The History of the Rolex Milgauss | Bob's Watches

Today, we’re talking about the Milgauss, a watch that has always been, and will always be a bit of an outlier in the Rolex collection, though it certainly isn’t without its charms. Though it dates all the way back to 1954, it has really only seen two major redesigns, but when we say major we aren’t exagerating. The initial reference was the 6543, which only lasted a couple of years in production, and looking at that first model there was very little that distinguished it from a Submariner other than the word Milgauss written across the dial. Using a soft iron Faraday Cage, the watch was capable of resisting magnetic fields of up to 1,000 Gauss, which being in the time prior to digital/electronic timekeeping, was a legitimately practical thing for those working in power plants, on railways, or several other fields. With the switch to the reference 6541 in 1956, the Milgauss added its lightning-bold seconds hand that remains part of the design of present generation Milgauss watches. The European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, would quickly put these watches to the test in real-world scenarios. It was offered with either a timing bezel or a smooth one, though in either configuration it managed to stand out from its siblings at the time, not to mention it is one of very few Rolex that occasionally appeared with a waffle textured dial. When 1960 rolled around, the Milgauss was in for some fairly significant change. Out the window went the Submariner-styled