Rolex have many stand out watches but only one could be called their flagship piece and that’s the Daytona. Famous for many reasons, not least as the most expensive watch in the World when Paul Newman’s Panda dial was sold at auction. Bizarrely it had a chequered history. Launched in 1965 with a manual wind movement they made the automatic in 1988 in the 16520. This was actually based on the Zenith El Primero calibre 400 movement and Rolex made a number of significant modifications (over 50%). It took Rolex 12 years to create a truly in-house movement and these 12 year period watches are known as ‘Zenith’ Daytonas. The dial also had what’s known as an inverted ‘6’ on the bottom sub-dial. This Daytona has the Zenith based movement and the inverted 6 sub-dial.
The steel case is in very good condition but does have a fairly large number of scratched consistent with regular but careful wear. The original Rolex signed crisp white dial is in excellent condition and a design masterpiece. The very high grade Rolex signed ‘Zenith’ automatic movement is in excellent condition and has just been serviced by our professional watchmaker. The watch sits on what we believe to be the original bracelet – the deployment clasp code reference is ‘S CL6’ dating it to 1994. The end pieces have the references 503 and 78390. The bracelet, like the case, does have surface scratches and sag but is very wearable (13 links).
This is a highly original example of one of the most famous watches in the world. We will give a 12 month guarantee on the movement.
