Rolex Daytona Ref. 16528 'Zenith' - Black 'Floating Cosmograph' Dial R-Series

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 example that we have here, a Ref. 16528, is amongst the earliest examples, with an 'R serial' number dating to circa 1987. This actually pre-dates the official launch of the model, which occurred the next calendar year in 1988. It comes to us with an excellent case, matching yellow gold bezel, screw-down pushers, a screw-down crown, and its correct solid yellow gold Oyster bracelet with a blade-style clasp. These bracelets were ultimately replaced with an updated fliplock clasp, a design which continues to this day. Inside, the black dial is the earliest known iteration found in the reference, with the "Cosmograph" text spaced below the rest of the text on the top half of the dial. For that reason, these have become known as 'Floating Cosmograph' dials. The applied Tritium-filled indices exhibit a light and uniform patina, which is matches in the handset.

These neo-vintage pieces still present exceptional value in todays market and are becoming a modern classic in a big way. And early examples, with both 'Inverted 6' Tritium dials and earlier still 'Floating Cosmograph' dials truly do not surface as often as you may think.