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GENEVA, Switzerland--A unique 1999 Rolex Cosmograph Daytona, Ref.16516, in platinum with a diamond-set mother-of-pearl dial will be one of the highlights of Sotheby’s Important Watches auction in Geneva on May 11. Its estimate is $800,000 - $1.6 million.

It is one of the rarest Rolex watches ever made, according to the auction house. It is a commissioned Rolex wristwatch, from a brand that famously doesn’t do private commissioned limited editions. This model is confirmed to be the last of four Daytona watches commissioned to Rolex in a single order by the same private collector. They were created between 1998 and 1999. It comes to auction for the first time.

[Photo credit: Sotheby's]

All four watches have the same reference number 16516, the last digit, “6,” refers to the use of platinum, a first for a Daytona, Sotheby’s said. For more than a decade, the automatic Daytona was offered only in stainless steel, two-tone steel and gold, yellow gold and white gold. An exception was made in 1999 when one person was granted a Cosmograph Daytona rendered in platinum. The first time Rolex started producing platinum Daytonas in a series was in 2013, to mark the 15th anniversary of the model. Sotheby’s said this special commission created nearly 15 years earlier.

The four dials in the commission are all different, making each watch unique.

This Rolex Daytona, with a mother-of-pearl dial set with ten diamonds, was manufactured by Rolex in circa 1999 and comes with its certificate and accessories. The other three in the series featured a dark mother-of-pearl dial, a lapis lazuli dial and a turquoise dial. This example being the only one set with diamonds. All three were sold by Sotheby’s way above their initial estimate in 2018, 2020 and 2021, with the lapis lazuli hardstone example achieving a world record price of $3.2 million at Sotheby’s 2020 Hong Kong sale.