An extraordinarily rare Rolex Daytona ‘Paul Newman’ wristwatch, reference 6239, made in 1969, with highly-coveted ‘tropical’ subsidiary dials was the star of Sotheby’s spring sale of Important Watches in Geneva today. This colour-change effect is one of the most coveted features on today’s auction market. The iconic wristwatch eclipsed the pre-sale estimate to sell for CHF 951,000 / 947,776 (estimate CHF 200,000 – 400,000 / $208,000-416,000). The more than 1000 registrants participating in today’s sale drove the total to CHF 6,588,500 ($6,566,165), an increase of over 26% compared with our sale of Important Watches in November last year.
Sam Hines, Worldwide Head of Sotheby’s Watch Division, commented, “Today we saw sustained demand throughout the auction, in particular for the highest quality vintage watches by Rolex and Patek Philippe, as evidenced by a fantastic price for the Rolex Paul Newman Daytona with ‘toffee’ registers. We were also very pleased to see strong prices for rare contemporary watches. This sale in Geneva confirms the global interest we saw in Hong Kong and London, and we look forward to our sale of Important Watches in New York on 24 May.”
