Rolex Oyster Perpetual 6618 Black Dial on Gold/Steel 1970

The Ref. 6618 belongs to a chapter of Rolex's Oyster Perpetual line that is easy to overlook and worth understanding. Produced in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, it represents the smaller-cased women's expression of the Oyster architecture — the same screw-down crown, the same hermetically sealed case construction — scaled to 25mm and offered in two-tone gold and steel at a moment when that combination was genuinely fashionable rather than a compromise. The movement is a self-winding automatic, and the plexiglass crystal above it is period-correct: softer than sapphire, prone to fine scratches over decades, but also polishable in a way that sapphire is not.

This example pairs the black dial — the stronger choice against the two-tone case, where the contrast reads cleanly rather than blending into the warmth of the gold — with baton indices that keep the face uncluttered. The gold and steel Jubilee-style bracelet is original to the configuration. In hand, the dial has a depth that a photograph compresses into flatness; the black holds differently under warm light than it does in daylight, and neither reading is wrong. The case and bracelet show wear consistent with honest age, all surfaces in very good condition throughout.

Offered in very good condition, watch only, with no papers.