The Story of Elvis Presley's Rolex King Midas [Part 1 or 4]

I originally published this story on Jake's Rolex World 15 years ago—back in 2008 that featured exclusive photos that Elvis Presley's Graceland took for Jake's Rolex World. Since Elvis Presley's only child, Lisa Marie Presley recently passed away, this story has been getting a lot of attention so I thought it made sense to bring it back to the top and extend it significantly to also include my discover of Elvis rocking his Rolex Submariner. In many ways it seems surrealistic that Lisa Marie is gone, as she was like Rock n' Rolex Royalty, and just like her father, she died way too young...

The King's King

Elvis Presley 

Rolex King Midas & Rolex Submariner

I would like to thank Graceland for their extremely kind and gracious assistance with taking the exclusive photos of Elvis Presley's Limited Edition Rolex King Midas for Jake's Rolex Watch Blog. Elvis Presley is known as The King of Rock & Roll. Elvis Presley changed the world with his amazing music. Elvis was extremely handsome, charismatic and ultra-talented. 

Very few people knew Elvis wore a Rolex, but it was not just any Rolex. Elvis wore a limited edition Rolex King Midas (Model Reference Number 9630) which Rolex only made 1000 examples of. The King Midas at the time was the most expensive Rolex money could buy. As a matter of fact, in 1970 a Rolex Day-Date retailed for $1825 and a King Midas retailed for $2500. In 1975 a Day-Date retailed for $3300 and a King Midas retailed for $5500. 

This very, very rare limited edition Rolex King Midas was given to Elvis as a token of appreciation for playing 6 days of sold-out concerts in 1970 at the Houston Astrodome Livestock Show & Rodeo.

Elvis is pictured above with his Rolex King Midas in his right hand along with the special Rolex King Midas case that was shaped like an urn.

The fascinating video below shows Elvis in 1970 recording at MGM Studios, and if you've ever wondered why he was nicknamed "The King" this video spells it all out:

The following photos were recently taken by a Graceland photographer exclusively for Jake's Rolex Watch Blog. This first image has Elvis Presley's Limited Edition Yellow Gold Rolex King Midas on top of Elvis & Priscilla Presley's wedding bible. Lisa Marie Presley is in the photo with her father, Elvis Presley kissing her head. All the artifacts in these Graceland photos personally belonged to Elvis.

The Return of The King

As always, you can click on the images to get a better view.

Elvis' beautiful Limited Edition Rolex King Midas is pictured above with matching trademark custom Sunglasses. His custom 50th Anniversary Limited Edition Colt 45 is pictured on the left. In the photo below you see Elvis' Diamond TCB (Taking Care of Business in a Flash) pendant and on the far right you see Elvis' Denver Police Captain's badge next to his Hamilton watch.

In the 1970s Elvis became obsessed with Kung Fu and collecting badges. In Part 3 of The Story of Elvis Presley's Rolex King Midas we will explore Elvis' obsession with badges.

Elvis wore his Limited Edition Rolex King Midas quite a bit and it appears he wore it swimming or in a hot tub because it appears to have water damage on the dial. The King Midas was a hand wound watch that was not an Oyster.

Rolex made 1000 Original King Midas watches and Elvis owned and wore number 343, which ironically was a left handed special for south paws. The back in engraved and reads "To Elvis Presley From The Houston Livestock Show Officers 1970."

The original Limited Edition King Midas was NOT a Rolex Cellini. It had a standard Rolex Midas designation. The words King Midas were engraved on the side of the watch as seen below, and had a winding crown that was shaped like the sun.

When Rolex originally introduced the King Midas in the early 1960s it was the heaviest gold watch money could buy. Years later, Piaget came out with a model named the Piaget Polo that was three grams heavier.

The clasp had KING MIDAS BY ROLEX OF GENEVA etched into the clasp as seen below on Elvis' watch.

In Part 2 of The Story of Elvis Presley's Rolex King Midas, we will look closer at the design details of the Rolex King Midas.

On September 3, 2017 I discovered photos of Elvis Presley (pictured below) rocking a Rolex Submariner James Bond Reference 6539 'Big Crown' back in 1962 which I wrote a big story on.

Update: I originally published this story on September 3, 2017, and I just updated it with some great new content!

