The Rolex Daytona is thechronograph(not to be confused with chronometer) most wanted in the world. And not because it is an especially rare watch or few examples have been manufactured: the mere fact of being a Rolex already makes it attractive to many people, but if it is also scarce the attractiveness increases. And it is scarce because Rolex makes it so, supplying the market with fewer units than it demands, which guarantees that this demand remains high year after year. A trick that Rolex has been practicing with notable success over the last twenty years. But if on top of that that Rolex Daytona belonged to a celebrity, things take on mythical overtones. Paul Newman's Rolex Daytona is the most famous watch in the world.
With the arrival of the Internet in the lives of fans, a specific model became popular within the Daytona: the one that Actress Joanne Woodward gave to her husband Paul Newman in 1968. This watch featured a dial whose color combination (black subdials on a cream background), and by dint of appearing with it on the numerous occasions in which it was photographed, Italian collectors, so given to giving nicknames, baptized it. Thus, all Rolex Daytonas with a cream dial and black subdials and red highlight would be known as Daytona Paul Newman. A sphere, by the way, called “exotic” and that at the time no one bought.
But what about the original watch? The real Daytona Paul Newman? For years there was speculation about the different fates it could have had, since no one close to him seemed to be aware that this watch was the holy grail of any fan. Come on, as if an old car slept in your garage that you don't give importance to because it was always there. The fact is that in the last 25 years that watch has become a kind of unicorn about which different stories were told, almost always speculative and baseless. One thing would make it unmistakable when it appeared: Joanne Woodward had a simple legend engraved on its back (the one with the watch): Drive carefully. Me (“Drive carefully. Me”). The reason for this dedication was that at that time Newman had begun to become interested in car racing, which he ended up dedicating himself to semi-professionally.
And the clock appeared. And not at the bottom of a drawer or lost in an attic. It was being used regularly by its current owner... who had received it from Newman himself in 1984. Paul Cox, a family friend (actually the boyfriend of Nell, Newman's daughter, who went by the name Nell Potts to preserve some anonymity) was helping Paul build a shed in the garden when in an apparently spontaneous gesture - Cox believes it was premeditated - he simply gave it to him.
He used it for years without any conscience other than considering it a gift from a friend. But one day, at a professional fair in his sector (sportswear), he crossed paths with a Japanese man who, upon seeing the watch he was wearing, began to exclaim “Rolex Paul Newman, Rolex Paul Newman.” Since the Japanese man spoke nothing but Japanese, Cox was left wondering how the man would know that the watch had belonged to the actor. That was the first warning. Back home, Cox found out that the watch had its own Wikipedia page and decided he couldn't happily walk around with it anymore, so he put it in a safe deposit box.
Years later, passing by a watch shop and seeing some watches in the window, he asked the employee who was smoking a cigarette outside, “How much can those Daytonas be worth?” The answer was “That one, about $60,000, but we have more Paul Newmans in it.” “And how much would Paul Newman's authentic Daytona cost?” “Phew, at least 300,000.”
Do you want to know the rest of the story and know how much it finally sold for? Don't miss thesecond
