one of Rolex most important models history wise.
Now some say the first Airkings were particularly designed for World War 11 pilots as such but IMHO they were not, but world war 11 did have a part to play with the Airking. And today a few models now becoming collectible especially the Airking dates,and especially the red date roulette dates.Now before WW11 Rolex was always popular with the armed forces in the UK,now old Hans being a good business man saw there was a market for a slightly bigger watch.Now watches at these times were quite small 30m and under were the average size.Now Rolex started producing 33m models under the names of Air Lion,Air Tiger,Air Giant and the Air king.They all used a 15 jewel manual wind movement,then came in S.steel even a TT plus all gold but mainly then 9ct only .And they were in production from the mid 1940s to early 1950s when they were all dropped except for the Airking.Now over the next few years the Air king gained a auto movement and now the same size as OP,and some of the most sort after Airkings now are models like the 1960s 5504 with the honeycombed dial.Now the first Airking date arrived on the scene late 1960s Ref 5700 were only sold in the then Commonwealth countries like Canada and the UK.Now they made a 5700N Explorer Date but that was only sold in the USA.Later 1970s 5701 Airking dates had the cal.1525/35 movements,and they made a TT version of the 5701 quite rare today, but again for the Canadian only market but the Airking date faded out of production in the 1980s. IMO a shame the Airking has quite a lot of history, and IMHO now a very underrated watch.