Hey y’all. It’s Thomas Hendricks with Chrono24 in New York City. We’ve got a quick video for
you today about the Rolex Daytona. 2023 is a big year for this watch because the Daytona
is turning 60! And while no one ever knows what Rolex is working on behind the
scenes, it certainly seems logical that we’ll be seeing a new, special Daytona this year.
In the meantime, we’ve pulled together a few things to keep in mind if you’re
thinking about buying a Daytona this year, next year, or after you win the lottery.
Let’s start with the basics. The fact remains, these watches are nearly impossible to buy at
retail. When I was working as a Private Client Advisor at Chrono24, it was fairly common to have
buyers call in and say “I tried to walk into my local Rolex boutique to buy a Daytona (or
a Sub or a GMT), and the staff basically laughed at me. Why is that?” As many of you know, there’s a lot more demand than there is supply, and even
though Rolex makes about 1 million watches per year, only a fraction of those are Daytonas,
and that fraction has to go to Authorized Dealers around the world, and many of those will
end up on the gray market where they’re sold by non-affiliated dealers for a higher price. This is
why, even with prices on the decline for Daytonas, which we’ll discuss in a second, Daytona’s are still selling
for twice their retail price on the gray market. If you talk to the old heads, the industry
veterans, they’ll tell you this wasn’t always the case. ADs used to have a hard time selling
Daytonas decades ago, and now they’re sold before they even hit the display case.
Perhaps the biggest watch story of the year for 2022 was how prices for hype
watches like the Patek Philippe 5711, the Audemars Piguet Royal Oak, and yes,
the Rolex Daytona, started to come back down to earth after about five years of runaway growth.
The peak happened around March/April 2022 with the price of a mint condition current production
Daytona like the 116500LN selling for approximately three times its retail price. Geopolitical factors like
the war in Ukraine and global economic factors like rising inflation and the crash of crypto
have contributed to this market correction. This has created a contradictory situation
where 1. It’s a buyers’ market, and 2. It’s still really hard and really expensive to buy a Daytona.
In recent news, Rolex has launched their Certified Pre-Owned program whereby individuals can sell
their watches back to the brand, and Authorized Dealers can sell Certified Pre-Owned Rolex watches
that have been inspected by the brand and are at least three years old. We at Chrono24 are
still waiting to see exactly how this will affect the secondary and gray markets, but the consensus
seems to be that these CPO Rolexes, including the Daytonas, will be priced considerably higher
than the market average. Side note: we do a monthly watch market series on this channel
called Time is Money, so subscribe for future episodes of that including a Rolex CPO analysis.
And now, for a bit of history. Everything changed, or rather, things changed quite
quickly in October of 2017 when a Paul Newman Daytona went to auction at Philipps here in New York.
But this wasn’t A Paul Newman Daytona, it was THE Paul Newman Daytona owned by the actor himself
with a personalized caseback. The watch sold for 17 million dollars, the most for a wristwatch at
the time, and people lost their minds. Now I have heard rumors about a certain
celebrity that apparently submitted the winning bid, but no one really knows if its true,
and I certainly can’t say that name on camera. The point is that that moment was absolutely
pivotal for the watch market, the vintage watch market, and the Rolex Daytona itself. It
turned a lot of heads in the watch world and beyond, and it was THE catalyst that led to
the watch investment boom of the last few years. Even as modern Daytonas are leveling out on
the secondary and gray markets, prices for rare vintage Daytonas are still sky high.
For point number 4 out of 5, let’s hit some key dates in the Daytona timeline. That way,
even if you hate this video, at least you learned something.
36.5mm case, a modified, manually-wound Valjoux 72 movement, and a price tag of about $200 dollars back then.
There were pre-Daytonas available before that from Rolex, but we’ll start with the year that
the word “Daytona” starts appearing on the dial. 1988 – Rolex switches the movement inside the
Daytona to a modified Zenith El Primero automatic chronograph movement. Rolex
also upped the size of the case to 40mm, added crown guards, and switched from acrylic bezels
to all steel bezels. “Zenith” Daytonas, as they’re known, are still quite collectable,
and many believe that the use of the El Primero movement in that watch essentially saved Zenith as a company.
2000 – Rolex replaces the Zenith movement with one of their own. The Caliber 4130 powers the
Daytona ref. 116520, thus creating the first in-house Rolex Daytona.
2016 – Rolex debuts the ref. 116500LN, the first Daytona with the brand’s signature Cerachrom
bezel. Seven years later, this is still the same steel Daytona reference produced by
Rolex. Which brings us to our last date. 2023 – No one knows what will happen,
but it’s an anniversary year, and the current reference 116500LN is feeling a little stale. If
you’ve got predictions for what kind of Daytona we might see this year, shout it out in the comments below.
For our final point in this “What you need to know” video, let’s do a quick buying guide,
a hierarchy of sorts for the modern Daytona market. We’ll look at current production Daytonas
to see how they stack up against their brethren. The cheapest Daytonas on Chrono24 are gonna be
two-tone. We’ve got the Zenith Daytona 16520 and the fully in-house 116520 coming starting
around 16k/17k. As usual, you’ll pay more for good condition, original box & papers, etc.
Fully steel 116520 references start around $20,000. In general, black dials tend to be
a little cheaper than white dials. If you’d like a ceramic bezel,
the current generation 116500LN starts to become available on the secondary market around
$26,000. We see the same dial trend here where white is more expensive than black.
After that, all hell breaks loose as we get into vintage Daytonas like the references we
referenced earlier and precious metal versions in white gold, yellow gold, rose gold, and platinum,
not to mention meteorite dials, rainbow sapphire bezels, and Eye of the Tiger configurations.
We’ll leave it there for now, and we’ll be sure to make another video if, or rather when,
Rolex releases a new Daytona in 2023. I’m Thomas Hendricks with Chrono24.
Thanks so much for tuning in, enjoy your watches, and we’ll see you next time.