Rolex Archives - The Watch-Collector Leeds

Phillips Daytona Ultimatum Auction Results

Posted 05/14/201805/14/2018 The W-C

The Phillips Daytona Ultimatum Watch auction ended on the 12th May 2018. Not surprisingly Daytona’s went under the hammer for some serious money. The Daytona seems to be vintage classic that shows no slowing down the vintage watch of vintage. All the Daytona’s sold for either between the estimate guide or over suggested higher figure by the auction house. The most expensive was a rare white gold 18k Daytona Ref 6265 “The Unicorn” with black dial and bark finished bracelet. The bracelet is very unusual not like the standard oyster bracelet most Daytona’s have. To press most expensive ever was Paul Newmans Daytona the one he actually wore. The pictures below are courtesy of Phillips auction house.

The “Unicorn” sold for 5,937,500 CHF which about £450,000 Pounds crazy money, not sure I like the bracelet but its rare piece for the true collector and seems no shortage of collectors. The cheapest one I say cheap but it still sold for CHF 106,250 and works out at £79,750 pounds so not really cheap at short of £80,000 pounds on a leather strap, much prefer the bracelet to the leather strap always been a bracelet guy.

You can click on link to see full list of Daytona’s that sold with prices and pictures etc…. Phillips Daytona Ultimatum Auction

The Worlds Most Valuable Watch Brand?

Posted 09/28/2017 The W-C

The worlds most valuable watch brand? every year a marketing research consultant Kantar Millward Brown does a report regarding the rankings of all the world’s leading brands by estimated figure of the brand value. The Brand Z Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, which is the report basically ranks the world’s top 100 big hitters for equity. The report bases this on number of key factors, key product segments, luxury.

The brand reportZ issued in June this year, comes no surprise “Rolex” is the top dog with an estimated value of $8 billion dollars, it was based on complex financial factors and consumer surveys. Appartley KMB interview 3 million consumers about 50 worldwide markets regarding 100.000 separate brands. They compile data from some of leading business platforms and share companies etc.

Rolex unfortunately did not make KMB top 100 brands worldwide as they was just under the threshold of $11.3 billion and need to be over that figure to be in the top 100, but they did come in the top 10 of the luxury section at number 5. See list below:

Top 10 most vauable Luxury Brands in 2017, Brand Value in $billion dollars

Rolex is Switzerland’s best selling brand by income revenue, it was recently the worlds number one selling watch brand by revenue now Apple is number 1. Apple have a staggering Brand value of $234 billion and is number 2 on the top 100. Google is the number 1 with $245 billion. Rolex is a private company so does not disclose a lot of data and sales figures but they believe to have a annual watch sales of $4.5 billion. The full indepth report you can see here Milward Brown Brands

But Rolex is still a luxury watch brand that we all love and cherish their watches!

Talking Watches With Jack Nicklaus

Posted 09/22/2017 The W-C

Talking Watches with Jack Nicklaus a short video by my favorite watch site Hodinkee, always got time to watch there videos always some great pieces to see with great stories from legends! Selling your watch get in touch.

Talking watches With Alton Brown

Posted 07/17/2017 The W-C

Talking watches With Alton Brown courtesy of Benjamin Clymer part of the talking watching series a video interview from some of the worlds esteemed collectors great eye candy!! Tudor, Rolex, Omega content not surprised all collectors should have all three Swiss brands in their vintage collection. All unique to themselves but great pieces.

sell watches

Watches and American Icons Auction on 21/6/17

Posted 06/23/2017 The W-C

Christie’s Rare Watches and American Icons Auction 21st June brought in over 10,000,000 dollars when the hammer fell, the auction was held in New York, at Rockefeller Center with 250 timepieces on the day not bad for a days work. The watch theme for the auction was based on watches from American icons such as President Lyndon B, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and so on.

They was a couple of nice Paul Newman Daytona’s that always fetch good money but after the news of Paul Newman’s own personal watch coming up for sale soon by Philips Auctioneers and being the first auction after the news it failed to drive the Daytona’s prices up much. This may change after the ultimate Daytona goes for sale later this year 26th October.

The top performers of the day was the Richard Mille prototype RM 056 = $1,207,500

Second: 14K Gold Paul Newman Daytona with “Lemon Dial” ref. 6264 = $871,500

Third : Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Cartier Tank 14K Gold = $379,500

Forth : Paul Newman Daytona Tiffany Dial ref. 6239 = $271,500

Fifth : Heuer Autavia ref. 3646 with Indianapolis Motor Speedway Logo Dial = $199,500

The buyer of the Cartier Tank was no other than Kim kardashian West that paid the whopping $379,500 the most expensive Cartier more than likely. Vintage watches do not seem to be cooling off any time soon. You can check out some of the up and coming auctions with Christie’s

Radium Testing on Vintage Watches

Posted 06/12/2017 The W-C

Radium Testing on Vintage Watches, a neat video catch up on Hodinkee where they do some radium testing on some timepieces. Radium was used early on in wrist watch making for the hour markers or numbers as nothing else was available at the time for the luminosity on seeing the time while diving or at night times. The radium used is small amounts of radiation but glows really bright and the life span of radium is half like at 1600 years!!

All watch makers went to tritium radium mixture about mid 1960,s due to not using Radioactive material for obvious reasons. They then applied tritium to all the dials up until 1999 which had only .25 radium used, hence “Swiss T25” on the dials, then finally switched to super bright luminovo which is currently in use by all the to watch brands.

