Rolex Daytona Ref. 16520 'Zenith' - Black Dial W/ Rolex Service Card

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 is an A-serial example dating to circa 1999. It comes to us is fantastic overall condition, having been attended to by Rolex just a few years ago where it saw a polishing, bezel restoration, and mechanical service. It presents beautifully, showing just light signs of wear throughout and seemingly no loss of black paint within the bezel. The gloss black dial inside is immaculate, with a nice clean surface and gently patinated subsidiary registers. Being an A-serial, this piece comes from the very first year where Tritium was no longer used on dials from Rolex, and therefore features applied Luminova-filled white gold indices with a matching Luminova handset.

It comes fitted to its correct Oyster bracelet with a signed fliplock clasp and that service card from Rolex dated 4/5/2021.

These neo-vintage pieces still present exceptional value in todays market and are becoming a modern classic in a big way, and strong examples of 'Zenith' Daytonas like this seem to be starting to dry up.