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B y any measure, the Rolex Cosmograph Daytona is one of the most important watches of all time. Not only was its creation an important milestone in the mid-century development of purpose-built sport watches for leisure activities, it has continued numerous important technical and design elements whose impact reach well beyond any single watch or brand. Between this, the Daytona has helped propel Rolex collecting – and watch collecting more broadly – to the cultural forefront over the last few decades.
With that comes an almost endless array of different Rolex Daytona models, sometimes defined by the tiniest details and differences, and collectors who are rabid in their passion and dedication to scholarship. Along with watches like the Rolex Submariner (which Sotheby’s has a companion guide on), the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak and a handful of other true icons, the Daytona can offer a lifetime of excitement, especially if you’re someone who likes doing their research.
Here is what you absolutely need to know to begin collecting the incredible Rolex Daytona.
Rolex introduced the reference 6239 to its catalogue in 1963. This was the brand’s first chronograph with a two-colored dial and a tachymeter bezel, giving it a much sportier look than its predecessors. Today, that watch is considered the very first Daytona, although that name didn’t appear anywhere on the watch – not yet. For that first series of watches, the word Cosmograph appeared below the Rolex signature at 12 o’clock, and in some of the earliest advertisements and catalogue entries it is referred to by the name Le Mans.
This watch would be christened the Cosmograph Daytona just months after it first appeared, and since then all manner of combinations and configurations of Cosmograph Daytona have appeared on the watches’ dials, sometimes strung together and sometimes split apart.
The Daytona was far from the first chronograph Rolex ever created, even if it is the most popularly collected and the only one remaining in the catalogue today. In the decade leading up to the Daytona’s release, Rolex made the references 6034 (above), 6234 and 6238, similar three-register chronographs with tachymeter scales and sporty bracelets that would set the template for what was to come. More esoteric references like the reference 4500 two-register chronograph precede those – but finding one is a rare treat.
The blueprint for the Cosmograph Daytona was set. Over the six decades since, Rolex has continued to refine and evolve the design to suit modern tastes and to utilize the best of contemporary watchmaking technology too. Features like an optional black acrylic bezel (reference 6241), screw-down pushers for increased water resistance (reference 6240), and upgraded movements (references 6262 and 6264) were all introduced over the next decade, building out the most iconic series of vintage Rolex Daytona watches. This would culminate in 1971, with the introduction of the references 6263 and 6265, which would then be produced almost entirely unaltered until 1988.
It was at this point that Rolex reinvented the Daytona for the first time, changing the case and bezel shapes and adding an entirely new movement in the form of a modified Zenith El Primero, at the time the most cutting-edge automatic chronograph available. The reference 16520 started the series of five-digit Cosmograph Daytona models, which would see the transition to non-radioactive luminous material for the dials, the addition of sapphire crystals and an increase in case size to a large-for-the-time 40mm.
In 2000, Rolex added its very own in-house chronograph movement (Caliber 4130) to the Daytona and added another digit to the reference numbers in the process. The reference 116520 became the first in-house Cosmograph Daytona, establishing the archetype we see today with references like the ever-popular 126500LN. Today’s Daytonas add little nods to the model’s 60-year history as subtle winks to the dedicated collector community that has formed around these special watches.
There is no collecting community quite like the Daytona collecting community. Because these watches were produced with many subtle variations over the years – and because of the high prices that truly rare, high-quality pieces can command – it is important to do your research and to know what you’re looking for before you go too deep.
Here are a few critical questions you’ll want to answer before you start the hunt in earnest.
One way to group vintage Daytona references is by which style pushers they have for the chronograph functions. Some have pump pushers, which are the standard, button-style activators at 2 and 4 o’clock. These are only lightly water-resistant (quoted at 50 meters when brand new), utilizing rubber seals inside the case, and if you accidentally activate the chronograph while swimming it will pull water into the case and damage the movement. The references 6239, 6241, 6262 and 6264 all feature pump pushers, which remained largely unchanged from the model’s introduction in 1963 until 1988.
Others have screw-down pushers, which can be locked shut with a rotating barrel-shaped mechanism to make them more water resistant. These were rated to 100 meters (330 feet), which is the same as that of the original 1953 Submariner. This earned these Daytonas Rolex’s official Oyster designation, covering the references 6240, 6263 and 6265.
Taking a vintage Daytona swimming is a dicey proposition these days, no matter what depth rating it originally touted, but these pushers still make a massive difference to collectors. The screw-down models wear a bit larger on the wrist because of the larger pushers and they have a sportier overall appearance, while the pump pusher versions feel a bit more mid-century and understated, wearing closer to the pre-Daytona chronographs that came before.
