Mysterious Rolex Red Letters On Warranty Certificates:

Mysterious Rolex Red Letters On Warranty Certificates: A Puzzle Solved!

On many older Rolex timepieces with their original warranty certificates, you will find red letters on the back side as seen in the picture below. These letters may seem completely random, but they served a purpose.

Here on this particular certificate for a vintage Submariner 7.2 million serial number, we find the letters “L ORTL”

To decipher this code, use this chart below:

R=1
O=2
L=3
E=4
X=5
W=6
A=7
T=8
C=9
H=0

Using this chart and this information, the seemingly random “L ORTL” becomes “3 2183.” This signifies that the watch was shipped by Rolex to the authorized dealer on March 21st, 1983.

When we flip to the front of the warranty certificate as seen in the picture below, we can clearly see that the customer purchased the said timepiece on June 9th, 1983, merely a little more than two months after its arrival to the authorized dealer showcase.

The red letters can be found on USA warranty certificates, and using the chart above, you can decipher when your timepiece was shipped from Rolex to the authorized dealer. The seemingly random numbers served a very practical purpose for the Rolex distribution process. Mystery solved!