An almost $2.5 million Rolex. That’s how much an anonymous collector spent on a Rolex Daytona. The watch was auctioned off by Sotheby’s in Geneva during the Important Watches Sale auction. The record timepiece, lot 119, is a JPS (John Player Special, 1969) model, reference 6241 whose initial estimate was around half of the final price, starting from a base of 400,000 Swiss francs. To win it, the buyer beat out six other bidders in a long battle. The sales figure represents a new world record for any Daytona JPS model, the third most valuable gold Paul Newman Daytona across all references, the fourth most valuable Paul Newman in any reference and metal, and the fifth most valuable manual-winding Daytona never sold at auction.
Of this watch model, Rolex has produced (it is estimated) approximately 3000 reference 6241 and only 300 with 18K yellow gold cases. Of these, only a small fraction were fitted with the rare John Player Special dial. These watches mostly came with black dials with gold branches or gold dials with black branches. The Rolex being sold has no inscription on the case back and is believed to have remained untouched for the past fifty years, it is now being offered for sale for the first time by the original owner’s family.