A lot of the older Rolex dials had “Swiss” at the bottom and were radium, then they went “Swiss T25” with Rolex or Omega “T Swiss Made T” which stands for tritium. In current days “Swiss Made” at the bottom from 1999 was the cut off for tritium use. Tritium has a life span of around 12.5 years so most of the vintage watches past mid 1960,s up to 1999 do not glow at all and usually have a lovely aged patina a key selling point with vintage.

The tester is a really good piece of kit for the vintage watch buyer as most of the old time pieces have had a re dial or been re-lumed which is no no for the true vintage watch hunter, but like every thing vintage comes down to affordability. Some of the classic vintage pieces are very pricey also very hard to find the full sets with great provenance which is another key factor as well as the lume.

Check out the video!!

Talking Watches With J.J Redick

Posted 05/24/2017 The W-C

Talking Watches With J.J.Redick is another great video by Benjamin Clymer executive editor of Hodinkee. Benjamin interviews some of the astute watch collectors in the world. All the videos with Benjamin are well worth watching if you love watches!! Patek Philippe, Vacheron Constantin, F.P Journe, Audemars Piguet, Rolex, IWC some of the finest watch makers money can buy. Here is a link to the previous post talking watch with Ahmed Rahman another good video and timepieces.

Watch collectors are coming thick and fast these days its become a very expensive hobby some of the really rare pieces are fetching millions of dollars at auction. Christies Auction House recently had a auction and sold some nice pieces including the Paul Newman Daytona my favorite watch I would love to own! Click on the link see what prices vintage watches sold for. Christies Sold Lots

Phillips: Hong Kong Vintage Watch Auction

Posted 05/18/201705/22/2017 The W-C

Phillips Auction in Hong Kong 30 May 2017 should have some really nice vintage pieces for sale it seems the world has gone vintage mad! The auction has some great pieces from Heuer, Omega, Rolex, Vacheron Constantin, Longines, Breitling, Zenith, Panerai, Bregeut, Patek Philippe and many more. These vintage watch auctions pull some top money for the right pieces as they are getting harder and harder to find in top condition box and papers and folk wanted to snap the top pieces what ever the cost.

I was never into vintage watches was always in to modern pieces till about 5 years ago, but then I realized how nice it is with aged patina and matt dial etc…..and just simple the simple fact the watch had be worn and loved rather than stored in box. But unfortunately you need pockets these days to buy them vintage pieces from top the names and I mean deep deep pockets. The Paul Newman Daytona 6363 was may be around £300 in the 1970,s some these days fetching over a million dollars. Any thing Paul Newman or Steve Mcqueen wore are timeless classics only going one direction in price and people know this. This Rolex Daytona 6263 did a staggering over $3 million!!

Take a look at some of the lots at auction some stunning pieces.

https://www.phillips.com/auctions/auction/HK080117

Record Breaking Rolex’s at Phillips Auction Geneva !!

Posted 05/14/2017 The W-C

Record Breaking Rolex’s at Phillips Auction Geneva yesterday and today with Aka “The Legend” Rolex Daytona 6263 with a lemon grené dial solid 18k gold stunning watch in every way only one of three known ever made. The watch sold at auction for a staggering $3,717,906, making it the second most expensive Rolex sold at auction today lot 237/237 just goes to show no stopping the Paul Newman phenomena. The vintage watch market booming more than ever. Picture courtesy of Hodinkee!

The Daytona set the record for the most expensive Daytona ever sold hence the nick name “The Legend” they did save the best for last apparantly. The most expensive Rolex ever sold was the day before 13 May. The Rolex ref 6062 “Bao Dai” just sold for $5,060,427 really gets a lump in throat when the hammer drops at them prices.

This model is only one if its kind with black diamond dial and belonged to the last emperor of Vietnam both watches are truly a credit to Rolex watch making in the 70,s as beautiful vintage pieces you can only dream of owing. Overall The Daytona would be the watch I would pick loved them from the first time I ever saw a bi metal Daytona in the 1990’s. Rolex always been one of my favorite brands as the years gone by I grew a love for vintage timepieces might be my age as getting older!!

Hands on With The Rolex Submariner 14060M Cosc 4 Liner

Posted 04/19/201704/19/2017 The W-C

Hands on With The Rolex Submariner 14060M Cosc 4 Liner, this model now a discontinued piece from 2012, a future collector piece in my opinion was in theory face lift version of the original 14060 which was in-production for 20 years.

The 4 liner its named by collectors as the old version was not a Cosc certified watch and only 2 lines of text on the dial not 4, and this one was Cosc rated with 4 lines of text. A Cosc rated watch stands for short Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres was a company formed in 1973 to certify accuracy of watch movements for Swiss watch brands i.e. Rolex, Patek, breitling, They basically certify watches to meet criteria’s on time keeping per day. One of the criteria the watch needed was to maintain time accuracy to within plus 6 seconds and minus 4 seconds in a set time period also in different conditions and position etc…

The 4 liner was still a classic divers piece same as the old Rolex Submariner 14060 in most ways, water resistant to 300m, they did add the rehaut Rolex Rolex Rolex engraving round the inner bezel ring as you can see in the picture above also added 4 line text on the dial. The old one just had 2 line text Submariner and water rating.

The watch size is still 40mm and is the true classic to the original James Bond watch Rolex 5513 which we all know and love. The 4 liner just like the old version but no date function which a lot of folk like. I personally always like the date and cyclops as I feel its the one of Rolex’s iconic feature and noticed. Sadly I let this one go a while back which will more than likely regret later on and since then they moved on in price to buy one!