Ref.16520 Daytona Chronograph Black “Patrizzi” Dial with Box & Cert in Steel

In fact…

The Daytona Ref.16520 belongs to the W serial which was manufactured in 1996. It is in stainless steel variation. This piece here is one of the batches of Daytona with “Patrizzi” dial. “Patrizzi” dial is one whose chronograph subdials have gone from white to beige (and in more extreme cases, brown), because of a production and manufacturing defect.

Rolex introduced Daytona Ref. 116520 with an in-house movement, Calibre 4130 which is used on all Daytona introduced from the year 2000 onwards.

There was a time before the iconic Paul Newman Daytona became a world-wide hit, Chronographs made by Rolex were squatters on the shelves. The brand was aggressively marketing and competing in the 3-hand category while there were already strong contenders for Chronographs at that time. This was back in the 1930s, when Rolex had already produced some Chronographs powered by third-party movements. Some of these vintage Chronographs, also termed Pre-Daytonas, are extremely rare collectible that is hammered at audacious price at auctions.

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