: Well, you've posted what would have been my opening guess Jeff, a
: Rolex 6238 Cosmograph. I don't think I've ever seen the
: predecessor 6234 with contrast subs, but I'm no Rolex expert.

: The 6238 definitely predates the Autavia by a few years, but
: there's a but coming... early ones seem to have uniformly
: coloured dials. And Autavias had contrast dials right off the
: bat. So it could be a close run thing, but my gut feel leans
: towards the Cosmograph having them before the Autavia went on
: sale.

: But then I believe the Navitimer predates the Cosmograph too,
: dating back to 1952. Did it have contrast dials at launch? I
: think the earliest Navitimers are solid colours too.

: So a complex question you've posed. It's not a case of saying when
: model X was introduced but instead of when it adopted contrast
: registers and that's a whole lot harder to find out...

: And then we find out an obscure watch by an equally obscure
: manufacturer trumps them all by 30 years anyway...