When the first reference 6239 arrived on the scene, its stainless steel bezel engraved with a tachymeter scale (used for measuring speed) was quite a bold statement. Previous Rolex chronographs had either no tachymeter scale or had it subtly printed around the edge of the dial – the Daytona broke that mold in favor of something much sportier and easier to read behind the wheel of a race car. But just two years later, a second option was added: a steel bezel ring with a black acrylic insert. This offered an ever higher-contrast look, especially when paired with the Daytona’s two-color panda and reverse-panda dial. From its first appearance in 1965, it remained an option alongside the stainless steel bezel as the Daytona continued to evolve. Most collectors have a preference, though neither is strictly rarer or considered more desirable across the board.
When the change was made to the more modern Daytona format in 1988, the black acrylic bezel went the way of the Dodo. For the next twenty-plus years, the Cosmograph Daytona was only available with a metal bezel, typically in stainless steel or gold (and very occasionally with a few gemstones thrown in for good measure). In 2011, Rolex reintroduced the higher-contrast look of the lost acrylic, but as black Cerachrom (Rolex’s proprietary colored ceramic). Today, metal and Cerachrom bezels exist side-by-side in the catalogue, restoring some of that original balance.
Introduced in 2012, the Rolex Rainbow Daytona ref. 116595RBOW is one of the most iconic watches of the modern era. Offered in yellow gold, white gold and Everose gold, the watch features a bezel set with 36 colored gemstones arranged in a smooth gradient pattern covering all the colors of the rainbow. There are also diamonds on the watch’s lugs, crown guards and dial, and the subdials have a special finish.
Most of the chatter you hear about the Daytona focuses on external characteristics like dials, pushers, bezels and more – but what’s inside is every bit as important and interesting. The earliest Daytona references (6239, 6240 and 6241) utilized a hand-wound movement known as Calibre 722, which was Rolex’s modified version of the famous Valjoux 72. That movement is one of the most legendary chronographs ever made and was used as a base for countless iconic watches for the better part of a century. In 1970, Rolex made some additional changes to the movement, including giving it a higher frequency, calling it the Calibre 727. This would remain in service through the end of the vintage Daytona era.
It was at that point that Rolex decided to look elsewhere for the Daytona, settling on the El Primero movement made by Zenith – arguably the first automatic chronograph movement developed in history. Again, Rolex modified the base, lowering its frequency from 5 to 4 Hz to increase the power reserve, reliability and ease of service. This movement, the Calibre 4030, ushered in a totally new era of Cosmograph Daytona.
It might seem hard to believe today, but it wasn’t until the year 2000 that Rolex added a truly in-house chronograph caliber to its stable, the Calibre 4130. Today’s Daytonas utilize the descendant of this movement, the Calibre 4131, which features all of Rolex’s latest technology, including the Chronergy escapement, paramagnetic hairspring, special Paraflex shock absorbers and more.
With over 60 years of continuous production and evolution, the Rolex Cosmograph Daytona is one of the most fascinating and collectible watches around. There are countless variations, spanning multiple eras of technical and design history, and nearly every iteration has its fans.
This era of Daytonas covers from the model’s introduction in 1963 up until the complete redesign of the watch in 1988. Over that 25-year span, there were a total of seven references produced, all variations on the same archetype. They effectively mixed-and-matched the elements discussed above, such as pump and screw-down pushers, engraved stainless steel and black acrylic bezels, and the calibers 722 and 727.
Dozens of tomes and thousands of pages have been dedicated to every narrowly defined variation of the Daytona during this period, and whole auctions have been dedicated to these watches too. However, there are certainly community favorites, like very early Double Swiss Underline reference 6239, the reference 6263 Big Red Daytona and the extremely rare reference 6262 (only produced for one year, in 1970).
A subset of vintage Daytonas, the so-called Paul Newman Daytonas are some of the most desirable Rolex models of all time, with particularly rare variants regularly setting auction records. Their nickname comes from the Oscar-winning actor, who owned and was photographed wearing a truly funky watch, bringing it to the cultural forefront. Paul Newman Daytonas (he owned many but only one style bears his name) are defined by their exotic dials, which were produced for Rolex by Stern Frères and feature even higher contrast layouts and small square-shaped markers in the subdials. They were not popular with customers when first produced, so they exist in much smaller numbers than typical Daytonas, only gaining steam with collectors in the 1990s when Rolex scholarship was on the rise.
