In the world of luxury watches, certain Rolex models stand above the rest—not just for their craftsmanship but for their rarity and desirability among collectors. In this second part of our deep dive, we continue exploring the most sought-after Rolex watches, from the groundbreaking GMT-Master to the ultra-collectible Daytona. If you missed our first part of this article, you may want to read into it first – we’ve also laid down a few basic rules here that we used to make our selection.
But enough of the introductory words – let’s move on to our second part of the most collectible Rolex models of the last 100 years.
Rolex GMT-Master
The Glycine Airman was technically the first GMT watch and debuted in 1953, a couple of years before Rolex, but it did not have nearly the cultural impact that the GMT-Master had. You could say that Glycine created the category, then Rolex defined the category. After all, it’s not about who does something first, it’s about who does it better.
This was the golden age of air travel, and in a brilliant marketing move, Rolex and PanAm teamed up to launch the GMT-Master. This created lore and legacy from day one. It’s also important to note that this appears to be the first Rolex sport watch designed with luxury in mind. People were now able to cross entire oceans in one swoop, and they had a watch capable of keeping up with this new jet-setting lifestyle.
Debuting in either 1954 or 1955, depending on who you ask, we see the first GMT-Master ref. 6542. These watches originally featured bezels made of an acrylic material called Bakelite that had radium numerals sunken into the plastic. These bezels were fragile and radioactive, and there was an American Naval officer who sued Rolex in 1961, claiming the radium gave him cancer. Rolex had already replaced them with non-luminous metal bezels by that time, making the original Bakelite versions all the rarer. Also, for the James Bond fans out there, you’ll know the 6542 as the watch worn by Pussy Galore in Goldfinger.
After the 6542 comes the most collectible Rolex GMT reference, the 1675, which ran from 1959 to 1980—one of the longest production runs in Rolex history. An easy way to tell the difference between the 6542 and the 1675 is to look for crown guards on the side of the case. The early GMT-Masters are known for their bicolor blue and red bezels—what we call a Pepsi bezel today. However, if you’re after something a little different, check out a fuchsia GMT. Contrary to some rumors, these bezels were created in this color and not as a byproduct of fading. Similarly, you could go after a “Blueberry” 1675 with an all-blue bezel. Just be aware that there is some debate among experts as to the authenticity of these. The blue bezels were never sold at retail stores but could have been test bezels for Rolex Service Centers, for special clients, for military orders, or just plain aftermarket.
Now, if you’re not a Pepsi fan, you could opt for a ref. 16760, known as the “Fat Lady,” also the first GMT with a black and red Coke bezel. The “Fat Lady” name refers to the thicker case required to accommodate the thicker caliber 3085, now with decoupled 12-hour and 24-hour hands. This allowed the 12-hour hand to jump in one-hour increments forward or backward as the wearer traversed time zones without the movement stopping.
Rolex Day-Date
Up next is the most collectible non-tool watch from Rolex, the Day-Date. This watch is also commonly known as the “President,” as it was a favorite of U.S. Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. Legend has it that Marilyn Monroe gifted John F. Kennedy a Day-Date with a special message engraved on the case back. Kennedy reportedly told his staff to destroy the watch, but it later sold at auction for $120,000, although there remain doubts regarding its authenticity.
The model is best recognized from a distance by its Presidential bracelet, which is basically halfway between an Oyster bracelet and a Jubilee. The other defining feature is, of course, the day of the week displayed at the top of the dial. For an extra collectible version, look for non-Western Day-Dates in Arabic, Hebrew, or Chinese, perhaps.
On the affordable side of things, a four-digit Day-Date like an 1803 is supremely classic and will only cost you about a third of the retail price for a modern equivalent. There’s a wide, wide range of dial variations out there for the Day-Date, so a quick path to collectibility is to find one with a stone dial, a wood dial, a Stella dial, a stamped dial, or one with unusual hour markers like a claw dial or a doorstop dial. Bezel and bracelet variations with a bark finish have also become increasingly collectible over the years.
Rolex Submariner
Now we arrive at what many consider not only the most important watch in the history of Rolex but the most important watch in history. It’s the Rolex Submariner. More than any other watch, the Submariner created the blueprint for dive watches and really for tool watches as a whole. It’s top of mind when thinking about Rolex, luxury watches, or watches in general.
The Sub has over a dozen references in its 70+ year history and a few hundred variants, depending on how you divide it up. With that in mind, let’s build an overview of the most widely collectible Subs on the market.
1953 is the birth year of the Submariner alongside models like the Explorer and the Turn-O-Graph. This draft class of watches, with the Sub as the leader, was a real turning point for Rolex as a maker of capable tool watches for daring environments. The Sub was born in 1953 but wasn’t officially announced or marketed by Rolex until 1954.
