Next month, one of the rarest Rolex watches ever made will hit the auction block at Sotheby’s Geneva. The platinum Rolex Cosmograph Daytona, reference 16516, is expected to fetch between $800,000 and $1.6 million – and with good reason. Not only is it the final piece in a mysterious four-watch commission dating back to 1999, but it’s also the only one of its kind set with diamonds.
The watch is part of a now-legendary story that has captivated collectors for years. For over a decade, Rolex only produced automatic Daytonas in stainless steel, two-tone, yellow gold or white gold. Platinum wasn’t even on the table – until, quietly, in 1999, Rolex granted a single exception. A private client, whose identity remains anonymous, commissioned four Daytonas in platinum, each with a different dial.
The example being offered this May features a light pink mother-of-pearl dial, accented with ten diamond hour markers. It’s the only one in the quartet with diamond indices. The other three – set with lapis lazuli, turquoise, and dark mother-of-pearl dials – have all gone under the hammer at Sotheby’s in previous years, each far exceeding their estimates. The lapis example broke records in 2020, selling for $3.2 million.
Until the first example surfaced in 2018, rumours of platinum Zenith-powered Daytonas were mostly dismissed as apocryphal, linked to whispers that former Rolex CEO Patrick Heiniger had worn one before the model was ever made commercially available. It wasn’t until Sotheby’s began uncovering the four-watch commission that myth became reality.
Rolex began producing platinum Daytonas in a regular series in 2013, a full 15 years after this custom quartet was created. The 16516 reference is notable here – the final “6” in the code specifically refers to the use of platinum, a first for the Daytona line at the time.
“It is one of the most important Daytona examples to ever be offered at auction,” said Sotheby’s head of watches Benoît Colson, calling it a fitting “bookend” to a commission that’s become the stuff of legend.
Offered with its original certificate and accessories, the watch is fresh to market – a singular opportunity for collectors to own a piece of Rolex history, one that Rolex itself never made publicly available.
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