As we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Rolex Daytona this year, it is the perfect timing to revisit the watch’s extraordinary history. The unlimited possibilities of the phenomenal chronograph have become a true global sensation and captured the hearts of generations of watch enthusiasts. A timeless design that embodies functionality, design innovation and history, sculpted with rigorous attention to detail and precision, the reference 16520, unveiled in 1988, is the company’s first Daytona to house an automatic movement, and marks a very important chapter in Rolex’s history. The present timepiece possesses a fascinating and highly collectable conceptual “test dial”, accentuating and elucidating the very essence of the Perpetual Daytona with a Zenith-based production.

The dial of a watch is nothing less than a true métier d’art with great artistic expertise and authenticity. Stepping at the forefront between the wearer and the mechanical movement, the dial communicates all information with strict legibility requirements, hours, minutes, seconds, date and meters within one canvas no more than 30mm. The choice of typography and unobstructed balance demands huge impact in the performance of a watch, especially for tools such as the legendary Daytona.

Striped down to the bare minimum, the white canvas laid important grounds for the core foundation of the three-registered chronograph. According to scholars, only three variants of such are known, which all belong to the Zenith-based production of the cal. 4030. Fabricated for deep studies and professional usage by the firm for chronometer testing in forming the holistic vision of the Daytona, these dials are of extreme rarity and are true “wonder” of its kind.

Widely recognized as “Mr. Daytona”, Mr. Pucci Papaleo, the Italian scholar, collector-turned-author began his study of watches before this topic was broadly considered an area of study. Prior to his focused expertise on Daytona, he was interested in early Rolex and Patek Philippe chronographs, by the end of the 1980s, his attention and appetite grew stronger and stronger on chronographs of the Swiss manufacturer, Rolex, and particularly, the Daytona. Regarded as one of, if not “the”, most influential man in the world of vintage Daytona, his intricate study and scholarship are orchestrated in multiple opuses such as “The Ultimate Rolex Daytona” and the “Daytona Perpetual” that is delivered with the present lot, because the dial of the present watch belongs to the group of COSC dials that Mr. Pucci Papaleo photographed in 2018 for the publication of the “Daytona Perpetual” book, which features similar details of the example that is illustrated in the book on page 119.

Presented in an extremely attractive condition, the present lot is further sanctified by a verification written and signed by the scholar himself, Mr. Pucci Papaleo, stating that the present dial is a similar example of the one illustrated in the “Daytona Perpetual” book, confirming the esteemed Singer provenance. Let us seize upon this very rare opportunity to marvel at the magnificent Zenith Daytona once again and to celebrate a new dawn for this extraordinary timepiece.