MILGAUSS MODEL, REF. 1019, “CERN DIAL”, CIRCA 1967

The Milgauss was introduced in 1956. It was designed for use in areas of high electromagnetic fields which can be found in laboratories. The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the world’s pre-eminent particle physics laboratory, was one of the first scientific labs in the 1950s to confirm the Milgauss could resist magnetic fields up to 1,000 gauss. The reference 1019 was in production from 1966 to 1990, the model was only available in stainless steel. Its name is derived from the Greek "Mil" for thousand and "Gauss," the unit to measure magnetism. A normal watch movement can withstand to 70-90 Gauss whereas the Milgauss keeps its incredible precision in a magnetic field up to 1000 Gauss. Rolex had made some of these Milgauss reference 1019s for CERN and these feature a non-luminous dial and hands, like the current example.