Available in both stainless steel and 18k yellow gold, Paul Newman Daytonas can be worth many multiples of their non-exotic siblings. In particular, the reference 6241 in yellow gold with a gold-on-black dial is extremely rare and mixes the sportier acrylic bezel with the more refined pump pushers for a unique look. For stainless steel Paul Newmans, the reference 6263 with cream-colored dial is king, offering a look totally unlike any other watch in Rolex’s catalogue. Both make relatively regular appearances at Sotheby’s auctions.
It was no small thing when Rolex completely revamped the Cosmograph Daytona in 1988. This was an era when most of the Swiss watch industry was still reeling from the introduction of inexpensive quartz movements in the 1970s; bold moves like this were uncommon. The new Daytona was significantly larger and made use of a heavily modified Zenith El Primero chronograph caliber, a movement that was almost lost to time just a few years earlier. Importantly, this movement was also automatic instead of hand-wound, making the watch significantly more convenient for daily wear.
Aesthetically, these watches also introduced a new dial design, which used contrasting outer tracks to the subdials instead of fully contrasting subdials and added new hour markers with longer profiles and luminous fill. The most collectible Daytona from this era is the reference 16520 Patrizzi Dial, which is a standard black-dial Daytona on which the outer subdial tracks have faded to a brown color due to an issue with the paint used at the time. These are essentially the last tropical Daytonas before modern materials and quality control eliminated these kinds of variations.
When Rolex introduced the in-house Calibre 4130 with the reference 116520 in the year 2000, it effectively transitioned to the Daytona archetype we see today. One could also mark the era of the modern Daytona with things like the introduction of the Cerachrom ceramic bezels, but these rolled out to gold Daytonas much earlier than to steel Daytonas (2011 and 2016, respectively) and the updated case design was only rolled out in 2023.
With the Daytona movement in-house, Rolex essentially brought it fully in line with the other professional-series watches in its collection, eliminating the last vestiges of that bygone era of vintage and transitional Rolex sport watches. The reference 116500, introduced in 2016, is the culmination of this. Truly high-contrast dials and a black bezel returned to the stainless steel Daytona, offering a touch of vintage inspiration in a thoroughly modern chronograph.
Both these watches, along with the reference 126500 models that replaced them, are some of the most popular Rolex watches of the modern era, often having multiyear wait lists. All the more reason to buy one at auction.
For the Daytona’s 50th anniversary, Rolex added a platinum model – the reference 116506 with a signature ice-blue dial and brown accents. It’s a polarizing watch, but one that has become something of a quirky modern classic, with a few different diamond-set models quietly added to the collection over the years. When the Daytona received its latest update in 2023, the reference 126506 received another special treatment: it became the first Rolex to have a sapphire caseback, letting you see the Calibre 4131 inside.
Most of what has been discussed here has been stainless steel Daytonas. But Rolex introduced the first solid gold Cosmograph Daytona models in 1969, meaning they exist in nearly every Daytona reference ever produced, including the original reference 6239. Vintage gold Daytonas look very much like their steel counterparts, but with the dials either black-on-gold or gold-on-black, keeping the cohesive, two-tone aesthetic on these precious-metal pieces. They were mostly sold on complementary solid gold bracelets, and were a genuinely unusual sport watch offering through the 1970s, when most sport watches were still made exclusively in stainless steel.
Gold Daytonas really run the gamut stylistically and in terms of collectibility and market prices. The most expensive Rolex Daytona ever sold at Sotheby’s is John Player Special reference 6241 in 18k yellow gold, which fetched CHF 2.2 million in May 2023. There are also rare versions of the Daytona made in 14k gold (distinguished by unique hallmarks) that were made exclusively for the United States market in the 1970s.
Today, gold Daytonas are often a bit more experimental and playful than the steel watches. The gold Daytona received the Cerachrom bezel a full five years before a steel version became available; the special rubber-and-metal Oysterflex bracelet was introduced on a trio of gold Daytonas in 2017; and the 50th anniversary Le Mans Daytona reference 126529LN, with its Paul Newman-inspired dial, is solid 18k white gold with a matching gold bracelet too.
The Rolex Daytona is truly a bottomless rabbit hole of collecting interest and joy. The level of scholarship is nearly unmatched, and the dedication of the collectors and enthusiasts ensures that we will only continue to learn more about these fascinating watches as time goes on. Luckily, Sotheby’s specialists are on-hand to help with your personal collecting journey, whether that involves the Rolex Daytona or something else.