The King Of Rock & Roll


Elvis Presley 


Rolex Submariner

James Bond Reference 6538 'Big Crown' 

Elvis Presley passed away forty in 1977, but remains one of the most enduring and successful icons in history. Several days ago I published a fascinating detailed story about Elvis Presley and his Rolex King Midas watch from 1970. 

Today, I am very excited to to show you some photos of Elvis Presley from 1962 that show The King wearing his Rolex Submariner. The photos are from the Elvis Presley movie titled, Girls, Girls, Girls. Elvis is pictured below with the gorgeous Stella Stevens on the set of the movie, and notice Elvis is wearing a Rolex Submariner with a Big Crown!!! 

1962 was not only a great year for Elvis, but a great year in general. JFK was the President Of The United States, and all was good in the world...We typically think of Steve McQueen as The King Of Cool, or even Paul Newman, Miles Davis, and Robert Redford, but I think Elvis Presley exists in that same pantheon of Rolex coolness, and in 1962 was the coolest of all...In the close-up photo below, we see Elvis is wearing his Rolex Submariner on a nylon strap.

So why was I so freaked-out when I recently discovered undocumented photos of Elvis Presley wearing a Rolex Submariner? For many reasons!

First of all, Elvis Presley remains to this day, one of the most iconic men and most handsome men in modern history. Especially the younger Elvis from the early 1960s. This is something young Elvis Presley has in common with the Rolex Submariner, is they are both timeless, great looking icons. Also, I was fairly certain that Elvis wore more Rolex watches than just his King Midas, but nobody had ever spotted him wearing one. 

On a personal note, one of the greatest thrills is the adrenaline rush that comes when I discover a really famous cool person wearing a Rolex nobody has ever seen before. It is kind of like Rolex Spotting/Hunting at it's finest. A specific example of this would be when in 2011 I discovered the now famous photo of Pablo Picasso wearing his Rolex GMT-Master. I remember I almost fell out of my chair when I found it—same with the photos of Elvis Presley wearing a Submariner. It's almost like finding, long lost buried treasure that nobody even knows exists!!!

The photos above and below are from the movie titled Girls, Girls, Girls and shows Elvis singing on stage in a club in Hawaii. If you look closely in the photo above you see Elvis' Submariner, and in the photo below he is checking the time on his Rolex.

The photos above and below are also from Girls, Girls, Girls, and show Elvis wearing his Submariner.

Elvis Presley's movie, titled, Girls, Girls, Girls was filmed in Hawaii in 1962.

Big Crown Sub

1962 was an interesting year, and in the photo below from Girls, Girls, Girls, Elvis Presley is wearing a Rolex Submariner Reference 6538 "Big Crown".

I assume it is a mere coincidence, but on of the best-known, most iconic movies to date that features a man wearing a Rolex Submariner is the first James Bond movie, Dr. No, which also debuted in theaters in 1962. 

In the photos above, taken in 1962, we see Sean Connery playing James Bond wearing his 'Big Crown' Submariner, and in the photo below, taken the same year, we see Chuck Yeager wearing his 'Big Crown' Submariner.

Nick Gould recently discovered a photo of Elvis where he appears to be rocking a Rolex Datejust on an adjustable band, which is below. The telltale clues that suggest Elvis might be wearing a Rolex Datejust are the Cyclops Magnifier bubble on the crystal as well as the overall shape of the Oyster case. 

The image above MIGHT add a clue to to the watch below, as it is possible, I think, that the watch above could be a Rolex Day-Date?

...The King Of Rock and Roll...

TCB

Elvis Presley's 
Rolex Day-Date Surfaces
[Reference 1803]

On December 8, 2008, I originally published the story below about a purported Rolex Day-Date that belonged to Elvis Presley's, and at the time, I published an image of the engraving of the back which said: 

"Elvis. Merry Christmas. Your Pal. Col. Tom Parker."

The photo above is an exclusive photo of the hand-engraved back of Elvis Presley's Rolex Day-Date.

It turns out that Elvis Presley's Rolex Day-Date surfaced on November 23,  2008 and is was offered by the Christie's Auction House, and here is a photo of the watch. According to Christie's, Elvis Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker gave the Rolex to Elvis as a Christmas gift in 1976.

