During its long-winged profession, the steel Daytona 116520 has been around in two variants, using a black-silver dial as seen here, and using a white-silver dial. That is it, for 16 years. Try and imagine the 911 Carrera appearing precisely the same for a long time, and coming in just two colors. Yes, the (mind you, constantly hidden) movement was tweaked more accurately by Rolex a year or so ago… and yet, however impressive that achievement is, it is admittedly extremely tough to love on a daily basis, even to the nerdiest of observe enthusiasts.Even for this aside, let’s say you look at the steel Daytona, one that is so omnipresent in a number of the more rewarding areas of the world, and you ask yourself the question: what can I see inside that I myself discovered, that little aesthetic detail or characteristic that only I and few others can love, that cannot be seen from the other end of the dinner table or is not understood by all of the nouveau riche, who rock it with a directly face?Admittedly, the Daytona’s history and its highly impactful (and replicated) design, or its stellar motion are more than respectable. The question which every potential Daytona buyer might want to ask (or, a while after purchase will want to have asked) oneself is if sporting a style so fantastically omnipresent in the luxury watch scene could be outweighed by those values.I mean, sure, there will be those who just enjoy the layout and/or the brand and do not want to think about it in such detail — to them, the Daytona is a luxury style icon, nearly entirely unrivaled. But those looking for more than a face that is desirable, might say that we’re in 2017 and not in 2003, and today it is easy to locate oneself feeling spoiled by the stronger-than-ever contest that tries very difficult really to provide more either aesthetically or technically in this $10k+ budget. We have to add that Rolex does naturally provide appropriate drool-worthy stuff for watch nerds: the Sky-Dweller — which became much more affordable this season — is both novel and only insanely nicely engineered, and the Datejust 41 (reviewed) is much better than it has ever been… But the steel Daytona, compared, is 1 foot in the past and one hovering over existing — and whether you need that for your future is down to you to decide.
Phillips’ watch auction impresario Aurel Bacs just brought the hammer down on the Rolex Watches 1 Copy Replica ref. 6062 “Bao Dai”, establishing a new world record for a Rolex wristwatch sold at auction.
With fees the “Bao Dai” sold for SFr5.066m, or about US$5.061m – doubling the last record of SFr2.4m set in 2016 by the ref. 4113 split-seconds.
The record was set after bidding by several parties, including Milan-based dealer Davide Parmegiani, prominent Lebanese gem merchant and watch collector Claude Sfeir, as well as the manager of the now defunct watch hedge fund Alfredo Paramico.
Aurel Bacs
But in the end it was down to just two anonymous bidders, represented by Joey Luk of Phillips Hong Kong and Paul Maudsley of the auctioneer’s London office.
Finally it was clinched by Maudsley’s client, with a hammer price of SFr4.3m that was met with prolonged applause in the room.
Notably, Maudsley also represented the winning bidder for the Patek Philippe ref. 1518 in steel that sold last year for SFr11m.
The “Bao Dai”, a Rolex triple calendar wristwatch, is a rare timepiece in itself – the diamond-set dial is probably one of a kind – but its allure has been infinitely boosted by its provenance.
The Rolex gets its name from Bảo Đại of the Nguyen dynasty, the Emperor of Vietnam from 1926 to 1955. Acquired by the Emperor in Geneva while he was in the Swiss city for peace talks to end the Indochina conflict, the wristwatch is one of many tasteful objects the erstwhile sovereign owned, a trove that included a custom body Ferrari 375 MM Spyder.
