The watch was the property of Henri Garih (1907-1979). He became a chemist and worked with Professeur Chretien at the Sorbonne. In 1932, he was one of the fi rst scientist in France to invent an alloy of Tungstene powder (Wolfram) mixed with carbon powder that was then pressed and heated to 1200 degrees. This mixture is then as hard as diamond and was quickly used to manufacture components in the aeronautic and automotive industry used at high speeds. He then founded his own company called Safety that still exists today.
It is interesting to note that this Rolex was purchased by the owner to be used for timing his various experiments. The extremely rare black dial featuring large dot indexes was sure to provide extra readibility doing his various chemical timings. He later asked his local watchmaker to change the original hands to larger ones, especially the second hand. Despite being worn, the watch has remained in outstanding condition still bearing clear hallmarks on the original gold fi xed bars, crisp Rolex logo as well as case reference and movement number and a beautiful all original black dial. This is the fi rst time that this kind of black ?scientifi c? dial has appeared at auction.