About the site
How we verify
The rules every page follows before it is published.
Two independent source families
A fact needs two sources that do not copy each other before we state it as settled. Rolex's own website, its press releases and archived copies of either count as one family. Two Wikipedia articles count as one. Dealers copy one another, so two dealers saying the same thing is often one source said twice. Rolex's own specifications may stand on Rolex alone, because for its own watches Rolex is the primary source. Where we have only one source, we say so.
Every fact has a footnote
Each fact on a reference page carries a numbered footnote. The sources are listed at the foot of the page, with the date we read each one.
Asking prices are not sale prices
List prices come from Rolex's own website, with the market and the date we read them. Used-market figures are what dealers were asking on the day we looked, and where we give a median, it is our own calculation from those listings. A watch can sit on a dealer's site for months at a price nobody pays, so we label asking prices as asking prices, and we keep them apart from Rolex's list prices.
Where the sources disagree
When sources disagree on a date, a figure or a detail, we do not quietly pick the one we like. The page says so under Where the sources disagree.
An independent fact review
Before a page is published, a separate fact review, done independently of the writing, checks each claim against the source it cites. A claim the source does not carry is rewritten or removed.
No guessing
Words such as first, only and every have to be in the source. We recalculate every percentage ourselves. Not found is an acceptable answer. A guess is not.
Our own pictures
Every picture is a painting made for this site. Where a painting was made after a photograph, the photograph comes from Wikimedia Commons under a licence that allows it, and it is credited under credits. We do not paint from press photographs or dealer listings.
Independent
We are not affiliated with any brand. Changes to published facts are listed under corrections.