Fresh from the Showcase here at SwissWatchExpo. Today, we're going to be talking about what is
arguably Rolex's most popular sport model, or maybe even their most popular watch model to date.
So this is going to be the Rolex Daytona. Now, most people are familiar with this watch. It's a
chronograph. It comes in a 40 millimeter case, but today I want to talk about a couple of variations
of the watch that really have kind of separated themselves from the rest of the Daytona pack and
put themselves in a very unique position based on some of the configurations that they have.
So what I've got here is the Rolex Daytona in 18 carat, yellow gold.
Now, for those that don't know, pure gold atomic number 79, also a hundred percent purity, right,
would be 24 carats. Now that type of goal being so pure is a very, very soft metal.
It's heavy and it's dense, but it's very soft. It's very good for using in fine
intricate pieces of jewelry, but for something that you're going to wear on your wrist, that's
going to have to sustain normal wear and tear of daily. Use 24 carats is just far too soft. Now
Rolex actually went so far as to create their own 18 karat formula where they
take pure 24 karat gold and they melt it down and then add additional alloys,
bringing it down to 18 carat, which would be 75% purity to give it additional structure
and stability and durability to help the watch last longer. Now you'll notice that not only is
the case itself going to be made out of that 18 carat yellow gold, but you'll also notice that
the hands themselves that tell the time and the setting mechanisms for the hour markers,
as well as the setting mechanisms, where you would put a diamond to hold the diamond in place.
All of those are also going to be made out of that same 18 carat yellow gold. It's also the same gold
that you would find in the two-tone versions of the watch that has stainless steel and yellow
gold, that same 18 carats. Now I'd like to really talk about one particular feature of this Daytona.
Now, of course, we can talk all day about that Tahitian mother of pearl, right? It's a very
unique natural phenomenon. It's comes from a specific pearl or oyster, rather known as
the Tahitian mother of Pearl comes from Tahiti, right? There's a certain type of oyster that,
that grows and develops in those waters that has this natural dark coloration. Almost like when,
when oil is mixed with water on the pavement, and you're looking at it in the summer,
it's got that like dark side of the rainbow color scheme, as opposed to
the lighter colors that we see on the more traditional mother of Pearl dials.
Now this watch is unique, not only because the, our diamond markers, the Haitian mother Pearl,
but in the sub dials, you'll notice that this watch actually has what Rolex calls like a
gold crystal, a gold crystal dial or sub dial in this case. So the way that they manufactur
or produce these gold crystal dials, they take that that 18 carat yellow gold alloy,
and they apply a surface treatment to it that allows it to crystallize naturally
and show you how that, you know, how gold crystallizes out in nature. And so you'll
notice that each one of these little flakes will have different elements of reflectiveness and
they'll have different sizes and shapes because of course it wasn't a natural phenomenon. If you come
check it out at SwissWatchExpo.com, you can, you can read up on all of these watches. I would like
to touch base on some of the, the remarkable feats of what's going on inside the watch.
Again, we could talk all day about how gorgeous these pieces are and the dark green dial on this
yellow gold Daytona with the soft red accent that just really makes it pop. But inside there's so
much beauty to be found as well. In the year 2000, Rolex rolled out the in-house movement,
4130. That replaced the previous Zenith movement that many are familiar with that,
you know, was the main stretch of Daytona's popularity starting in like the nineties.
Now, one of the things about being house movement of the 4130, they increase the number of jewels,
right? It boasts tof 44 jewels, as well as the 72 hour power reserve. Now, what that
means for you as a watch, where, or an owner of one of these watches, because of the higher
amount of jewels is contained within the movement. It's going to really cut
down on the amount of wear and tear and friction, allowing your watch to, to have a longer lifespan.
And of course, 72 hour power reserve is more appropriate for, well, my personal daily life,
where I would not like to wind my watch as often, and as 72 hour powers are definitely helps. Now a
couple of other things that Rolex changed when they created and developed this 4130 movement,
they installed the pair of Chrome hairspring right, which has anti-magnetic properties.
It's very shock, resistant, and resistant to temperature change. Now, aside from that,
they made some changes to the chronograph function that really helps with its precision timekeeping
functions. So not only can you measure time down to an eighth of a second, but they installed
the clutch system that engages the chronograph vertically instead of laterally or horizontally,
which will cut down on the amount of wear and tear on the watch. And when you go to get it serviced,
it is a much quicker process for the watchmakers to do, which of course lowers your service bill.
An excellent watch all around. I would like to touch on one more element of the, of the movement,
particularly the chronograph, they, the older versions had two separate movements for the hour
hand and the minute hand and the chronograph. So we're going to be talking about the two sub dials
that measure, you know, how many ongoing minutes and hours they used to be two movements that
operated independently. Now, Rolex combine them in this movement and created one movement that
handles both the hours into minutes. And that is really beneficial. When you're talking about
keeping precision, you don't have multiple elements at play. There's only one screw that
a watchmaker would need to adjust. Whereas the previous movement had five. So you can
see how does these small changes can really improve the overall functionality of the watch.
One last point I'd really like to talk about, you know, I was talking about the 72
hour power reserve. One of the reasons that that's possible on this watch is because Rolex introduced
ceramic ball-bearings inside the automatic movement, the automatic rotor, where it spins
instead of having the older version of, you know, how they reduce the friction, they installed
ceramic ball-bearings, which really cuts down on the amount of friction is that rotor spins
improving the efficiency of the watch. Again, come check these out at SwissWatchExpo.com,
get one today to add to your collection. And don't forget to like subscribe and hit the bell.