The following document was provided by Christie's Auction house as part of the provenance for the Elvis Presley watch, but on the day before the auction, Christie's withdrew the watch for unknown reasons.

Years ago I discovered the image below of a Rolex casebook that was reputed to be a gift from Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker which he may have given Elvis as a Christmas gift, but I cannot confirm its authenticity. If you have photos of Elvis wearing a Rolex, please send them in and I will put them up.

In Chapter 2 named, The Midas Touch we will take a closer look at the Rolex King Midas Limited edition watch and discover its ethos.

Table Of Contents

Chapter 1: The King's King

NEXT>>> Chapter 2: The Midas Touch

Chapter 3: The King's President

Chapter 4: The King, The Prime Minister & The President

Rolex Studio Shot of the Day: Explorer II Jubilee...

...Rolex Studio Shot of the Day...

Explorer II on Jubilee

Hannes from the German R-L-X.de Rolex forum took this great shot of his stainless steel Rolex Explorer II on a Jubilee bracelet. This is a rare, but cool combination.

SKYGOD: Pan Am Captain Clarence 'Jooj' Warren and the GMT-Master 6542

SKYGOD

THE STORY OF PAN AM CAPTAIN

CLARENCE N. WARREN, JR.

By Capt. Danny Crivello

Sky-god \ski-god\: a being who reigns supreme while aloft in man-made flying contrivance 2: an aeronautical creature endowed with godlike attributes and worthy (in his or its own estimation) of human worship.

 

—Robert Gandt, “Skygods: The Fall of Pan Am”

When I reach for the handset to make a Public Address welcoming my passengers onboard the Boeing 767 I fly for Delta, I often think of the Pan Am captains before me. They would welcome their passengers to a Pan American Jet Clipper before crossing the High Seas. They're the giants on whose shoulders I stand. They've flown boat-planes, propeller planes and the first airliner jets which took four pilots to manage. They literally wrote the book on air safety. 

Pan Am epitomized the golden era of aviation mainly because of its cabin service. But for those sitting in the confined cockpits of the jets filled with toggle switches, round dials and navigation equipment pre-dating GPS, flying was anything but routine. Much about air safety and crew resource management would still be improved on through recommendations, incident reports and worse. 

Rolex-wearing Pan Am aviators are occasionally seen in Rolex ads. But their stories are extremely hard to come by, and little is known about them. They were hired during or right after World War II and took the company through the jet age making it, in Pan Am’s famous tagline, "The World’s Most Experienced Airline." These pilots were reverentially called "Skygods" by those who followed them into the cockpits. 

In the Rolex ad above, the six-foot-tall Clarence "Jooj" Warren, Jr., is standing, right, next to a fellow captain. The fuselage of a Pan Am Boeing 707 is seen between them. Warren is wearing the airline’s signature black double-breasted uniform, a symbol of sleek power in the ’50s and ’60s. Under the Pan Am white cap, Warren flashes a smile as he checks the time on his Rolex GMT-Master 6542 mounted on a black leather strap. The watch seems to be sitting comfortably on the skipper's wrist next to the four golden stripes of his black uniform sleeve.

 

It's 1959 and Warren is 42 years old in the picture. Few know this Skygod became a Pan Am captain in 1942 at the unusual age of 25, his logbook filled with more than 16,000 hours of flight time to destinations including Africa, South America and Europe. In an interview with a New Haven, Connecticut, newspaper that same year, Warren told the local reporter he had crossed the Atlantic 100 times, flown over five million miles and "never scratched an airplane." 

Warren is a bit the airline version of Lindbergh. He is the first to have flown the public on a scheduled flight across the Atlantic, a "first" he would repeat on a jet-powered aircraft when Pan Am switched from the turbo-prop DC-6 to the Boeing 707. He was also in command of the first 707 when it set a speed record on the transatlantic trial flight. 

Warren performed a large portion of the acceptance flights for Pan Am which were required before delivery of new aircraft. Appointed Assistant Chief Pilot Technical for the Atlantic Division, he became a liaison between Boeing and the airline. He flew Pan Am's first new 707 from the Boeing plant in Seattle to New York and made history again when he was the first pilot to land a jet airliner at New York's International Airport. 

