Posts Tagged ‘Daytona’
Floating Cosmograph, ‘Porcelain’ Dial 16520 Rolex Daytona
The first of anything in Rolex-land tends to be a bit different, not just because it’s new, but relative to what came after. These small, initial periods of experimentation are where you get meters first Subs, red depth Datejusts, fuchsia GMTs, ‘Blackout’ 14270s, and, indeed, this Floating Cosmograph. This is the very start of the…
Read MoreBlack Dial 6238 Rolex ‘Pre-Daytona’ Chronograph
This is a Pre-Daytona, but it’s way more interesting than it appears at first glance. This is the Pre-Daytona equivalent of a perfect Paul Newman: finding any 6238 with a black dial. For standard dials, the 6238 might hold the Rolex record for having the largest discrepancy between dial colors. The vast, vast majority of…
Read More‘Small Floating’ Dial 6240 Rolex Daytona
This was the start of the screw down Daytona pusher. Okay, maybe not the very start, it’s not a Solo, but reference-wise with millerighes (more on that later). This is the ref. 6240 and it would not be a stretch to say that all screw-down Daytonas exist because of this reference’s lineage. Two years after the…
Read MoreJPS Paul Newman 6239 Rolex Daytona
John Player Special doesn’t represent an old cigarette manufacture or even Lotus F1 car to watch collectors. JPS is the apex, or at very least an apex, of Daytona collecting. The JPS is nothing more than a black Paul Newman dial with gold subs and chapter ring, a color mix very like the Lotus F1…
Read More‘Desert Eagle’ UAE Dial 6263 Rolex Daytona
Some of the sickest, most historically significant Daytonas in the world don’t say Daytona anywhere on them. But only a handful are so important that they don’t even say Rolex. Rolex did not bow this deeply for Tiffany, Beyer, or Assad. Rolex only agreed to make dials that didn’t say Rolex at the special request…
Read MoreTropical Dial 6263 Rolex Daytona
There is nothing like a tropical manual Daytona. The ageing process which has so beautifully crafted these subdials is somehow even more proudly and vividly displayed when contrasted directly against a silvered-white sunburst panda dial. I’ve said this before, but I like to imagine tropical dials as God’s way of saying ‘Wear your damn watches’.…
Read MorePaul Newman 6239 Rolex Daytona
This is the first Daytona, where it all began, 6239. The 6239 Paul Newman, despite not sporting Oyster pushers, is about as close to blue chip in the pump-pusher vintage Rolex world as it gets. Although thanks largely to provenance, a different PN 6239 still holds the record today for the most expensive vintage watch…
Read MoreFAP 6263 Rolex Daytona
This is one of those exceptions we love here where the caseback holds more interest than the dial. Say what you will about the Peruvian Air Force (Fuerza Aérea del Perú or FAP), their military had style. FAP military engravings on provenance cover basically all the best professional 60s offerings. Where the UK military made…
Read More126509 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona
As a vintage lover, I like the Le Mans as much as the next guy. But one thing saddens me. It feels like we’re seeing the slow, steady extinction of the solid caseback. And solid casebacks are never cooler than when made in precious metal. Solid gold and platinum casebacks have been disappearing from brand…
Read More‘Floating Big Red’ Dial 6265 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona
At the center of vintage Rolex collecting lies the Daytona, it’s the sun around which everything else orbits. Except, if we’re keeping the astronomy analogy, it’s really a binary star system, as vintage Cosmograph is split between Paul Newmans and everything else from 6239 until the end of Zenith calibres. I’m finding a lot of…
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