Rolex Daytona Ref. 116518 - Tahitian 'Mother Of Pearl' Dial w/ Box & Papers

The Rolex Daytona model, since its initial release, has been at the forefront of the market as the most desirable chronograph in production. Prior to the introduction of the automatic-winding Daytonas in 1988, all previous Rolex chronographs had been manually-wound. Rolex decided to outsource their movement for the Ref. 16xxx series of watches, looking for the best movement available. and settled on the best that was available at the time: the famous They used this movement as the basis and then fortified it, performing approximately 200 modifications to the base movement to meet the expectations prestigious of the Wilsdorf group. This created the workhorse Rolex 4030 movement that was put in production for an era of 12 years. In this Reference, Rolex also incorporated the more resilient sapphire crystals, a contributing factor to the increased depth rating guaranteed at 100m or 330ft.

The piece that we have here, Reference 116518, stands out amongst its more popular sibling born with bracelets, with a somewhat unusual lug design. The 116518 features 'fillers' within the lugs to allow for a more seamless design when fitted to leather straps. Dating to circa 2005, this example comes to us in strong overall condition. The yellow gold Oyster case, matching yellow gold bezel, and the yellwo gold fliplock clap show signs of a very, very light previous polishing and only faint wear. The bezel retains all of its black paint within the engraved markings and the hallmarks on the underside of the lugs remain crisp and clear. Inside, the dynamic 'Tahitian Mother of Pearl' dial is a clear standout, featuring beautiful pops of green, purple, gold, pink, and blue. Rather than the more common baton-style indices, this example features applied 'Arabic' indices and a luminous handset. It comes fitted to a black leather strap mated to a yellow gold fliplock clasp.

Additionally, this piece is accompanied by its inner and outer boxes, booklets, COSC hangtag, and punched papers dated 01/2006.

There is something about these more exotic Daytona offerings that, despite the wild dial, somehow fly under the radar in the broader collector community. It is just flat out fun, and that is really what this is all about.