Watch of the Day · 2026-07-05

Rolex Cosmograph Daytona

Ref. 16516 · Platinum — one documented result from the 1,119-lot MostExpensiveWatches auction record, featured today.

Documented result
$871,000
Sotheby's Hong Kong · 2018
Rolex in the corpus
67 documented results · record $17,752,500 (2017)

The first of the four unique platinum Zenith-era Daytonas to appear at auction, featuring a black Tahitian mother-of-pearl dial.

The 2018 sale of this Rolex Cosmograph Daytona ref. 16516 for $871,000 at Sotheby’s Hong Kong marks the first appearance at auction of the four unique platinum Zenith-era Daytonas. Featuring a black Tahitian mother-of-pearl dial, it is one of 67 documented Rolex results in this corpus.

Full lot record & sources All Rolex results The Grail Index

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About this series

Every day MostExpensiveWatches features one documented auction result from its comp corpus — hammer prices with primary sources, the record layer behind the Grail Index and the daily Price Index. Machine-readable: /data/watch-of-the-day.json. Cite as “MostExpensiveWatches Watch of the Day”.

Compiled: 2026-07-05T00:15:20.925061+00:00