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248

Rolex

Ref. 16528

Cosmograph Daytona

A very fine, rare and extremely attractive yellow gold, diamond and emerald-set chronograph wristwatch with bracelet and service guarantee card

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The present timepiece is a highly attractive example of a bejeweled Daytona Cosmograph. Bejeweled pieces have been known since the 80s, when Rolex first experimented with an extremely limited number of manually-wound bejeweled pieces - references 6269 and 6270. With the advent of the 90s, the marque evolved toward innovative and more exotic designs and Rolex once again, extremely limited quantities, produced a number of pieces with gem-set bezel and diamond-pavé dial with gem-set numerals.

The connoisseur will immediately recognize how the present watch is different than what one would expect from a bejeweled 16528: not only the bezel is without gem-setting, but furthermore the subsidiary counters, which are usually golden on pave dials, are in this instance silvered. The reason for this is that the owner of this watch requested and obtained a dial upgrade for his 16528. As it turns out, dials mounted at a later time by Rolex feature silver subdials rather than golden. This combination of a more subdued color of the subdials and a more restrained bezel lets the dial be the one and only protagonist of the watch, and at the same time makes the timepiece more wearable and less flamboyant than the standard gem-set 16528.

Rolex

Swiss | 1905

Founded in 1905 England by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis as Wilsdorf & Davis, it soon became known as the Rolex Watch Company in 1915, moving its headquarters to Geneva in 1919. Like no other company, the success of the wristwatch can be attributed to many of Rolex's innovations that made them one of the most respected and well-known of all luxury brands. These innovations include their famous "Oyster" case — the world's first water resistant and dustproof watch case, invented in 1926 — and their "Perpetual" — the first reliable self-winding movement for wristwatches launched in 1933. They would form the foundation for Rolex's Datejust and Day-Date, respectively introduced in 1945 and 1956, but also importantly for their sports watches, such as the Explorer, Submariner and GMT-Master launched in the mid-1950s.

One of its most famous models is the Cosmograph Daytona. Launched in 1963, these chronographs are without any doubt amongst the most iconic and coveted of all collectible wristwatches. Other key collectible models include their most complicated vintage watches, including references 8171 and 6062 with triple calendar and moon phase, "Jean Claude Killy" triple date chronograph models and the Submariner, including early "big-crown" models and military-issued variants.

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