We all know the Rolex Daytona is one of the most sought after watches by collectors. But why is
this one about double the price of a similar looking watch? We'll find out here in a moment.
Fresh from the Showcase at SwissWatchExpo. This morning, we're talking about
a really special Rolex Daytona. This one has just come into our inventory. And if you
look at our website, you'll be able to see if it's still in stock, but we're really fortunate
to have it right now. This one is a Patrizzi dial Rolex Daytona, and I'll explain everything about
what that means and why it's roughly double the price that it would be otherwise. So
just to give you kind of a lay of the land, a quick overview, you'll recall that when the Rolex
Daytona, there are three main generations, there was the one that was made from about 1963 to 1988.
That was based on the Valjoux movement. This one had a hand wound mechanical. You actually
had to wind it every day. It was not automatic winding. And that one was not as popular as
Rolex wanted it to be, but they made it for a long time. And 1988, they came out with the
Zenith based movement, Rolex re-engineered, the Zenith El Primero movement made it a much
better than it had been as a Zenith movement. And it became finally automatic and it had the
Sapphire crystal, and it was pressure proof and people just went crazy for it. It was the
reference 16520. And when you're looking at the Zenith movement watches,
they were only made for about 12 years or so. It's a little bit hard to get an exact
date on things with Rolex, but those are the approximate years and because they
were made for a short period of time and then discontinued they're all the rage now still.
So if you find yourself looking at a Rolex Daytona from the nineties, you're going to really have
your hands on something nice. In 2000 more or less, they brought the movement in house. They
came out with the 4130 caliber that is considered by a lot of people to be the greatest chronograph
movement ever made. But this was the one that we're focused on today is the Zenith years.
And within the Zenith movement, this is the one that once it came out, this is where you solve the
wait lists that were years long people paying huge premiums to skip the line and move ahead
and get a watch before their number came up. So the wait lists were huge. Really the
Daytona has been in short supply for 30 years and it really has never cooled off since then.
The Daytona for in a lot of ways really is the watch that kind of launched the vintage watch
craze. So this is the, the grail watch for a lot of people. Most people that are watch collectors
would love to own one of these. And it, it definitely sets the benchmark for what a vintage
watch collecting is all about. But what happened with this watch that makes this one special
is that in the nineties, you saw a lot of different
subtle changes to the dials and Rolex does this over the years.
They have, you know, you'll see it and other watches as well, like in the Explorer one,
there are multiple marks for the dial and there are slight differences in the fonts and where the
letters are placed and that sort of thing, but this one's really different. And what's different
about this one is that unlike say the error dial on a GMT master where all of the watches that
have that feature are exactly the same with the Patrizzi dial Daytonas. Each one is different.
The watches have a unique one of a kind pattern to the way the patina ages on the
dial. And what happened was they used an organic varnish called zap pollen
that was a lacquer that was to protect the dial. But when it reacted with the UV rays,
it actually changes because the coverage wasn't good enough on the dial. And so what you see
is in these sub dials, the rings around the sub dial. So this is only on the black dial version.
You see that they fade out and they change color. They should be kind of a whitish silver color,
but you can see they're turning sort of a brown and they change to a creamy color all the way to
a full on brown, and it doesn't seem to stabilize. So these watches are continuing to change,
and each one is completely different. Of course, in the world of Rolex unique means expensive.
And that's why these are worth a lot because each one is completely different. You could really
make a career just of collecting these. They were only made for about two years.
About 1994 to 95 was the only years they used that particular varnish.
Because each one is, is different. It's a lot of fun to look at them.
The reason that they're called Patrizzi is that the founder of Antiquorum
though you know, one of the famous auction houses and one of the drivers of the vintage watch market
the founder was Oswaldo Patrizzi. And in 2006, he started selling off some of his personal
Rolex collection. And he first noticed that this varnish had changed this color. And so once he
identified it, it became something that people refer to that's where the nickname comes from.
But it's a lot of fun to look at when you look at this, if you just look at our website at
SwissWatchExpo.com type in the word Patrizzi, P A T R I Z Z I in the search bar, you'll be able
to see the close-up pictures of this watch and any others that we might've gotten since then.
But it's a lot of fun. And it's one of the things that exemplifies why Rolex collecting is such an
interesting hobby because there's no end to the number of variations that you could focus on,
but a lot of interesting things that make these watches unique and special
though. Give us a click like the, the videos click the bell, like to subscribe. Give us a comment.
Tell us what you like about this watch and give us a ring. Give us a call here at SwissWatchExpo. See
if we've still got this watch in stock and we'd love to put it on your wrist.