I am always torn about writing about Rolex watches – because frankly, they don’t need the press. While I’d be happy wearing any number of Rolex watches (although I feel most of them are too small these days), there are a few interesting models that standout to me that don’t get a lot of face time. In fact, many of my favorite Rolex watches are less than stellar sellers. These include two-tone models (Rolesor) and models like this Rolex Daytona with a meteorite dial.
Personally, I love meteorite dials. I don’t think that I collected rocks as a kid, but stuff from space did fascinate me. In this case, the “source” of the dial is actually more interesting to me than the look of it. Though I do admit, as far as stone dials go, acid washed meteorite is pretty nice. Plus, Rolex being Rolex, they are going to choose the nicest meteorite they can get their hands on. Rolex has a problem in this area though. There are so many “modified” Rolex watches out there, it is very hard to tell with rarer models like this whether or not they came directly from Rolex, or are the product of some after market modification. Such mods aren’t bad in theory, but not all of them are created equally. I have seem some awful, awful modified watches in my life (Rolexes being among them).
As far as I know Rolex only offered (offers) the Daytona with a meteorite dial in an 18k white gold case – with nice looking red chronograph hands. Not sure if you can find them with the hour markers instead of the Roman Numerals. The case is 40mm wide – which is small to me these days. But For a Daytona I would sport the size with pleasure (especially with a cool meteorite dial). Here you can see it with a nice brown leather strap. Price is about $20,000 – $25,000, depending on where you can find it.
See a Rolex Daytona Meteorite dial watch on James List here.