Rolex GMT Master, 1971

Dealer description — Analog/Shift

The desire to collect and cherish precious objects is almost as old as humanity itself. Even the ancients collected artifacts that they themselves deemed old, as an archaeologist discovered in 1925 when he excavated the palace of a Babylonian princess and uncovered her private (curated and neatly organized) collection of antiquities. In the Modern Era, today's great museums and art galleries started as nobles' private collections and then were gradually opened to the public. So it's certainly an innate component of our human psychology, perhaps even hard-wired in our DNA. We could get into the psychology of collecting, but in it there's an indelible desire to connect, through objects, both to the past and the present. In other words, those who seek out vintage objects act as custodians of the past for future generations, not just for themselves. Watch collectors especially understand the deep significance of collecting and preserving these horological artifacts in an age when humanity has entered a Digital Age. In today's vintage watch market, collectors strive to feel as though they own a piece of their watch's past. There's a shift in today's vintage marketplace toward watches where the provenance--the complete history of the watch's ownership--is known. These watches, highly desirable, are veritable time capsules. As collectors ourselves, we understand that need more than anything, and how rare it is to come across one of these time capsules. Quite simply, watches change hands so many times over the years, are sold and get serviced, and associated documentation generally disappears. So when we find a watch that comes complete with a box and all its attendant paperwork, it's a special occasion indeed. In talking about this particular watch, a Rolex GMT Master Reference 1675, we don't use the term "time capsule" lightly; nor are we exaggerating when we say that it comes with perhaps the most complete set of paperwork we've ever seen. 1968. That's the year this watch was sold at Bucherer to a customer who lived in Brooklyn, New York. He obviously cherished and cared for this watch, because included are service receipts and associated paperwork from Rolex dating from 1971, 1974, and 1979. For an example of an already-desirable Reference , this watch goes above and beyond the requirements for what makes a watch collectible. Not only has it been exceedingly documented and loved, but it comes fitted with an early "long E" Mark I dial and a bezel that's aged to a beautiful fuchsia that makes previous examples we've seen (as lovely and desirable as they are) seem almost like shrinking violets in comparison. Those elements--and a lovely bracelet (dated 1967) with extra links--alone make it worthy of consideration, but when you add all the accoutrements, it transcends mere collectibility. To paraphrase Patek Philippe--you don't just own this watch, you merely safeguard it for the next generation. Never more has that been as important as it is now, when digital timekeepers take precedence over their mechanical counterparts. If you ever wanted to see an example of an artifact in the metal, something that has been and deserved to be preserved, then this is it.