90
Rolex
Ref. 18038
Day-Date
A very fine and well preserved yellow gold automatic wristwatch with center seconds, day, date, wooden dial, box and retailer warranty
Full-Cataloguing
Realized in a number of dial variations, ranging from Stella dial to hard stone dials to metal dials with various graphics, it was also fitted, as presently exemplified, with wooden dials, underlining the creativity of Rolex. The organic nature of the wooden dial provides a refreshing new aesthetic to the wristwatch, an item of pure technicality, usually as far as way as possible from “natural” shapes. Furthermore, as an added bonus, each wooden dial piece is necessarily “unique”, as no two piece of wood will feature the exact same grain.
Rolex
Swiss | 1905Founded 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.