THE SUNDAY BRIEF · Nº 002 · THE BIG DECISION
Rolex / Phillips · Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring. £37.3 million for the set.
On 28 September in London, Phillips sold four Rolex Daytonas for £37.3 million. No buyer’s premium, every pound to charity, and Rolex’s first charity auction. The most expensive of the four, the Everose “Summer”, made £10.3 million.
Open the case back and you find the Calibre 4131. It is the same automatic chronograph Rolex puts in the steel Daytona sold in its boutiques for £14,050.
Let’s be precise before being rude. A chronograph is a complication, so these are not watches with zero complications. They are watches with one: a stopwatch. No calendar, no moon phase, no repeater. The last charity watch to reach this territory, Patek Philippe’s Grandmaster Chime, sold for CHF 31 million in 2019 with twenty complications. The Four Seasons needed four watches and a lot of gemstones to beat it.
What the £37.3 million actually bought.
Strip away the stopwatch and what separates these four from the catalogue is stone, not mechanics. Each has a hardstone dial, a bezel of 36 trapeze-cut coloured gems and 54 diamonds on the lugs and crown guard.
Season · metal | Bezel | Sold |
|---|---|---|
Summer · Everose gold | Pink sapphires, ~4.32 ct | £10,300,000 |
Autumn · yellow gold | Green tourmalines, ~4.32 ct | £10,200,000 |
Winter · platinum | Blue to fuchsia sapphires, ~5.57 ct | £10,000,000 |
Spring · white gold | Purple sapphires, ~5.57 ct | £6,800,000 |
Results: Phillips, London, 28 September 2026, cross-checked with SJX and Haute Time. No buyer’s premium applied. Gem weights as reported by Haute Time.
Rolex / Phillips · “Summer”, ref. 126595 SARO. £10.3 million.
Now compare with what anyone can order. Rolex’s catalogue Daytona 126595TBR is Everose gold, with a bezel of 36 trapeze-cut diamonds and a diamond-set dial. UK list price: £134,500. “Summer” sold for about 77 times that. Same case, same bezel layout, same movement. The difference is a turquoise dial, pink sapphires instead of diamonds, the word “unique” and a charity.
The spread inside the sale says the same thing. Spring and Summer share the calibre 4131 and a bezel of 36 trapeze-cut sapphires. Spring’s bezel stones are actually heavier, roughly 5.57 ct against 4.32 ct, and it still sold for £3.5 million less. More stone, lower price. Carat weight does not explain that gap. Colour, metal and the room on the night do the rest.
A donation dressed as a data point.
None of this makes the result silly. The money goes to the Federer Foundation and Re:wild, the hardstone dials are difficult to make, and Rolex has never built these watches before. If a buyer wanted to give £10 million to education or conservation and leave with an object nobody else will ever wear, this was an elegant way to do it.
Rolex / Phillips · “Winter”, platinum, blue opal dial and lapis lazuli counters. The hard part is the stone, not the stopwatch.
The problem starts the morning after. Results like this travel as headlines, and headlines end up in sales pitches. Expect to hear that the Four Seasons “shows where gem-set Daytonas are going”. It shows nothing of the sort. There was no resale logic and no comparable. A charity auction with a Rolex testimonee and a Hollywood co-founder on the poster is a brand event, and a very successful one.
ALLOCATED VIEW · THREE BUYERS
You are shopping for a gem-set Daytona: ignore the result entirely. Price the watch against the catalogue and against what the same reference is actually offered at. If a seller quotes the Four Seasons, you are being sold a story.
You already have a gem-set Daytona and wonder what it is worth now: nothing in the market says this sale changed it. Unique charity pieces do not re-rate production references. On 10 October, twelve days after Phillips, the cheapest priced 126595TBR on Chrono24’s UK site, unworn with 2025 papers from a London dealer, was listed at £132,500: £2,000 under Rolex’s UK list price of £134,500.
You want the Daytona for the watch itself: the chronograph, the case and the Calibre 4131 are identical at £14,050 in steel. Everything above that is material and taste. Pay for it only if you would still want it on the day nobody asks what it cost.
My view: the most interesting number in this sale is £14,050. It is the price of the part of the watch that actually tells time.
VERDICT · FOUR SEASONS · A DONATION, NOT A DATA POINT
02 · IN BRIEF
The US tariff moved five times. Your Rolex price did not move down.
Since April 2025, Swiss watches entering the United States have faced 10%, then 39% from August, then 15%, then a flat 10% from February, and 12.5% since 24 July under a new legal basis. Five rates in fifteen months. Rolex raised its US prices by about 7% in January.
In Europe, list prices have not moved down either. In the UK, the steel Daytona has gone from £13,600 in 2025 to £14,050 today, up 3.3%. In Germany, from €15,900 in 2025 to €16,750 today, up 5.3%. Brands pass on costs when they rise. They rarely hand them back when they fall. If you have been waiting for a tariff reprieve to show up in a list price, stop waiting.
Next Sunday: why the most famous Patek is the least representative of what Patek does.
YOUR CALL
£134,500 for stones on a stopwatch. Yes or no?
Would you buy the catalogue gem-set Daytona at list, or is it the least interesting way to spend that money on a watch? Hit reply with your answer and what you would buy instead.
Arnaud
Allocated
SOURCES & METHOD
Sale results: Phillips, 28 September 2026, cross-checked with SJX and Haute Time (gem details); sale presentation by Phillips. UK list prices from rolex.com: 126595TBR and 126500LN, checked 9 October 2026; 2025 UK price of the 126500LN: Time4Diamonds. Tariff timeline: SECO and Crown & Caliber; Rolex US increase: Professional Watches and WatchPro. Multiples are sale price divided by UK list price of the nearest catalogue reference; they compare objects, not investments.
German list price from rolex.com (126500LN), checked 10 October 2026; 2025 German price: WatchTime, 2 January 2025. Market price: cheapest priced 126595TBR on Chrono24’s UK site (The Zeit Club, London), checked 10 October 2026; an asking price, not a completed sale.
What’s worth buying. What isn’t. The author may own, have owned or trade pieces discussed. Nothing here is financial advice.
