Rolex finally shows its back
By Julien Moreau, Geneva ยท
For decades a Rolex caseback was something you saw only when your watchmaker had it open on the bench, and the rest of us were left to take the movement on faith. So when the platinum Daytona arrived in 2023 with a sapphire back showing the 4131, a good many people in the trade spent the afternoon looking at photographs of a caseback, which tells you something about our profession.
The rest is the platinum Daytona as it has been for a while: an ice blue dial, the brown ceramic bezel that comes only with this metal, 40 mm by 12.2 mm, 72 hours, 100 m, on the Oyster bracelet. Platinum makes it heavy and discreet, which is an expensive pairing.
At seventy-seven to eighty thousand dollars it is the most expensive Daytona in the regular range, and the honest truth is that the steel version does everything this one does for a fifth of the money. You are paying for the metal, the colour code and, now, the view. Ice blue and chestnut brown is a slightly unusual combination; some love it, and I am still making up my mind. For the collector who has the steel and gold versions and wants the last word, it is the obvious step. For anyone else, it is a great deal of money for a window.