When the White House needed a pilot to fly the Press Corps non-stop to Moscow to cover Vice President Nixon's visit of the Soviet Union, in 1959, they requested Warren by name. If Rolex executives needed someone to embody the "perpetual pursuit of excellence," the way they do with Roger Federer and tennis, they couldn’t pick better than Captain Warren to represent the GMT-Master. 

As of today, Rolex still shows the vintage "First non-stop to Moscow" ad featuring Warren on its website. The ad can also be seen in Rolex's most recent Rolex Magazine, with the 2022 Air-King on the cover. This week, Rolex posted on its Instagram and Twitter accounts a clip with Warren's ad briefly seen in the background of the new GMT-Master.

"The flight itself was navigated by Rolex," Warren is quoted in the ad. For Warren, though, safe navigation was mostly achieved through the culmination of years of study and experience. He even once said he had "enough studying of technical books at home and in the office to earn several college degrees." Air tragedies, that Pan Am skipper believed, were avoided by experience, skill and the ability to keep cool when trouble arises. 

Warren, who had met President Dwight Eisenhower on several occasions, said he was honored to be chosen for the first non-stop flight to Moscow by the White House. But it "involved a great deal of extra study and work," he once told a reporter. 

Warren shakes hands with Eisenhower during a visit in Hawaii in 1960, when the President was being honored by the University of Hawaii. The Pan Am crew flew the White House press corps to and from Honolulu.

Warren is no longer with us, but his youngest daughter, Barbara, now in her seventies, still remembers her dad poring over flight manuals in their Ridgefield, Connecticut, home. 

"He studied them a lot," she told me. "I remember standing, looking at him, his back would be to me, and I would just shuffle or make sounds on the door because I wanted him to turn around and see that I was there. And he would sometimes turn around, and I would say, 'Hi, Daddy!'" 

Warren studied the weather and wind maps for days ahead of a flight to select a course over the Atlantic which would give him the least headwind. His calculations paid off in 1952, when he brought back from London the NBC film crew which had captured Queen Elizabeth's coronation. The major television networks were competing against each other to be the first to bring pictures of the coronation to the American public. And NBC beat the competition by an hour and a half thanks to Captain Warren’s careful flight planning.

Then he would drive home, where his wife made sure the kids had been informed of his arrival. 

"Typically, I would sit at the dining table and I would pretend I didn't know he was coming home," Barbara told me. "So he'd come in, put his suitcase in the bedroom, and eventually he came in the room I was in. And I would act really surprised he was home, 'OH MY GOD!!' He would give me this big bear hug and lift me up." 

Roger Warren, the oldest of four children, told me his dad was often gone for two weeks at a time. "He would fly to London, for example, and make stops at three or four European capitals and would come back," he said. "Then he'd be home for just one week. Our lives growing up were built around all that. Our dad was gone a lot." 

Still, Roger added, it was exciting to have a dad who was a pilot. He came back with stories of the people he'd met and the places he'd visited. Then there were the flight benefits which allowed families to fly free. "Our dad had this job that kind of connected us with the world in a way that was sort of unusual for our peers," Roger said. 

The excitement of Warren's life is the stuff of Hollywood movies. The tall and handsome Rolex-wielding Pan Am captain with gold bars on his shoulders and wings on his chest was married to a beauty queen he met in college. And he drove a Porsche to work before taking the controls of a fresh-out-of-the-factory Boeing 707 to destinations like Paris or Rome. 

Like many Skygods, Warren's flying experience didn't start at Pan Am but in the Army Air Corps, where he spent two and a half years with the Army Transport Command flying between the U.S. and Africa and Europe. His dad, Clarence Warren, Sr., was friends with legendary World War I "Ace of Aces" Eddie Rickenbacker, whom Warren credits as an inspiration for wanting to fly. He met his wife Marjory at Butler University, in Indianapolis, where he graduated in 1938. He would join the ranks of Pan Am at 23 and make captain just two years later. 

In this exact DC-7, the Clipper Bostonian, in 1956, Capt. Warren flew the first Miami-to-Paris flight, the longest flight ever scheduled by an airline which took 14 hours and 2 minutes.

How Warren received his Rolex GMT-Master 6542 is unclear, as we know little about the relationship Pan Am had with Rolex. Rolex on its website and in past ads said it was "the official watch of Pan American World Airways" without explaining what it meant. 

