1992 Rolex Daytona ref. 16518 18k. 40mm. gold case and Zenith movement.

The now collectible Daytona Zenith was introduced in 1988 and produced for only 10 years, it uses a movement based on the Zenith Caliber 400, originally introduced in 1969, but discontinued for several years until its production was restarted in 1986.

Starting in 1992, the Daytona was offered in 18kt gold with leather strap. The early production dials were identified by the so called “inverse 6”. The Daytona is often sought after as a Grail watch and many collectors would say if forced to keep only one in the collection it would be the Daytona.

During its 41-year history the total of all el Primero movements ever made, including the hundreds of thousands found in the Rolex Daytona add up to only 600,000; by contrast over 1,000,000 Valjoux 7750 movements are made each year.

Rolex was founded in 1905, the goal was to create wristwatches based on 3 challenges.

The first challenge was archived in 1910 when Rolex sent its movement to the School of Horology in Bienne and awarded the worlds first wrist watch chronometer rating.
Realizing the value of a timing certificate, the company decided they would not accept any movement unless it passed a Rolex seven day battery of tests, so Rolex set the timing standard for the rest of the watch industry.

In 1926 the second challenge was achieved with the birth of the Oyster, so-named as it was as impenetrable as an oyster! Although this invention was initially thought of with skepticism and took some notable events to break this preconception, one year later Mercedes Gleitze swam across the icy waters of the English Channel wearing a Rolex Oyster on her wrist.

All three challenges were completed in 1931 when Rolex launched the first automatic watch. The idea was not new, but it was Rolex that finally perfected and patented the Perpetual self-winding mechanism.

Now the scene was set. Rolex were now producing a watch small enough to be worn on the wrist, impervious to outside elements and which required no winding from the wearer; the Rolex Oyster Perpetual.

Forbes ranked Rolex No.72 on its 2014 list of the worlds most powerful global brands. Rolex is the largest single luxury watch brand, producing about 2,000 watches per day, with estimated 2012 revenues of US$7.7 billion. Rolex SA is owned by the private Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, which is registered as a charity and does not pay corporate income taxes.

submitted by E. Gauster.