Lot 167

Rolex

Milgauss Z-Blue

A wristwatch in mint condition, antimagnetic to 1000 Gauss with blue dial and green sapphire crystal - with guarantee card and Rolex seal tag

Sold

The eye-catching, metallic shimmering "electric blue" or "Z-blue" dial with its orange highlights and the green sapphire crystal give off a beautiful play of colours.

Telecommunications, aviation and aerospace industries, medical imaging, research facilities – to name but a few of the many sectors where scientists, engineers and technicians are exposed to strong magnetic fields on a regular basis. The Oyster Perpetual Milgauss has been purpose-built for these environments. Its name is a combination of "mil" (a thousand), and "gauss", (the unit of magnetic flux density, named after the German mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss), and the wristwatch is resistant to a magnetic flux density of 1,000 gauss or tesla. Rolex uses its own parachrome spring and an escapement wheel made of a new paramagnetic material in the Milgauss. Ferromagnetic alloys provide the magnetic shielding protecting the movement. The original Milgauss was mostly sold for its unusual design – not many people needed a watch with all those functions the Milgauss provided. Thus the watch was never a big seller and Rolex discontinued the production in 1986. However, in 2007 Rolex relaunched the Milgauss with an outstanding design in three different styles: stainless steel with a white dial, stainless steel with a black dial and stainless steel with black dial and green glass. This was followed in 2014 by reference 116400GV with a blue dial, orange Arabic minute display and green glass.