Rolex Roulette Date Wheels Explained
When a watch (particularly a Rolex) has a date wheel with alternating red and black dates, that’s known as a “roulette date.” The first roulette date Rolex Datejust appeared in 1947, and Rolex revisited the aesthetic again in the early 2000’s. Although they don’t really bring any significant premium on the resale market, roulette date Rolex watches get a fair amount of love from collectors. Here’s everything you should know about them.
Roulette Date Rolex Timeline
1947-1958 – The roulette date wheel appears on early 36mm Datejust references like 4467, then 5030, 5031, 6305, and 6605. For two years before the roulette date wheel came out, the dates were all red.
1953-1955 – The famous date-magnifying Cyclops appears, and the typeface is updated to what we think of as the “standard” vintage Rolex date font with open 6’s and 9’s. All-red date wheels stop appearing on regular Datejusts, but some Turn-O-Graphs will soon get those.
1954-1959 – 34mm Rolex date models mostly get roulette date wheels during this time, though all-black ones exist too. This includes manual-wind Oysterdate models (like ref. 6094, 6294, 6494 and 6694) as well as Oyster Perpetual Date models (like ref. 6518, 6530, 6534, 6535 and 6537) and the ultra-obscure non-Oyster 271 model. Some 30mm Oysterdates (ref. 6466) have roulette dates, too.
1956-1962 – Ref. 6309 and 6609 Turn-O-Graphs get a roulette date option. Some 1625’s from the early 1960’s can even be found with roulette dates. Rolex would then proceed to stick almost exclusively to black dates for over 40 years.
2004-2018 – Some Rolex Datejust 36 configurations get roulette date wheels again, depending on the dial. All 1162xx Datejusts with blue, black, white, or salmon dials with fully lumed sticks have roulette date wheels. Same for tuxedo dials and concentric engraved dials with Arabic numerals for hour markers. This applies to all references of this generation (like 116200, 116234, 116201, 116231, 116203, 116233, 116208, 116238, 116135, 116185, 116138, and 116139) regardless of case material and bezel style.
Sizes
For whatever reason, Rolex roulette date wheels only ever appeared on 30mm, 34mm and 36mm Oyster models. Sports models were never given a roulette date, nor were Day-Dates.
Is the Rolex Roulette Date Red on Even or Odd Days?
The original Rolex roulette date wheels (from about 1947-1962) have red even numbers, but for the 2004-2018 roulette “revival,” Rolex made the odds red instead.
It may seem like a silly thing to pay attention to, but plenty of watch enthusiasts think roulette date wheels are pretty cool. Although they’re not part of the current catalog, “two-color date wheels” (as Rolex officially calls them) would likely get some healthy attention if they made another comeback. After all, watch collectors do have a history of getting inordinately excited about subtle red accents.
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