The first-ever Rolex ‘Rainbow’ Daytona chronograph watch is set to come to auction and could fetch more than $3.5 million.
The Rolex from the 1990s will be put on the block in Geneva on November 8. In an unusual move, the auction house Phillips has decided not to assign a high estimate value for the piece, but expects it to sell for at least 3 million Swiss francs ($3.5 million).
The watch is believed to be the first-ever example to feature the now-famous ‘rainbow’ gem-set pattern produced by the Swiss watchmaker, according to Phillips. The timepiece, which has multi-colored sapphire gems around its bezel, has been in a private collection for almost two decades.
“This watch is a big deal,” Alexandre Ghotbi, the head of watches for Europe and the Middle East at Phillips, said in an interview. Only a few Rolex collectors were aware it exists, he added.
The sale comes at a challenging time for the industry as demand for expensive timepieces has waned due to high inflation, following an unprecedented Covid-era boom.
Still, rare and unique models from Swiss brands have been in demand. In May last year, Phillips sold a gold Rolex 6270 Cosmograph Daytona from 1988 with a dial and bezel set with diamonds for nearly 4 million Swiss francs.
The creation of the Rainbow Daytona marks an important moment in Rolex’s history as it displayed the brand’s ability to craft ultra-high-end jewelry watches using innovative gem-setting techniques, Ghotbi said. At the time the watch was made, in 1993 or 1994, Rolex was still widely viewed as a maker of luxury sports watches such as the steel Submariner dive watch.
While this ‘Rainbow’ watch was made as a one-off piece in the 1990s for a client in the Middle East, the same pattern of gem-set sapphires was then used again on some Daytona models nearly two decades later.
Today, rainbow style gem-setting can also be seen on models from other luxury brands such as Patek Philippe and Audemars Piguet. The technique remains extremely difficult, partly because it requires stones with the correct color gradation to mimic the rainbow pattern.
While still rare and highly challenging to obtain from retailers, the Rainbow Daytona has now become a signature piece in the Rolex model collection.