Rolex doesn't indicate, for example, whether the pilots of Pan Am were standard-issued the GMT-Master, like a piece of uniform, or they had to pay for the watch. One Rolex ad said the GMT-Master was designed to "the specifications of two world-renowned aviation companies" without mentioning the second one.

1958 Rolex ad: "Rolex designed a totally new chronometer to the specifications of two world-renowned aviation companies."  

Pan Am being a defunct airline, it is difficult to gather reliable information about the pilots' watches. I reached out to Rolex in Geneva to find out if Pan Am pilots were given free GMTs by the brand. A spokesperson for Rolex said they didn't know. 

“After combing through the archives, even from Rolex USA, we don’t have a clear answer,” the spokesperson in Geneva said. 

Tom Betti who runs the Pan Am Museum podcast, which specializes in the history of the airline, told me he had spoken to three pilots who had made captain in the late ’60s and ’70s. These captains said they never received watches. 

"Linda Reynolds, a Pan Am flight attendant and trainer, distinctly remembers a discount program through the company to purchase Rolex watches," Betti told me. "But the joke was that even with the discount most employees couldn’t afford one. She said she had a cockpit chat with an older pilot in the 1970s about his Rolex and how he talked about the discount.” 

Until my research into Warren, I had never seen a photo of a Pan Am pilot wearing a GMT-Master on his time off. But the pictures of Warren printed in a 1959 local newspaper show him playing the organ at home and loading golf clubs in a Porsche 356 — all while casually wearing the GMT-Master from the famous ad. And despite his active lifestyle and a job requiring to travel the world, the bakelite bezel of the 6542, known for breaking easily, is perfectly intact. 

The exact Rolex GMT-Master 6542 from the ad today. The pilot's family still owns the watch.

I was happy to learn Captain Warren’s historically significant Rolex GMT-Master remains with his family. The black strap still carries his DNA. The steel case is still thick, the dial patinaed by thousands of flight hours spent in the high altitude's sunlight. The watch looks unrepaired and all-original. This GMT doesn't have a Cyclops lens to magnify the date, an option rather than a standard feature offered until the early 1960s, according to Nick Urul and Martin Skeet who co-authored Vintage Rolex Sports Models. This watch could be equipped with the 1036 or 1065 movement; I didn't ask the family to open the caseback. 

Warren finished his career as Lead Check Pilot. Check pilots are the even-more feared and revered captains who flight-check other pilots — and have the all-mighty power to ground them. Check pilots are carefully selected because they are essentially the quality control of an airline's flight operation, the last line of defense. Pilots have to be inspected on a regular basis to make sure they follow procedures, Federal Aviation Regulations and fly safely within the limitations of their aircraft. 

The fact Warren was not only a Check Pilot but also promoted to Lead Check Pilot is, in my view, a testament to his professionalism, skills and dedication to safety. 

Safety was one of the first things Janice Warren, his oldest daughter, mentioned to me when she recalled her dad. He was nominated Chairman of the Central Air Safety Committee for the pilots at Pan Am, she informed me. 

"I must have been 11. I remember telling my dad, I was scared of flying because I was afraid there would be a plane crash," Janice said. She can still remember her dad's response, a bit stern, but a good illustration of his commitment to safety. 

"He stood for the safety of the airplane," she said. "And he wanted me to be sure to know that airplanes were far safer than driving in a car." That conversation helped her go on the airplane. 

"I felt proud of him being my dad and caring how I felt," Janice said. "It was a very heartwarming conversation for me."

"He was proud of being a pilot, he was proud of the aviation industry," Roger finally told me. "He was in a position of responsibility, and he took it seriously. And that's why he ended up chairing the safety committee." 

I asked Roger about his dad's "perpetual pursuit of excellence," to quote Rolex's tagline. 

"It was a standard that he set for himself," he said. "He was aware of the responsibilities that went along with being a captain, and he took them seriously. That kind of stuck with me as a kid. I picked it up a little bit myself." 

Roger Warren is a retired judge and the President Emeritus of the National Center for State Courts. "If I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it well," he said. "And I'm going to hold myself responsible for what I'm doing."

Danny Crivello
danny@rolexmagazine.com