Ref.16520 Daytona Chronograph White Dial "Zenith Movement"

In fact…

This piece here is one of the last batches of Daytona produced prior to the year 2000 with a modified Zenith movement. 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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