The New Rolex Service Guide
By: John B. Holbrook, II
June 13th, 2007
Copyright 2007 - All Rights Reserved

As you may recall from my Travel Page article on my trip last month to New York, I was invited to tour Rolex USA's headquarters and service center in Manhattan. The experience was an honor I will not soon forget.

During the visit to Rolex USA in New York, I was provided with a copy of the new Rolex Service Guide - a guide which usually is included as one of the booklets packaged with every new Rolex watch, as well as being provided with every watch that is sent in for service and returned to the customer. Here is the familiar looking previous generation book:

Now here is what the new Service Guide looks like:

The new service guide contains much the same type of information as in the previous guide - it details what happens when a watch is sent to one of the various Rolex service centers. Many of the photographs have been updated a bit from the previous guide. Here's one I'm quite fond of:

In the above photo, take a look at the machine which the technician is standing in front of in the page on the right. I stood not much further away from this machine at Rolex USA - its a computer cataloged and controlled parts dispenser. Need a crown for a 16610 Submariner? No problem - enter in the part number, and the correct shelf containing the bin with the proper part will spin around (like a giant slot machine).

Have you ever wondered if Rolex uses paid "models" or actual technicians in these photos? Well wonder no more! Take a close look at the "model" in the photograph below:

Recognize him? Let's have a bit of a closer look:

Still don't recognize him? How about that black dial Turn-O-Graph on his wrist? That's the daily driver for none other than the illustrious John Davis, AKA "ei8ohms." For those of you unfamiliar, John Davis is a long time watch enthusiast, and has written some of the most brilliant and technically in-depth watch related articles ever published, both online and in print. Here's an interesting interview with John Davis. John's work has been very influential to my own - particularly his famous review of the Seiko Monster. So you can imagine my surprise when in the midst of my tour of Rolex USA in New York, one of the white coat wearing technicians came up to me and introduced himself as John Davis! It seems that John has been an employee of Rolex USA for quite sometime since finishing his watchmaker training - a fact not well publicized on the Net, but John gave me permission to "out" him as a Rolex USA employee. Meeting John made my trip to New York and Rolex USA even more special.

In terms of the new service guide, I would image we can expect to start seeing it included with new watches from Rolex later this year, if not already. It does an excellent job of explaining the behind the scenes details of what happens when you send your Rolex to one of the various Rolex service centers around the world.