Nope, Stainless Steel. Gold is for teeth and wedding bands.

BTW, the middle one was a wedding present from my wife. I could have got'n a pretty much any model under 8K but I choose the Airking SS sans date.

I bought an auto one in St Thomas for $35, and though it looks good, it broke in less than 2 months. Heck, my $8 quartz sports watch from Wal Mart has been going for about 5 years now.

I don't believe Rolex ever made a gold AirKing. There may have been some early SpeedKings in rose gold, but not sure.

Actually, they did make a gold Air-King. It used a 9ct. case and was available with a leather strap or 9ct. band. Reference number 3123. Good luck finding one, though...

JR

Where did you find that ref.? My list(s) only shows:

Air-King
4365, 4925, 5500, 5501, 5506, 5520, 6500, 6552, 7784,
14000, 14000M, 14010, 14010M

Air-King-Date
5700, 5701

I see no case ref. for "31"

The "23" indicates (2) engine-turned bezel & (3) two-tone (stainless/gold)... <-(note: cancel that...those numbers are for 5-digit case refs...)

:confused:

Only other reference I could find was a two-tone AirKing produced briefly in the 70's...

Must be a rare watch! Pics?

There's a black and white ad page (or catalog page, it's hard to tell) shown in the book by Dowling/Hess. It's from England, probably late 50's or early 60's.

Lots of Rolex watch variants were only sold in particular markets. Perhaps this is one of them.

Another thing, perhaps the British catalogs used a separate reference number that was different from the case number. Who knows?

JR

Dowlings book is one I don't have.

I thought the ref. #'s were universal, but as you said...who knows...

Got any old 5513's laying around? I'll take 'em! Like an idiot, I sold mine when they were still "cheap"... :( (and my 1675...for $1400 http://forums.pelicanparts.com/suppo...ys/bawling.gif)

SmileWavy

You need a copy of the book. Lot's of stuff we'll never see. James Dowling is actually a nice guy. I've bought a couple watches from him over the years.

No 5513, I prefer the 5512. I have a nice one, circa 1973, that I bought from James.

JR

I don't "do" watches anymore (NAWCC). Should pick it up, though, to reminisce.

Well...if you're gonna get picky...

http://www.watchestobuy.com/images/5508s.JPG

That's prety beat up. I'll give you 50 bucks for it.

JR

I'll give you $100

LOL. I think that's what they sold for originally @ the military BX.

Talk to this guy...he might make you a deal:

http://jaegerlc.homestead.com/files/JamesBond.jpg

Here's a poor example @ $15.9k:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ROLEX-SUBMARINER-5508-JAMES-BOND-STEEL-DIVE-WATCH-RARE_W0QQitemZ180240898899QQihZ008QQcategoryZ31387 QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Here ya go...

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1210804512.jpg

Two-tone, yes. Gold, no.

Not the same watch. That's a two-tone, mit date, and a much later model.

Keep Googling,
JR