The first watch with “Submariner” on the dial is the reference 6204, featuring pencil hands and a relatively thin case. The signature Mercedes hour hand makes its way to the Submariner around 1954 with the 6205. About a year later, we see the ref. 6200 with an Explorer dial featuring 3, 6, and 9-hour markers that resemble the dials used on the Explorer 1016. It’s speculated only a few hundred of these were made, with even fewer surviving to this day. However, you can find some Explorer dials on the references 5512, 5513, and our next watch, the 6538.
This watch is what many consider the MOST collectible Submariner, and that’s the “Big Crown” ref. 6538, produced from 1956 to 1959. It’s the watch that Sean Connery wore as James Bond in Dr. No, and it’s easily recognized by the red triangle on the bezel and the Big Crown. The watch comes in both two-line and four-line versions, depending on whether it featured a chronometer-certified movement.
Rolex Daytona
There’s one watch that’s even more collectible than the Submariner, and that’s the Rolex Daytona. The Sub, the Daytona, and the Datejust are typically the first three watches that come to mind when people think of Rolex, and the most common progression for consumers is to start with a Datejust, then get a Sub, then work your way up to a Daytona. Although, results (and preferences) may vary.
The Daytona was not the first chronograph that Rolex produced, but it’s been the only chronograph they’ve made since it debuted, and it feels unlikely that they’d ever replace it. Funnily enough, the watch was not a commercial success when it launched and only started selling well around the time that the automatic Zenith Daytona came around in the late 1980s. We’ll talk a little more about those later.
Of course, it was the 2017 auction for Paul Newman’s own personal Daytona that brought watch collecting into the mainstream when it sold for over $17 million. We’re talking not just Daytona collecting, or vintage collecting, or Rolex collecting, but really, watch collecting as a whole entered pop culture. I’ve heard a rumor about a certain celebrity and Rolex collector who was the winning bidder, but that’s not something we can discuss on camera.
My personal favorite Daytona is the black dial pre-Daytona ref. 6238, although the first real Daytona is the ref. 6239, which came around in 1963. The watch measured 37mm wide and featured the manual-wind caliber 722, which was based on the famed Valjoux 72.
The Daytona gets upgraded screw-down pushers with the ref. 6240 in 1965. These increased the water resistance from 50m to 100m to match other Rolex sport watches of the era. This was also the first Daytona reference with a black acrylic bezel. During this time, we had not only a handful of dial variations being sold simultaneously but also multiple references for the steel Daytona being sold alongside each other.
From 1971 to 1988, we have the now-famous 6263 and 6265 references featuring upgraded movements. Screw-down pushers are now a permanent fixture of the Daytona, although you still have steel and acrylic bezels available. This is also the era when you get highly collectible “Big Red” and Sigma dial variations of the 6263 and 6265. With all these different Daytona variations floating around simultaneously, you can see how experimental this period was for the model.
The most affordable yet collectible Daytonas are likely the 16520 “Zenith” Daytonas, which ran from 1988 to the year 2000. They’re called Zenith Daytonas because they featured heavily modified Zenith El Primero calibers, and ironically, they’re more collectible than the following 116520, which featured Rolex’s first in-house automatic chronograph movement. For an extra dose of collectibility, look for a Patrizzi dial Zenith Daytona. These feature a distinctive patina on the subdial rings that collectors love.
Our focus has largely been on vintage, but when it comes to collectible modern Rolex Daytonas, your prime suspects are the Rainbow Daytonas, the green and gold “John Mayer” Daytona, and the new Le Mans Daytona. These watches are collectible and expensive not just because of the materials but because people like them and they’re hard to find. But I don’t need to tell you how supply and demand works.
Let’s circle back to the four-digit references and talk about what you’ve all been waiting for—Paul Newman Daytonas. When we talk about a Paul Newman Daytona, we’re talking about these exotic dials popping up on four-digit Daytonas. That dial is the only difference, but it’s estimated that Paul Newman Daytonas are 20 times rarer than their standard production counterparts. These dials were made not by Rolex but by a company called Singer, which is why you’ll see “Paul Newman” dials on other non-Rolex chronographs. The rarity of these dials and their connection to one of the world’s biggest movie stars is why they command such a high price tag at auction and on the secondary market. Remember that the Daytona was far from a commercial success when it launched, and these exotic dials with higher retail prices were even slower sellers. In fact, you can find examples of sales receipts for Paul Newman Daytonas showing that they sat in boutique displays for multiple years, if not a decade, before being purchased. If only I had a time machine…
