Posts Tagged ‘Daytona’
FAP 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…
Read More‘Small Daytona’ Dial 6240 Rolex Cosmograph
The 6240 is, arguably, the most important Cosmograph reference not to be hyped. It would not be a stretch to say that all screw-down Daytonas exist because of this reference’s lineage. Production numbers of the 6240 were exceedingly small at fewer than 2000 examples, as is the frequency of conversation surrounding it today. Two years after…
Read More‘Lemon Paul Newman’ 6264 Rolex Daytona
Lemon normally describes a defect, but in Paul Newmans it’s anything but, it’s seven figures to start. Blame the Italians. The 6262 and 6264 will be known to collectors as the transition reference Daytonas; the 6264 is quite uncommon in its own right. The pair of Cosmographs introduced the Valjoux 727 and its higher beat…
Read MoreOman Khanjar Dial 6265 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona
Speaking plainly, this is the only ‘John Mayer’ Daytona I really care about. Okay, his is a Desert Eagle but go with me here. This Oman 6265 and the Desert Eagle 6263 (& 6265) are the only two recent sport Rolexes to share a very distinct privilege. Unlike nearly all other Middle Eastern dials, on…
Read MoreSolo Dial 6240 Rolex Daytona
This is a Daytona with just one line of text. One. Walt Disney was said to repeatedly answer questions with, ‘observe the masses and the do the opposite.’ In the modern era, the Rolex Daytona has more script written at 12 than a Star Wars opening crawl. Today, it reads ‘Rolex Oyster Perpetual Superlative Chronometer…
Read More‘FIFA World Cup Netherlands’ 116519 Rolex Daytona
Yes, Rolex made an orange racing dial, white gold Daytona. Rolex almost never create limited editions or collaborations. But the operative word there is almost. If you’re 22 SAS, a winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, or Dutch Football Team competing for the World Cup, you just might get your own take on…
Read MoreTropical 6265 Rolex Daytona
Tropical doesn’t always mean caramel. I find a lot of visual delight in the shade where dials are just starting to move off black, it’s subtlety. You’ll be used to seeing tropical subdials on the white dial 6265, often wildly so. But the black dials can also go brown, it’s just often not as dramatic…
Read MoreQaboos 6263 Rolex Daytona
This is very literally Daytona royalty. The red signature at 12 is that of His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said al Said, then Sultan of Oman. Qaboos was a well-known watch lover and would occasionally gift visiting foreign dignitaries, heads of state, high ranking government officials, or noteworthy servicemen a Rolex. Most were gifted with…
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