Rolex Milgauss watches

The Rolex Milgauss is the brand's anti-magnetic watch, made for people who work around strong magnetic fields. The name joins the French mille, a thousand, with the gauss, a unit of magnetic field, and the watch was built to resist 1,000 gauss. The 6541 of 1956, made for scientists at CERN in Geneva, brought the orange lightning-bolt seconds hand. The 1019, a 38 mm watch with a straight seconds hand, followed in 1960 and stayed in production until 1988.

After a long absence the name returned at Baselworld 2007 as the 116400, with the lightning-bolt hand back on the dial. The case is 40 mm across and 13.5 mm thick, in polished 904L steel. The internal magnetic shield makes it thicker than a Submariner of the same width. That shield is made of ferromagnetic alloy in two parts, one screwed to the movement and one to the case, and it surrounds calibre 3131, a chronometer-certified anti-magnetic movement that also includes paramagnetic materials.

The modern range splits in two. The plain 116400 has a clear sapphire crystal and comes with a black dial with white batons and orange squares on the minute track (116400-0001), or a white dial with orange batons and an orange minute track (116400-0002). The 116400GV has a green-tinted sapphire crystal, something no other Rolex had. It first came with a black dial carrying orange and white batons (116400GV-0001); the Z-Blue (116400GV-0002) puts a blue dial under the same green crystal. All of them share the 40 mm steel case, calibre 3131 and the orange lightning-bolt seconds hand.

Rolex discontinued the Milgauss in 2023, which closed a line that had run, with one long gap, since the 1950s.