The Rolex ‘Four Seasons’ Daytonas: $49.4 million for four watches
The Cotswold Jeweller · 14 October 2026
On 28 September 2026, Rolex did something it had never done before: it put its own watches up for auction. Four unique, gem-set Daytonas, one for each season, sold at Phillips in London for a combined $49.4 million, all of it for charity.
A first for Rolex
Rolex rarely sells anything except through its authorised retailers, so this was a remarkable evening. The four watches were quietly shown to a few people at Watches and Wonders in the spring, announced publicly on 3 September, and sold as four separate lots at a gala dinner, with Aurel Bacs on the rostrum. No estimates were published beforehand.
According to Hodinkee, Rolex had first planned to sell the four as a single boxed set through its retailers for roughly CHF 4 million, with more than a thousand names reportedly put forward. At auction they made around ten times that.
The results
| Season | Case | Dial | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summer | 18ct Everose gold | Turquoise | $13.65m (£10.3m) |
| Autumn | 18ct yellow gold | Mookaite | $13.5m (£10.2m) |
| Winter | Platinum | Blue opal | $13.2m (£10.0m) |
| Spring | 18ct white gold | Chrysoprase | $9.0m (£6.8m) |
Figures as reported by Hodinkee. It hasn't been confirmed whether they include the buyer's premium.
Four seasons in stone
Each watch is a Cosmograph Daytona with 54 diamonds on the lugs and crown guards, a bezel of 36 trapeze-cut gemstones and a dial cut from natural stone, so no two could ever match.
- Spring: white gold, purple sapphires, a pale green chrysoprase dial and lepidolite counters.
- Summer: Everose gold, pink sapphires and a turquoise dial with ruby-toned counters.
- Autumn: yellow gold, green tourmalines and a dial of mookaite, a warm, mottled jasper.
- Winter: platinum, sapphires shading from blue to fuchsia, a blue opal dial and lapis lazuli counters.
Spring: white gold, chrysoprase
Summer: Everose gold, turquoise
Autumn: yellow gold, mookaite
Winter: platinum, blue opal
Where it sits among Daytona records
Each of the top three seasons came within touching distance of the most expensive Daytona ever sold: Paul Newman's own ref. 6239, at $17.75 million at Phillips New York in 2017. For comparison, a 1994 ‘Rainbow’ Daytona made CHF 5.5 million at Phillips Geneva in November 2024. For more on the great sales, see the most expensive watches sold at auction.
126579RBR, white gold with mother-of-pearl
126595TBR, Everose with a diamond-paved dial
126555TBR, the ‘Giraffe’
Where the money went
The proceeds were split equally between the Roger Federer Foundation, which supports children's education in southern Africa and Switzerland, and Re:wild, the conservation charity co-founded with Leonardo DiCaprio.
You won't find a Four Seasons in anyone's shop. But if a gem-set or precious-metal Daytona is on your list, tell us what you're looking for, or browse the Daytonas we have now.
