The Rolex Cosmograph Daytona was a rarer Rolex watch made from the 1960’s through the 1980’s. Despite their long run the Daytonas were not particularly popular during production, and for this reason Rolex did not see the need to produce a lot of them. Sometime in the 1990’s collectors started realizing this, and suddenly the Rolex Daytona, and particularly those with the 4-digit reference number (indicating they were part of the original run and not one of the newer models that Rolex makes), were considered the pinnacle piece in any collection.
One Rolex Daytona model in particular became very popular with collectors because it was worn by Paul Newman. Newman’s wife gave him the watch in the early 1970’s when he started his auto racing career, and it’s said he wore it every day up until his death in 2008. The Newman Daytona was REF 6241, and finding another watch like it is darn near impossible. The Newman version was slightly different than nearly all other models and therefore nearly one-of-a-kind. At auction expect to pay upwards of $500,000 for one like it.
