still to be verified
In one line
A 26-jewel automatic with a free-sprung balance and Microstella nuts, the same regulating system Rolex still uses today. It drove the chronometer-certified sports watches from 1965, and it is not in the Submariner almost everybody thinks it is in.
First things first: the Submariner 5513 does not have a 1570
This is the most repeated mistake in all of vintage Rolex, and it turns up in listings from dealers who ought to know better. The 5512 and the 5513 are almost the same watch. Almost.
The 5512 is chronometer-certified; the 5513 is not. And since the 1570 is a COSC calibre, it cannot sit inside an uncertified watch.
5513 → calibre 1530, later 1520. Not certified.
The dial gives it away: four lines of text (“Superlative Chronometer · Officially Certified”) against two.
The 1520 and the 1570 belong to the same family and run at the same beat. What separates them is the regulation, the jewel count and a piece of paper signed in Geneva. You are not paying for more mechanics. You are paying for a certificate issued in 1965 and for the rarity of the 5512, which was built in far smaller numbers.
And that is not the only place the error creeps in. If the watch has a date, there is a 1575 inside, not a 1570. If it also has a 24-hour hand — a GMT-Master 1675 — it is the GMT version of that 1575. The 1570 has no date and never had one.
1570 versus 1575: which one is in your watch
They are the same movement. The 1575 adds the date, and with it takes half the Rolex catalogue of the period.
| Calibre 1570 | Calibre 1575 | |
|---|---|---|
| Date | No | Yes |
| How you set it | — | No quickset: the hands have to be run past twelve |
| Frequency | 19,800 vph | 19,800 vph |
| Jewels | 26 | 26 |
| Where it went | Submariner 5512, Explorer 1016, Oyster Perpetual | Datejust 1601, GMT-Master 1675, Sea-Dweller 1665 |
The lack of a quickset is not an oversight: no Rolex automatic had one before 1977. Setting the 20th means twenty turns of the hands. It takes a minute, and then you never think about it again.
If that genuinely irritates you, the calibre you want is the 3035. And it is twelve years younger.
Where it came from
Rolex's third in-house automatic arrived in 1965 to take over from the 1560. The big change was the beat: 18,000 vph became 19,800, which is what the whole industry was doing in those years to steady the rate. Everything else was already in place — free-sprung balance, Microstella nuts, Breguet hairspring, KIF Ultraflex shock protection — and it survives almost unchanged in the Rolex movements of today.
Hacking seconds appeared around 1971 or 1972. Pull the crown and the balance stops, so the watch can be set to the second. Earlier examples cannot do it, which makes this the quickest way to date a 1570 roughly without opening the case.
What it never gained is a quickset date, for the simple reason that it has no date at all. That was the job of its twin, the 1575. It also lasted far longer than the usual account allows. The 3035 arrived in 1977 to replace it, yet the Explorer 1016 was still leaving the factory with a 1570 inside as late as 1989.
Why it matters
This is the calibre inside a Submariner 5512, an Explorer 1016 or an Oyster Perpetual from the golden years of those models — watches that now sit at the centre of any serious vintage Rolex collection. Finding one with a sound movement, free of heavy-handed repairs, is among the things that most affects what these watches are worth.
Three things almost nobody knows
- The nuts that regulate it date from 1957 and are still there Rolex devised the Microstella system in 1957: instead of an index that shortens or lengthens the hairspring, four nuts on the rim of the balance are screwed in or out to alter its inertia. The 1570 uses it. So does the 3235 Rolex sells today. Nearly seventy years on the same idea.
- It carried on long after it had been replaced The 3035 arrived in 1977 to take its place. The Explorer 1016 went on using the 1570 until 1989, when reference 14270 retired it. Twelve years of leaving the factory with a calibre that was officially out of date.
- There was a version in a Faraday cage The 1580 in the Milgauss 1019 is this same movement housed in a soft-iron inner case that steers magnetism around it. Resistance to 1,000 gauss, and a thicker case because the shielding takes up room. That is how the Milgauss ended up on the wrists of physicists and engineers.
Technical data
| Type | Bidirectional automatic, no date |
|---|---|
| Jewels | 26 |
| Frequency | 19,800 vph (2.75 Hz) |
| Power reserve | About 48 hours |
| Diameter | 28.5 mm |
| Thickness | 5.75 mm |
| Regulation | Free-sprung balance with Microstella nuts |
| Hairspring | Breguet, with terminal curve |
| Shock protection | KIF Ultraflex |
| Hacking seconds | From 1971-1972 |
| Certification | Chronometer (COSC) |
| Production | 1965 – late 1970s |
What a watchmaker checks before buying one
Start by pulling the crown. If the seconds hand stops, the movement is 1971 or later, or somebody has fitted a later balance. If it keeps running, it is earlier. Neither is wrong in itself. What is wrong is being sold one and handed the other.
Then the four Microstella nuts on the balance rim. They should be clean and free of tool marks. If somebody has turned them with whatever came to hand — and it happens more often than you would think — the balance goes out of poise and the watch will never keep good time in every position. It can be put right, but only with the correct key and time to spare.
And here is the good news about Rolex of this period: the parts are there. Rolex kept these calibres in service for decades and spares still circulate. Servicing a 1570 is undramatic. It is not a 321.
Watches that used it
- Submariner 5512 — the chronometer-certified version, with the four-line dial
- Explorer 1016 — from the mid-1970s to 1989
- Oyster Perpetual 1002, 1003, 1007, 1008 and 1018
- Milgauss 1019 — with calibre 1580, this same movement inside a magnetic shield
The ones with a date — Datejust 1601, GMT-Master 1675, Sea-Dweller 1665 — use the 1575, this same calibre with a calendar. Its own replacement was the calibre 3035.