The Rolex Tru-Beat Was an Objective Failure and Ahead of Its Time

If you see a Rolex ticking like this, it likely means that the watch is either 1) the little-seen Rolex OysterQuartz or 2) a shameless fake with a quartz movement There's a very improbable third option: the watch you're seeing is a Rolex Tru-Beat, a bizarre little piece of timekeeping obscura with an incredibly rare complication: a deadbeat seconds hand By all accounts, the movement was a pain to service and supposidly, in some cases, the deadbeat movement was swapped out for a standard movement by Rolex to keep them running.

Very few Tru-Beats in original condition show up for sale or auction, and when they do, they command a mighty sum, because if the vintage Rolex market has taught us anything, it's that no Rolex reference is too weird or quirky to be considered collectible It's tempting to look at the complexity of the watch, the questionable utility of the complication and the slow sales of the Tru-Beat and consider it a misguided effort from The Crown in many ways, the watch was ahead of its time Today, many other high-end brands like A.

Lange & Söhne, Habring² and Jaquet Droz have produced their own deadbeat seconds watches as a subtle flex of watchmaking ability There's a good chance you won't see a medical professional wearing one of these watches out in the field, but that alone is a testament to the deadbeat's oddball splendor. . Source